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In response to
"How do you mean? (I've never read any Asimov) -- nm"
by
Roger More
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His future covers topics like this.
Posted by
Strongbad (aka Rambler14)
Jun 25 '13, 06:21
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Caves of Steel specifically.
Summary:
Earth is overpopulated (with a total population of eight billion), and strict rules against robots have been passed. The eponymous "caves of steel" are vast city complexes covered by huge metal domes, capable of supporting tens of millions each. The New York City of that era, for example, encompasses present-day New York City, as well as large tracts of New Jersey.
Asimov imagines the present day's underground transit connected to malls and apartment blocks, extended to a point where no one ever exits to the outside world. Indeed, most of the population cannot leave, as they suffer from extreme agoraphobia. Even though the Robot and Foundation series were not supposed to play in the same universe until much later, those "caves of steel" resemble the planet Trantor.
In The Caves of Steel and its sequels (the first of which is The Naked Sun), Asimov paints a grim situation of an Earth dealing with an extremely large population, and of luxury-seeking Spacers who limit birth so that each may have great wealth and privacy. Asimov, who was agoraphobic, did not himself find the lack of daylight grim. He mentioned that a reader asked him how he could have imagined such an existence with no sunlight. He related that it had not struck him until then that living perpetually indoors might be construed as unpleasant.
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