The Robots of Dawn

Asimov, Isaac. The Robots of Dawn. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983. [S. F.] Book Club edition available, without ISBN, 1984.

Detective Elijah Baley tackles the murder of a humanoid robot on the planet Aurora, "the self-styled World of the Dawn, where humans and robots coexist in seemingly perfect harmony" but where a power struggle goes on to decide whether the colonizers of the universe will be humans or machines (front flap of dust cover of Book Club edn.)—and whether those humans will be from Earth or the Spacer worlds. RoD is important for theme of containment, both literally within City (sic) walls in the "Caves of Steel" on Earth and more figuratively behind robots on the Spacer worlds. Important also for the motif of the telepathic robot. See IA's earlier "Liar!" story in I, Robot (Asimov) and the later works in the Robot/Empire series. Rev. Brian Stableford, SF&FBR #19 (Nov. 1983): 15-17. (RDE, rev. 27/06/93.)