The Naked Sun
by Isaac Asimov · first published 1954
18% recommend82% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Detective story set on a planet of isolated, sparsely populated worlds, where Elijah Baley investigates a case; valued as part of Asimov's robot series for its ideas about robotic intelligence and the Three Laws.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
On the remote planet Solaria the first murder for two hundred years has been committed. The Solarians are Spacers with a civilisation based on robots instead of slaves - and some pretty weird taboos and phobias. Into this strange set-up comes Terran detective Elijah Baley, assigned to find the murderer and act as an investigator for his government. But as an Earthman, Baley finds aspects of life on Solaria difficult, even terrifying, to cope with. (Men on Earth live deep underground in their vast caves of steel and are terrified of anything outside.) From the moment of his arrival on Solaria
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It's not the "I, Robot" books, it's the quadrilogy sometimes called the "Robot" series (confusing, I know). "The Caves of Steel", "The Naked Sun", "Robots of Dawn", "Robots and Empire". These are without a doubt my favourite of Asimov's books :) Earth has evolved to a point where the population lives in Cities (capitalisation is important!)…
on “The Longest Conveyor Belt” ↗…Philip K Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" a whirl if you're interested in the implications. Isaac Asimov also spent a lot of time writing about robotic intelligence. Hit up Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun and Robots of Dawn if this floats your boat.
on “Anyone know who is behind perfect-woman.com?” ↗Also the Robot series by Asimov, particularly Caves of Steel / The Naked Sun / The Robots of Dawn. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot_series_%28Asimov%29
on “Drone Flies Into an Active Volcano [video]” ↗…those sorts of things. The author posted this excerpt on HN before it was released, and this is what made me buy the book. [0] [0] http://www.howtoflyahorse.com/what-coke-contains/ Now I'm starting "The Naked Sun" by Isaac Asimov, having read "Caves of Steel" a few months ago. I don't know why I've never read Asimov before, but wow, the worlds and characters he creates are amazing. As far as technical books go,…
on “Ask HN: Which book are you reading these days?” ↗…recent, but I've been really enjoying working my way through some Asimov classics. If you haven't read Asimov I'd highly recommend him. Give the Elijah Baley series a try first: - Caves of Steel - Naked Sun - Robots of Dawn and then move right on to the Foundation series. I'd second the other recommendation for Three Body Problem, though the third book went a little crazy at the end for me :-) I've also…
on “Ask HN: Recent sci-fi recommendations” ↗Read _The Naked Sun_ by Asimov for a proximate answer. Glorious isolation as a solution to all the ills of messy civilization.
on “Ask HN: How does China have so few Covid cases?” ↗…humanity to come to harm. Every other law gets an unless this interferes with the zeroth law. suffix. I encourage anyone to read the robots series, specifically( in that order ): The Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun and The Robots of Dawn, where the three laws are used in the story, and even the zeroth law is implied in the third book.
on “Zuckerberg, Musk Invest in Artificial-Intelligence Company Vicarious ” ↗…Edge and Foundation and Earth, they're worthy sequels to the "trilogy". The Robot novels are also a top read and tie in with the later Foundation books in a satisfying way: - The Caves of Steel - The Naked Sun - The Robots of Dawn - Robots and Empire
on “Ask HN: What books have you read in the first half of 2016?” ↗I think the major thing Asimov misses in some of his writing is are the 2nd and 3rd order effects of technology. Not always - Solaria from The Naked Sun comes to mind as a society heavily distorted by their tech - but often. And this led him to not anticipate tech such as the Internet. For example, early on he mentioned having predicted pocket-sized…
on “Isaac Asimov on The David Letterman Show (1980) [video]” ↗…ones. 3) Breeding is reduced or resource availability is increased. But even then, I think Asimov's premise that a longer-lived person doesn't have the urgency of a shorter-lived person has merit (The Naked Sun.) If you have hundreds of years to live, why do something risky (or even expressive) RIGHT NOW?
on “The War on the War on Death Begins” ↗Sounds a big like they are from the planet in Asimov’s The Naked Sun in which people live miles apart and only see each other through holograms, never in person.
on “U.S. teens are spending less time with their friends in person” ↗…a bunch of menial task so every cog in the system isn't aware of their impact. It already happens a lot in software. the idea of Hippocratic Oath reminds me of Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics in "The Naked sun" (SPOILERS ahead): the detective realises that the normally quoted First Law of Robotics ("A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.") is actually…
on “Microsoft President: We Need a Hippocratic Oath for Software Engineers” ↗It's The Naked Sun. The people aren't averse to in-person contact due to disease (though that is their concern with people from Earth specifically). Nearly every one of the colony worlds (including the one in that book)…
on “The terrifyingly prescient ‘Serial Experiments Lain,’ 20 years later (2018)” ↗I definitely got vibes of the "viewing" tech from Asimov's "The Naked Sun", always exciting to see sci-fi tech reach the real world.
on “Project Starline: Feel like you're there, together” ↗Your last paragraph reminded me of Isaac Asimov's novel "The Naked Sun" and his fictional world of Solaria, where people have grown used to living far from each other and only "meet" in VR, and this has happened long enough that people feel repulsed by other people and feel…
on “What it's like to spend 40-50 hours in VR every week” ↗