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in its crust, and the nuclear intensifier can enhance fission, as well as fusion, but more slowly. If it were used, the Earth's radiation would slowly increase, and the increase in temperature and mutations would make Earth gradually uninhabitable. |
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Through a clue murmured by a dying humaniform robot that had attempted to destroy Giskard, Daneel and Giskard track Amadiro and Mandamus to the ruins of Three Mile Island just as the humans are arguing about how long the fission enhancement should take: Amadiro, for a decade so that he can obtain revenge within his lifetime; Mandamus, for a century or more, so that the process will be undetectable and more effective in securing Spacer supremacy. They are stopped and caused to forget but not before Giskard allows Mandamus to push the button to start an irreversible reaction in the Earth's crust. It is necessary to make Earth uninhabitable so that the dangerous mystique surrounding Earth be destroyed and that Settlers be set free to "streak outward" and "establish a Galactic Empire." The inner conflict of his actions, however, destroys Giskard, but not before he passes his abilities along to Daneel along with the duty to protect D.G. and Gladia, who have become lovers, to help supervise the removal of Earthpeople from their world, and to find out where the Solarians have gone. |
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The last item would seem to leave room for a sequel. "It is my custom to try to leave one loose and untied matter at the end of a novel, in the very likely case that I would want to continue the story," he wrote in his memoir. But in the case of the Solarians, he never did so unless the episode in Foundation and Earth provided the necessary tidying up. |
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Robots and Empire works well enough, and for my tastes better than the Foundation sequels. The reason may be the reflected glow of the earlier Robot novels, or it may be that the novel still contains an element of self-doubt and individual development on the part of Gladia and even Daneel and Giskard. But, though the moment when Gladia faces the Baleyworld legislature emulates Baley's conquest of his agoraphobia and is an emotional high point, her conquest of self is peripheral to the theme of the novel. And Giskard's magical ability to influence emotions undercuts all such character developments |
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Even though Asimov told himself that Daneel was the real hero of the Robot novels, the moments that contain the most effective drama are the flashbacks to a meeting in space between Gladia and Baley, when he is en route to Baleyworld, and the meeting between Daneel and Baley, on Baleyworld, as Baley, who is dying and attempting to ease Daneel's internal conflicts says, in words that later help Daneel develop the Zeroth Law (and may reflect Asimov's own epitaph): |
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