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"If you have a gut response to a story, you are not responding to something new ..you are really responding to a story you were told when you were six or seven…"
- Samuel R. Delany
 |
| R. Daneel Olivaw | ||
| A human-like robot, skilled in police work. |
In this future Earth, a New York City detective must meet and work with an off-world robotic partner.
| Baley approached woodenly and said in a monotone, "I am Plainclothes Man Elijah Baley, Police Department, City of New York, Rating C-5." He showed his credentials and went on, "I have been instructed to meet R. Daneel Olivaw at Spacetown Approachway." He looked at his watch. "I am a little early. May I request the announcement of my presence?" He felt more than a little cold inside. He was used, after a fashion, to the Earth-model robots. The Spacer models would be different. He had never met one, but there was nothing more common on Earth than the horrid whispered stories about the tremendous and formidable robots that worked in superhuman fashion on the far-off, glittering Outer Worlds. He found himself gritting his teeth... The Spacer said, "I shall introduce myself. I am R. Daneel Olivaw... I am a robot. Were you not told?" The robot's hand closed on his with a smoothly increasing pressure that reached a comfortably friendly peak, then declined. "Yet I seem to detect disturbance. May I ask that you be frank with me? It is best to have as many relevant facts as possible in a relationship such as ours. And it is customary on my world for partners to call one another by the familiar name. I trust that that is not counter to your own customs." |
| From Caves of Steel,
by Isaac Asimov. Published by Galaxy in 1953 Additional resources -
|
The pair must work together to solve the murder of a prominent Spacer on the over-populated Earth.
The "R" in his partner's name stands, of course, for "Robot."
Compare to the undercover detective robot from The Velvet Glove (1956) by Harry Harrison, the precogs from The Minority Report (1956) by Philip K. Dick, the Pry-Vie robotic detective from Clans of the Alphane Moon (1964) by Philip K. Dick and Sven, the artificially intelligent detective from The Turing Option (1992) by Harry Harrison.
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