The naked sun

The Naked Sun (English original title: The Naked Sun) is an American science fiction crime novel by the author Isaac Asimov from 1957. The story is the second part of the robot novels and takes place after the novel Die Stahlhöhlen (eng .: The Caves of Steel). However, it is a story in its own right. The structure is that of a Whodunit .

action

scenario

While the society of the overpopulated earth was described in the first book in the series, this novel takes place against the backdrop of society on the fictional planet Solaria. This is hostile to the earth in terms of foreign policy. In some respects your society is the extreme opposite of the earth.

The planet is compulsively watched to ensure that the population never exceeds 20,000 people. This is controlled by the dissolution of the family and raising to embryo farms. In contrast, however, there are around 200 million robots that serve people for private and community purposes. This underpopulation creates a high dispersal of the human population and a high level of dependence on robots.

Over the centuries it has become a custom to avoid human personal contact entirely. Contact with other people is established via holographic telepresence. “Seeing”, that is, contact in the event of physical presence, is viewed as an extremely perverse and highly intimate matter. In contrast, “looking”, i.e. contact via holographic telepresence, is without taboos and even the taboo on nudity is lifted. Solarians have a downright anxiety disorder when it comes to physical contact with people. All of this also leads to the fact that solararians are brought up almost completely asexually: Sex does not make sense for reproductive purposes, nor is it easy to overcome the fear of human contact that has been acquired in order to create joy or social bonds.

Characters

main characters

• Elijah "Lije" Baley is a commissioner for the New York Police Department. He is sent to Solaria at the beginning of the book because the Solarian security forces have no experience with murders and Baley has a good reputation.
• R. Daneel Olivaw is a humanoid robot from the spacer world Aurora, on which it was constructed. He pretends to be human in order to be accepted as an emissary of Aurora.

Supporting characters

• Corwin Attlebish is the deputy chief of security on Solaria.
• Bik is a boy from the embryo farm.
• Klorissa Cantora is the assistant to the murdered robotist Delmarre and runs an embryo farm.
• Gladia Delmarre is the wife of the murdered robotist Delmarre and the main suspect.
• Hannis Gruer is the head of security on Solaria.
• Dr. Jonathan Leebig is a robotist and colleague of the murdered robotist Delmarre.
• Albert Minnim is the Washington City Police Chief.
• Dr. Altim Thool is the doctor who takes care of the autopsy of the murdered man and the trauma of the murdered man's wife.
• Dr. Anselmo Quemot is a sociologist.

Summary

Before the start of the book, the spacer and foetologist Rikaine Delmarre is murdered on Solaria. Elijah Baley is sent to Solaria by the Washington Police Department to help solve the murder. He is assisted by the robot Daneel Olivaw from Aurora. In addition to solving the murder, Baley should also find out what strengths and weaknesses the spacers on Solaria have.

First of all, Baley has big problems with his investigation, since he fails because of the perils of the solar societies. It is difficult for him to assess which things are taboo and which motives could result from them. In addition, his own fears represent a major obstacle: He has the agoraphobia inherent in almost all earthly people, which makes it difficult for him to move unhindered in the world. To make matters worse, his partner Daneel considers it his duty to protect him from not crossing these limits, as this Baley has to protect himself from himself according to the first law of robotronics.

However, Baley gradually manages to overcome his fear. He tricked his robot partner and got to know the company of Solaria. A crucial tactic to understanding this society and the possibilities within it is to confront the suspect through physical presence. Among other things, he visits a sociologist and a children's farm and talks to a robotronics technician about the flexibility of the first law.

In the end, Baley manages to solve the case. Robotronics engineer Jonathan Leebig worked on a way to make robots break the First Law by not letting them know that they are killing people. The foetologist Rikaine Delmarre worked with him on this project. However, when he understood the dimensions, he tried to stop him. Leebig therefore wanted to kill him, but was psychologically unable to do so, because he could not stand the presence of other people. So he incited Delmarra's wife, Gladia Delmarre, who finally killed her husband in affect. The gun was given to her by a robot who didn't know what she was going to do. In shock, Gladia Delmarre immediately repressed her act. When trying to confront Leebig, he takes his own life for fear of getting physical contact. The solarists forget about the shock that the robots can kill, and Gladia Delmarre gets away with it unpunished and ignorant.

Then Baley returns to earth. He realizes that he has become estranged from her. Solaria and the earth are very similar in their extremes. He believes that a fresh start on another planet would be best for the people on earth. He hopes humanity will learn lessons from the dystopian situation on Solaria and use robots more responsibly.

Background / interpretations

Alessandro Portelli hypothesizes that the robots in many of Asimov's works were inspired by the black population of the United States. This is particularly evident in the social system on Solaria. Here all prosperity relies on the work of the robots, who cannot revolt by the robot laws. In the end, this assumption is shaken: Robots are capable of injuring and killing people. This triggered a panic that shook Solaria's social system. According to this interpretation, the robot Daneel Olivaw is a “passing”, ie a colored person who is perceived as white by white people due to his light skin color. In order not to be treated as a robot as well, it has to keep its identity secret.

In the interplay between Olivaw and Baley, Maxine Moor observes the overcoming of the limitations of both. Olivaw is determined by the three laws of robotics and Baley by its cultural and biological limits. Together they manage to overcome these determinants. Moor uses the electronic triode as a comparison because she thinks that Asimov also had this as a model. Olivaw is the anode and Baley is the cathode in this comparison .

Reviews

"His current book [...] is completely alien in environment and adds up to an interesting exercise in scientific detection. However, in that direction, Asimov appears to be laying the groundwork for a new category of science fiction, the SF detective story. "

- Galaxy

expenditure

• Isaac Asimov: Series novel in the science fiction magazine Astounding between October and December 1956 (English first publication)
• Isaac Asimov: The Naked Sun. Doubleday Science Fiction, 1957 (English first edition as a book)
• Isaac Asimov: The Naked Sun. Solaria - where robots ruled and Earthmen lived in terror. Panther Books, 1964 (English edition)

Film adaptations

The book was adapted for one episode from the series Out of the Unknown and premiered on BBC 2 on February 18, 1969.

literature

• Ina Rae Hark: Unity in the Composite Novel: Triadic Patterning in Asimov's "The Gods Themselves" . In: Science Fiction Studies (Vol. 6, No. 3). 1979, pp. 281-286.
• Alessandro Portelli: The Three Laws of Robotics: Laws of the Text, Laws of Production, Laws of Society. In: Science Fiction Studies (Vol. 7, No. 2). 1980, pp. 150-156.

Footnotes

1. ^ Portelli: The Three Laws of Robotics: Laws of the Text, Laws of Production, Laws of Society. 1980, pp. 150-156.
2. ^ Rae: Unity in the Composite Novel: Triadic Patterning in Asimov's "The Gods Themselves" 1979, pp. 283-284
3. ^ Book review: Isaac Asimov - "The Naked Sun" . In: Galaxy August 1957, p. 115
4. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from March 12, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.