I just finished reading The Naked Sun, the sequel to the other Isaac Asimov book I discussed. The novel takes place in the future on the planet known as Solaria. Unlike in the first book, The Caves of Steel, I feel like the focus was more on trying to understand what people were doing to their society, instead of how their society is crippling them. Baley, the protagonist, is one of the few people of Earth who is granted the ability to leave his planet and visit the Space Colonies. He doesn’t exactly go willingly, either. In Caves, the population of Earth is described as being confined to large cities, where one typically is diagnosed with agoraphobia, or fear of being in open spaces, separated from congestion. He not only confronts this fear, but continually works on a tolerance as he explores the surface. Solaria, only has a population of 200,000 people for the entire planet, while their robot population is in the high millions. I wish I had the book to provide the exact number. I don’t want to spoil too much, but Baley is sent there to solve a murder mystery, and he leaves understanding more about himself and possible futures for the human race. This book is a very good read.
I believe Asimov’s novels should get more credit then currently they do from literary critics.
Tonight, I will try to read through The Robots of Dawn, the last book in the series.
Stage Fright 