The Caves of Steel

THE AGORAPHOBIC BALEY and the POSITRONIC COP
It was bad enough when Lije Baley, a simple plainclothes cop, was ordered to solve a totally baffling mystery—the murder of a prominent Spacer. It was worse when he found that the smug, self-satisfied Spacers were behind the pressure to provide an impossibly quick solution.

But then Lije discovered the worst of all bad news. The Spacers, distrusting all Earthmen, insisted he must work with an investigator of their choice. And that investigator turned out to be R. Daneel Olivaw. R stood for robot—and Lije hated and feared robots deeply, bitterly, and pathologically.

Isaac Asimov's The Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun, and The Robots of Dawn are three of the most famous science-fiction novels ever. They are set long after mankind—aided by the intelligent positronic robot—has colonized the worlds of other suns. This is a time of growing concern between Earthmen and Spacers. Lije Baley, who is filled with all Earth's prejudices against robots and Spacers, must learn to work together with a seemingly human robot to solve apparently impossible crimes that threaten the fragile link between Earth and Space.