The Naked Sun

Isaac Asimov
The Naked Sun (1957)

O êxito de The Caves Of Steel, o livro de Asimov que melhor tinha vendido até à data, levou ao aparecimento de uma sequela, que começou a ser escrita nos finais de 1955 e foi serializada na Astounding cerca de um ano depois. Apesar de manter os protagonistas, Elijah Baley e R. Daneel Olivaw, The Naked Sun é como um reflexo inverso daquele livro: se esse era passado numa Terra sobrepovoada e com poucos robôs, a acção decorre agora em Solaria, um dos Mundos Exteriores, escassamente povoado mas enxameado de robôs. Devido à sua eficácia na resolução do caso descrito em The Caves Of Steel, os Spacers de Aurora solicitam a intervenção de Baley na investigação de um estranho assassínio ocorrido em Solaria. E é assim que Baley, com a sua fobia aos espaços abertos e naturais – como todos os Terrestres daquela época – desembarca num mundo onde os humanos tendem a viver isolados em imensas propriedades, rodeados por robôs, e com verdadeira aversão ao contacto directo com outras pessoas, o que torna ainda mais misteriosas as circunstâncias do crime, nesta história de tons policiais.

Leebig’s mouth widened slowly. Baley took it for a snarl at first and then, with considerable surprise, decided that it was the most unsuccessful attempt at a smile that he had ever seen.
Leebig said, “Don’t say that. Don’t ever say that.”
“Why not?”
“Because anything, however small, that encourages distrust of robots is harmful. Distrusting robots is a human disease!”
It was as though he were lecturing a small child. It was as though he were saying something gently that he wanted to yell. It was as though he were trying to persuade when what he really wanted was to enforce on penalty of death.
Leebig said, “Do you know the history of robotics?”
“A little.”
“On Earth, you should. Yes. Do you know robots started with a Frankenstein complex against them? They were suspect. Men distrusted and feared robots. Robotics was almost an undercover science as a result. The Three Laws were first built into robots in an effort to overcome distrust and even so, Earth would never allow a robotic society to develop. One of the reasons the first pioneers left Earth to colonize the rest of the Galaxy was so that they might establish societies in which robots would be allowed to free men of poverty and toil. Even then, there remained a latent suspicion not far below, ready to pop up at any excuse.”
“Have you yourself had to counter distrust of robots?” asked Baley.
“Many times,” said Leebig grimly.
“Is that why you and other roboticists are willing to distort the facts just a little in order to avoid suspicion as much as possible?”
“There is no distortion!”
“For instance, aren’t the Three Laws misquoted?”
“No!”
“I can demonstrate that they are, and unless you convince me otherwise, I will demonstrate it to the whole Galaxy, if I can.”
“You’re mad. Whatever argument you may think you have is fallacious, I assure you.”
“Shall we discuss it?”
“If it does not take too long.”

Li anteriormente:
The Caves of Steel (1954)
I, Robot (1950)
As Correntes do Espaço (1952)

The Caves of Steel

Isaac Asimov
The Caves of Steel (1954)

O tema do robô na FC é muito antigo, mas, antes de Isaac Asimov, poucas vezes havia sido tratado de uma forma benevolente; os robôs eram normalmente criações malévolas que ameaçavam destruir a humanidade. Uma das influências assumida por Asimov é Eando Binder, que publicou em 1939 um conto intitulado I, Robot. Por imposição do editor, na Gnome Press, a antologia de contos de Asimov, que deveria chamar-se Mind and Iron, recebeu o mesmo título.
No início desse mesmo ano, 1950, Asimov tinha publicado a primeira novela, Pebble in the Sky e, naturalmente, o escritor dedicou-se a outros temas. Foi por sugestão de Horace Gold, editor da Galaxy — uma nova revista na qual Asimov começara a publicar o seu trabalho —, que voltou ao tema do robô. O resultado foi The Caves of Steel (traduzido como As Cavernas de Aço em Portugal e Caça aos Robôs no Brasil), inicialmente serializado na Galaxy, nos finais de 1953, e publicado pela Doubleday, em 1954, como o 11.º livro do autor.
The Caves of Steel é passado numa Nova Iorque, milhares de anos no futuro, onde os robôs, amplamente utilizados nos Mundos Exteriores, são vistos com desconfiança pelos habitantes terrestres (como já sabíamos pela leitura de I, Robot, pois este livro insere-se no mesmo contexto "histórico"), que vivem em enormes cidades fechadas — as tais "cavernas de aço". Há um sentimento crescente de ânsia no regresso a uma vida mais natural, através de um movimento antitecnológico, designado "Medievalista", que os Spacers (os habitantes dos Mundos Exteriores) querem canalizar para um novo desejo de colonização espacial, por acreditarem que a estagnação vivida naquele tempo conduzirá a uma decadência generalizada. A partir do assassínio de um dos Spacers, desenvolve-se uma história de contornos policiais, um caso a ser desvendado por Baley, um agente de investigação terrestre, acompanhado de R. Daneel, um robô "spacer" tão sofisticado que passa facilmente por um humano...

“Look,” said Baley, “since we’re talking to one another so freely, let me ask a question in simple words. Why have you Spacers come to Earth anyway? Why don’t you leave us alone?”
Dr. Fastolfe said, with obvious surprise, “Are you satisfied with life on Earth?”
“We get along.”
“Yes, but for how long will that continue? Your population goes up continuously; the available calories meet the needs only as a result of greater and greater effort. Earth is in a blind alley, man.”
“We get along,” repeated Baley stubbornly.
“Barely. A City like New York must spend every ounce of effort getting water in and waste out. The nuclear power plants are kept going by uranium supplies that are constantly more difficult to obtain even from the other planets of the system, and the supply needed goes up steadily. The life of the City depends every moment on the arrival of wood pulp for the yeast vats and minerals for the hydroponic plants. Air must be circulated unceasingly. The balance is a very delicate one in a hundred directions, and growing more delicate each year. What would happen to New York if the tremendous flow of input and outgo were to be interrupted for even a single hour?”
“It never has been.”
“Which is no security for the future. In primitive times, individual population centers were virtually self-supporting, living on the produce of neighboring farms. Nothing but immediate disaster, a flood or a pestilence or crop failure, could harm them. As the centers grew and technology improved, localized disasters could be overcome by drawing on help from distant centers, but at the cost of making ever larger areas interdependent. In Medieval times, the open cities, even the largest, could subsist on food stores and on emergency supplies of all sorts for a week at least. When New York first became a City, it could have lived on itself for a day. Now it cannot do so for an hour. A disaster that would have been uncomfortable ten thousand years ago, merely serious a thousand years ago, and acute a hundred years ago would now be surely fatal.”
Baley moved restlessly in his chair. “I’ve heard all this before. The Medievalists want an end to Cities. They want us to get back to the soil and to natural agriculture. Well, they’re mad; we can’t. There are too many of us and you can’t go backward in history, only forward. Of course, if emigration to the Outer Worlds were not restricted—”
“You know why it must be restricted.”
“Then what is there to do? You’re tapping a dead power line.”
“What about emigration to new worlds? There are a hundred billion stars in the Galaxy. It is estimated that there are a hundred million planets that are inhabitable or can be made inhabitable.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Why?” asked Dr. Fastolfe, with vehemence. “Why is the suggestion ridiculous? Earthmen have colonized planets in the past. Over thirty of the fifty Outer Worlds, including my native Aurora, were directly colonized by Earthmen. Is colonization no longer possible?”
“Well . . . .”
“No answer? Let me suggest that if it is no longer possible, it is because of the development of City culture on Earth. Before the Cities, human life on Earth wasn’t so specialized that they couldn’t break loose and start all over on a raw world. They did it thirty times. But now, Earthmen are all so coddled, so enwombed in their imprisoning caves of steel, that they are caught forever. You, Mr. Baley, won’t even believe that a City dweller is capable of crossing country to get to Spacetown. Crossing space to get to a new world must represent impossibility squared to you. Civism is ruining Earth, sir.”

Li anteriormente:
I, Robot (1950)
As Correntes do Espaço (1952)
Poeira de Estrelas (1951)

I, Robot

Isaac Asimov
I, Robot (1950)

Do que já li de Isaac Asimov, ficou-me na memória sobretudo a trilogia inicial, clássica, de Fundação. A trilogia inicial de Robots, publicada na mesma época, também considerada entre as suas melhores obras, será seguramente merecedora de atenção.
Este livro integra nove contos publicados entre 1940 e 1950, por ordem cronológica, quase todos, à excepção do primeiro, publicados na Astounding Science Fiction. Mas, pela engenhosa adição da Introdução, e de alguns excertos de texto intercalados em alguns contos, sob a forma de uma entrevista à Dra. Susan Calvin, robopsicóloga, personagem que é uma das principais responsáveis pelo desenvolvimento dos cérebros positrónicos, bem como a repetição de outras personagens ao longo dos vários textos, Asimov consegue dar uma inesperada unidade à obra. O próprio alinhamento dos contos é, ao mesmo tempo, uma cronologia da evolução dos robôs, pois cada modelo apresentado é, de forma geral, mais poderoso e sofisticado que o do conto precedente, num quadro temporal que vai desde 1998 a 2052. O tema de todos os trechos é a interacção dos humanos com as mentes artificiais dos robôs, com os inesperados dilemas, paradoxos e problemas daí decorrentes.
O excerto escolhido pertence a Runaround, o segundo conto.
 
He had unscrewed the chest plate of the nearest as he spoke, inserted the two-inch sphere that contained the tiny spark of atomic energy that was a robot’s life. There was difficulty in fitting it, but he managed, and then screwed the plate back on again in laborious fashion. The radio controls of more modern models had not been heard of ten years earlier. And then to the other five.
Donovan said uneasily, “They haven’t moved.”
“No orders to do so,” replied Powell, succinctly. He went back to the first in the line and struck him on the chest. “You! Do you hear me?”
The monster’s head bent slowly and the eyes fixed themselves on Powell. Then, in a harsh, squawking voice — like that of a medieval phonograph, he grated, “Yes, Master!”
Powell grinned humorlessly at Donovan. “Did you get that? Those were the days of the first talking robots when it looked as if the use of robots on Earth would be banned. The makers were fighting that and they built good, healthy slave complexes into the damned machines.”
“It didn’t help them,” muttered Donovan.
“No, it didn’t, but they sure tried.” He turned once more to the robot. “Get up!”
The robot towered upward slowly and Donovan’s head craned and his puckered lips whistled.
Powell said: “Can you go out upon the surface? In the light?”
There was consideration while the robot’s slow brain worked. Then, “Yes, Master.”

Li anteriormente:
As Correntes do Espaço (1952)
Poeira de Estrelas (1951)
827 Era Galáctica (1950)