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serialized The Stars, Like Dust (Tyrann) beginning in the fourth issue of Galaxy. Campbell, however, had published The Currents of Space, Asimov's subsequent novel, in part at least because Asimov felt guilty about the fact that six of the first eight issues of Galaxy had contained Asimov fiction. Gold wanted Asimov's next novel. He suggested a robot novel. At first, Asimov didn't want to do it; he didn't know if he could carry a whole novel based on the robot idea. Gold suggested an overpopulated world in which robots are taking over human jobs. Asimov thought that was too depressing and was not sure he wanted to handle a heavy sociological story. Finally, in view of Asimov's liking for mysteries, Gold suggested that "he put a murder in such a world and have a detective solve it with a robot partner. If the detective doesn't solve it, the robot will replace him." |
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In his autobiography Asimov recalled that "when I wrote it [The Caves of Steel], I did my best to ignore this business of robots replacing human beings." Fear of such replacement had been ridiculed in I, Robot, where the difficulties of introducing robots on Earth was caused by fundamentalist religious groups and labor unions, and prejudices against robots were voiced by silly, ignorant, or malicious people. Asimov's resistance to the concept was understandable. If the novel was to work, however, much of the philosophic, even historical, development of the robot in I, Robot had to yield to new imperatives. Every person, even sensible persons such as Baley, had to be anti-robot, and yet robots had to be common enough on Earth for Earthpeople to fear their takeover of human jobs. After "Robbie" in I, Robot, Asimov had never allowed robots openly on Earth. This may explain, in part, why The Caves of Steel is set so far in the future. Asimov further rationalized the use of robots on Earth by placing responsibility for their increasing presence on Spacer pressure. As for robots replacing human workers, "that was typically Gold and not at all Asimov," Asimov said, " but Horace kept pushing, and in the end, some of it was forced in, but not nearly as much as Horace wanted.'' |
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Gold was at least as good in suggesting ideas to writers as Campbell. He gave Frederik Pohl the idea for "The Midas Plague" and Alfred Bester the idea for The Demolished Man, which became a turning point in Bester's science-fiction career. Now he gave Asimov the idea for what may, with some justice, be called Asimov's best science-fiction novel. What pleased Asimov most about it, however, "was that it was a pure murder mystery set against a science fiction background. As far as I was concerned it was a perfect fusion of the two genres, and the first such perfect fusion. A number of people agreed with me in this." |
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