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{{work}}
A 1954 [[Science Fiction]]
''[[The Caves of Steel]]'' takes place in a future [[Big Applesauce|New York City]]. On the overpopulated future Earth, cities are [[Mega City|gigantic metropolises]] [[Domed Hometown|encased under steel domes]] where people live in cramped conditions and subsist on processed food, never seeing the sky. In contrast, the Spacer worlds, human-colonized planets which severed political ties with Earth long ago, are utopian locales of low population, plentiful resources, massive military power, and economies based on the widescale use of robots for manual labor.
It is in this New York that a murder is committed: the victim is a Spacer, one of the residents of Spacetown, the Spacer outpost in New York. It is suspected that one of the motives was anti-robot sentiments; the victim was a roboticist who was working on the large-scale introduction of robot labor into Earth's economy, a desire opposed by most of the populace - sometimes to the point of terrorist aggression. If the murderer is not found--fast--a major diplomatic incident looms.
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{{tropelist}}
* [[Always Someone Better]]: Daneel is stronger than Lije, smarter than Lije, and never needs to rest or eat; Lije has to worry about the robot solving the case before him, and every aspect of the robot's superiority is seen as a threat to his job.
* [[Author Appeal]]: The crowded underground cities of Earth would be hellish to a claustrophobe, but Asimov was a claustro''phile''.
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* [[Cranial Processing Unit]]: Inherent to all robots.
* [[Cyberpunk]]: The City [[Unbuilt Trope|anticipates]] the dystopian urban landscape of [[Cyberpunk]], almost 30 years before [[Blade Runner]] and [[William Gibson]], but it was not necessarily intended to be dystopian. The idea of a vast, totally enclosed city did not bother Asimov at all (See [[Author Appeal]]).
* [[Dirty Foreigner]]: protagonist Elijah Baley notes that the Earth rhyme against the foreign "Spacers" (people who settled worlds besides Earth) always seems to include "Dirty Spacers", and that "dirty" seems to be a common insult against those you hate. Ironically, the Spacers consider Earth people as dirty, and are correct, as the Spacers have eliminated most communicable diseases and compared to them, Earth people are bags of disease and a danger to Spacers due to a mostly unused Spacer immune system.
** In addition, when Elijah Baley visits a Spacer world in the sequel, the bathroom is so clean it gleams (because it is cleaned by robots after every use and uses advanced materials) that he wonders how he will adjust when he had to go back to using communal bathrooms on Earth.
* [[Domed Hometown]]: All the cities of Earth (and what is, in our time, known as the "greater metropolitan area" thereof) are enclosed under massive domes.
* [[Dropped Glasses]]: Critical to the case.
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* [[Go and Sin No More]]: Said word-for-word by Daneel to {{spoiler|the police chief.}}
* [[Manic Pixie Dream Girl]]: Jessie was when she and Elijah met, but she has mellowed by the time of the novel itself.
{{quote|
And she kept Lije Baley from sinking down }}
* [[Mega City]]: Where the population of Earth lives. On average, 11.2 million in each city. The government's of three large cities (New York, Philadelphia and Washington) are considering merging into one single ''Mega'' Mega City, but the logistics of maintaining and governing such a large conglomerate have so far prevented any action on the plan.
* [[Murder by Mistake]]: {{spoiler|Dr. Sarton was killed by a shot intended for R. Daneel (who was built to resembled his creator).}}
* [[Never Accepted in His Hometown]]: The Robots were created, developed and mass produced right on Earth almost three thousand years before the beginning of the novel, and were integral in the technological revolution that lead to space-travel, food for the whole planet and world peace, but they were never accepted into Earth society and were completely banned from the planet soon after their creation. It is only through the direct intervention of the Spacers, who have completely integrated robots into their way of life, that they are even beginning to merge with the Earthlings.
* [[Not with the Safety On, You Won't]]: Elijah is understandably disturbed when the ostensibly [["Three Laws
* [[Only Electric Sheep Are Cheap]]: Natural (non-processed) food is a luxury good.
* [[Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions]]: The Spacers have abandoned religion long ago.
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* [[To Be Lawful or Good]]: Understanding that the conflict even ''exists'', much less wrestling with it, is a big part of R. Daneel's [[Character Development]].
* [[The Un-Smile]]
{{quote|
Baley shook his head. "Don't bother, R. Daneel. It doesn't do a thing for you."'' }}
* [[Uncanny Valley]]: In-universe, one of the reasons why robots - at least the current generation - are so unpopular on Earth; they are clunky mechanical units with disturbing facsimiles of permanently-smiling human faces on their "heads." Daneel is an attempt by his creator to avert this.
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[[Category:The Caves of Steel]]
[[Category:Literature]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Caves of Steel, The}}
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