Rating: 
Summary: Outstanding read, as are all the Asimov Robot novels
Review: If you are a fan of the Asimov Foundation universe, you will love this book. While it is not necessary, suggest you read Caves of Steel first, which is the first Elijah Bailey Robot Detective book. Even if you are not a Foundation universe fan, you will love this book if you are interested in robots (Asimov's three laws) or even if you are a mystery fan and want something in a futuristic setting.
Rating: 
Summary: "Sun" shines
Review: Isaac Asimov returned to his "Robot" tales for "The Naked Sun," a taut murder mystery wrapped in a heavy sci-fi cloak. If anything, "Naked Sun" is more imaginative and tightly-written than the previous novel, "Caves of Steel," with its unconventional detecting and seemingly unsolvable crime. Cop Elijah Baley isn't too fond of robots. Or Spacers. So he's less than pleased when he is sent to Solaria, a sparsely populated world where robots do all the work, and humans "toil not, neither do they spin." He's there to investigate a strange murder -- a scientist named Delmarre was murdered, and his widow Gladia is the only possible suspect. But she seems too ditzy and fluttery to crush a person's skull. When an official is poisoned right in front of Baley, his suspicions are confirmed -- somebody is still murdering, and it may be linked to some touchy political subjects that Delmarre was working on. No human was close enough to kill either man, and no robot was capable of murder. With the assistance of his robot sidekick R. Daneel Olivaw, Lije Baley starts to unravel a mystery that seems to have no suspects... Does a world full of languid, long-lived people waited on by robots sound like paradise? It won't after "Naked Sun," where such a civilization is enough to drive you nuts with boredom. Asimov did an excellent job with the Solarian civilization, where actually being in the same room as another person is considered an unspeakable intimacy and the world "children" is almost obscene. Since this is all completely foreign to Lije Bailey (who comes from overcrowded Earth), it comes across as alien to the readers as well. It also adds an enticingly weird dimension to his detective work: Bailey has to solve a mystery entirely through communication equipment, and robots keep clearing away evidence. Add some agoraphobia and solid social commentary, and you have a story that is reminiscent of Agatha Christie writing Star Wars. Bailey and Daneel make an excellent team -- there's Bailey's human gut feelings and intuitions into the human mind, coupled with Daneel's cool calm robot logic, and his lack of prejudices. The supporting characters are also nicely done, particularly the mildly neurotic Gladia and the nervous Gruer. Asimov's "Naked Sun" is a tighter, tauter mystery than "Caves of Steel," with a bizarre civilization and a mystery that seems impossible to figure out. Immensely enjoyable and thought-provoking.
Rating:
Summary: "Sun" shines
Review: Isaac Asimov returned to his "Robot" tales for "The Naked Sun," a taut murder mystery wrapped in a heavy sci-fi cloak. If anything, "Naked Sun" is more imaginative and tightly-written than the previous novel, "Caves of Steel," with its unconventional detecting and seemingly unsolvable crime. Cop Elijah Baley isn't too fond of robots. Or Spacers. So he's less than pleased when he is sent to Solaria, a sparsely populated world where robots do all the work, and humans "toil not, neither do they spin." He's there to investigate a strange murder -- a scientist named Delmarre was murdered, and his widow Gladia is the only possible suspect. But she seems too ditzy and fluttery to crush a person's skull. When an official is poisoned right in front of Baley, his suspicions are confirmed -- somebody is still murdering, and it may be linked to some touchy political subjects that Delmarre was working on. No human was close enough to kill either man, and no robot was capable of murder. With the assistance of his robot sidekick R. Daneel Olivaw, Lije Baley starts to unravel a mystery that seems to have no suspects... Does a world full of languid, long-lived people waited on by robots sound like paradise? It won't after "Naked Sun," where such a civilization is enough to drive you nuts with boredom. Asimov did an excellent job with the Solarian civilization, where actually being in the same room as another person is considered an unspeakable intimacy and the world "children" is almost obscene. Since this is all completely foreign to Lije Bailey (who comes from overcrowded Earth), it comes across as alien to the readers as well. It also adds an enticingly weird dimension to his detective work: Bailey has to solve a mystery entirely through communication equipment, and robots keep clearing away evidence. Add some agoraphobia and solid social commentary, and you have a story that is reminiscent of Agatha Christie writing Star Wars. Bailey and Daneel make an excellent team -- there's Bailey's human gut feelings and intuitions into the human mind, coupled with Daneel's cool calm robot logic, and his lack of prejudices. The supporting characters are also nicely done, particularly the mildly neurotic Gladia and the nervous Gruer. Asimov's "Naked Sun" is a tighter, tauter mystery than "Caves of Steel," with a bizarre civilization and a mystery that seems impossible to figure out. Immensely enjoyable and thought-provoking.
Rating:
Summary: A tight probe into human nature
Review: Like all of Asimov's best works, this novel is a tight exploration into how humans operate. He contrasts humans both with robots and with aliens in the work, and though humans have the lower hand here, he offers hope for the future. The book happens to be a well-crafted mystery as well, just as it happens to be science fiction. Good science fiction posits humans in exotic locales doing ultimately familiar things. The fear of Elijah Bailey is a bit odd, since it is of open spaces and sunlight, but we all fear things, and Asimov gets to the heart of what fear is and how it can--and in the humans' situation in the novel--must be overcome. It is an extremely satisfying book, as most mystery novels are not.
Rating:
Summary: A tale of two vastly different societies
Review: Murder mysteries are a staple of literature, so much so that it is becoming harder for authors to come up with original twists on how it was done. Created in 1957, this one remains as original now as it was when written. Set in a time where mankind has expanded out into space but split into several distinct and mutually antagonistic societies, it is those social forces that provide the uniqueness of the story. Earthman Elijah Baley, a plainclothes detective with a sterling record, is called upon to travel off-planet to Solaria, a planet where the inhabitants abhor physical contact with other humans and where a murder has been committed. Baley is also paired with a robot, Daneel Olivaw, who passes for a human and has come from a third planet Aurora. Baley's instructions are to solve the murder and gather any information that he can about the Solarians, so that the leaders of Earth can better judge the threat that they pose.
I found the murder investigation to be of secondary interest to the social mores of the two societies. Asimov creates two societies with diametrically opposite social customs and Baley is forced to deal with his own fears as well as the rigid exclusiveness of the Solarians. That interplay and how human nature manages to still be present is what makes the story so entertaining. Even though the culprits and their motives for the murder are very standard fare, the backdrop is so interesting that I did not mind that well-worn portion of the plot.
This is an excellent murder mystery with a setting of social structures that provide the real story and is how a science fiction mystery should be constructed. The mystery itself is largely a backdrop to the science fiction components.
Rating:
Summary: Detective Elijah Baley investigates the future
Review: Planet Solaria is rich. Its inhabitants
have every conceivable luxury. They enjoy long
lifespans and their every whim is attended to
by an army of robots.
But it is a society of isolated individuals,
who has lost the human tribe, the cooperation
between humans. And some of the Solarians doesn't seem
all that happy after all. Detective Elijah Baley from NYC, womb-city Earth,
is send out to investigate a murder on this planet.
And while Elijah Baley investigates a murder -
we, the readers, investigates various different
futures for humanity.
As always, brilliant classic stuff from Asimov. -Simon
Rating:
Summary: The best book by the best SF writer ever
Review: Read this book. Read this book now, or you will be sorry. The absorbing plot, interesting characters, and the depth of ideas... it boggles the mind. Nothing Asimov wrote compares to this one.
Rating:
Summary: sci-fi at its best
Review: Solaria is inhabited by sparse humans who are dependent on robots for their daily life. Detective Elijah Baley is sent to this planet to solve a murder. Elijah, who dislikes robots, teams up with Daneel, a robot, to solve the mystery. Human intuition vs. calm robotic logic of a robot is at its best here.
Throughout the story, I was kept interested on whether the robot or the woman (Gladia) was the murderer. The romantic relationship that blooms between Gladia and Elijah makes you doubt the detective's integrity. Life in Solaria is fascinating:
- Cars do not move on wheels but glides along a diamagnetic force-field.
- Robot-Human ratio in Solaria is ten thousand robots per human.
- People do not meet in flesh. Solaria is a world of isolated individuals. They see trimensional images of each other when they wish to communicate.
- People are taught from birth to despise personal contact.
Asimov has done a good job. Imagination at its best.
Rating:
Summary: A bit less satisfying mystery, but good science-fiction
Review: THE CAVES OF STEEL was, in my humble opinion, an all-time science fiction classic. THE NAKED SUN is the direct sequel and is extremely satisfying, thought be many to be better than the original. Personally, I feel it failed a bit, especially as a mystery. This is still superlative science-fiction writing. This time, Elijah needs to travel to another world, a traumatic challenge to one who's never been outside Earth's "caves of steel". He is venturesome enough though to want to actually experience the open air and "naked sun" of another planet and this causes some conflict with android partner, R. Daneel Olivaw, who following the three laws of robots needs to protect the detective from harm. Again, the mystery part of the story owes to the classic "locked room mystery" subgenre in that the murder is one which appears to be an "impossible" one. Since the murder occured, though, there is only one apparant person who could possibly have committed it. The Solarians have through their history and their reliance on robots developed a physical aversion to each other, husbands and wives being the only ones who tolerate contact with each other, and Solarian science is working to develop artificial insemination so that even that contact will no longer be necessary. As the detective conducts his investigation, he becomes more involved with his belief that Earth must participate in colonization of other habitable worlds, and so this novel while telling its own story also develops the thread that eventually leads to the author's Empire and Foundation series. I am not sure whether or not Isaac Asimov, at the time that he wrote this novel, had any idea of developing R. Daneel Olivaw into such a pivotal factor as he eventually becomes, but it seems to me that there are slight hints here of the robot's leaning more on his reasoning ability, in spite of the fact that robots are not supposed to have any reasoning ability. Again, after reading this book, I believe one will very much want to continue into Asimov's future history.
Rating:
Summary: Ending was unsatisfactory
Review: The ending doesn't quite make sense to me. After the arm was used as the murder weapon, how did it become reattached to the robot? The robot would presumably have already been rendered inoperative by the positronic disruptance, and it's hard to imagine Gladia in her blind rage could figure out how to reattach it.
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