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sprayer. These are not predictions in the way that Hugo Gernsback's Ralph 124C41 + was largely a compilation of predictions. They function to reinforce the narrative. |
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The expressways, for instance, not only provide the flavor of a distant and more efficient future and serve as the means to deal with mass transportation; they also are used later in the story for the escape of Baley and Daneel from the Medievalists. The guide sticks, which lead Baley and Daneel to the laboratory of Clousarr, the Medievalist "zymologist" (yeast expert), later become part of the explanation for the "murder" of Sammy, when Baley speculates that Enderby mis-set the guide stick for Dr. Gerrigel so that the robotocist would discover Sammy's dead body. Similarly, the escape from the Medievalists that takes Baley and Daneel to the atomic power plant provides the opportunity to reveal that gamma radiation can destroy the delicate balance of Daneel's positronic brain and gave Enderby the idea not only of stealing the alpha-sprayer that he ordered Sammy to clap to his head but of framing Baley for the crime. |
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Some of these details are less persuasive than others, to be sure. Their importance is the way they are worked into the fabric of the novel. They became part of the perfected Asimov style, in a way mainstream critics seldom use the term, or have to. A science-fiction writer must create a convincing milieu for events. |
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Asimov developed his style gradually. Campbell helped him, no doubt, by suggesting the value of reinforcing details. Asimov also learned from reading other writers, such as Clifford Simak, and from participation in several Bread Loaf Writers' Conferences. By The Caves of Steel, Asimov's style had settled into simple words (except for an occasional technical term) arranged in short sentences, and those sentences arranged in short paragraphs, sometimes only a sentence or two long. |
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In The Caves of Steel, though Asimov's style is limited by the matter-of-fact perceptions of his viewpoint character, his writing does rise to eloquence (usually in his descriptions of the City and its ways) and to sensitive depictions of human nature, as in the following paragraphs, reminiscent of Proust in their observations: |
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Every time he [Baley] smelled raw yeast, the alchemy of sense perception threw him more than three decades into the past. He was a ten-year-old again, visiting his Uncle Boris, who was a yeast farmer. Uncle Boris always had a little supply of yeast delectables: small cookies, chocolaty things filled with sweet liquid, hard confections in the shape of cats and dogs. Young as he was, he knew that Uncle Boris shouldn't really have had them |
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