#5 Platform - The Naked Sun

It's really more about puzzles than it is about robots, in the end.

Book #15: The Naked Sun
Author: Isaac Asimov
Provenance: Gift from timingspoons

When it comes to it, these are really much better detective/sci-fi stories than the ones in the book from Nic that I read a few months ago. It's all about setting up a situation, with rules that are known to everyone involved, and then solving the puzzles that are involved.

Asimov, in fact, really prefers coming up with scenarios in which he can test the rules of robots against the minds of people; it means that the writing style for these books tends to be pretty spare, with lots of dialogue. This one is no exception; it's thus a very easy read, and the world is easy enough to picture, but you can come up with some of the details on your own, which I like.

The story itself for this one was good enough, I s'pose, although again, the mystery itself is guessable. When you're not a mystery writer by trade, it must be hard to figure out how to fool people at best. But if you want to figure out all the logical implications of robots that are constructed in a certain way, Asimov is your man. This wasn't quite as good as the first one, but it was still fairly good. It's worth a read, anyway, and it won't take you long.

Next up: The Last Continent. Not that I like Rincewind, but...