Thinking about Asimov's robot novels...

[Jeebo]

It's been decades since I read any of them. I'm talking about the Elijah Bailey/R. Daneel Olivaw novels. Some of them are partially set on planets that were occupied by only a dozen or so very wealthy individuals. Earth was overpopulated, people were packed on the planet almost literally elbow-to-elbow, but on those other planets, people effectively had unlimited space to spread out. And so people on those other planets had developed a phobia against being close to anybody else -- anybody human, that is. They all had armies of very realistic human-like robots to tend to their every need, but at the approach of anybody who was actually organically human, flesh-and-blood human, those obsessively agoraphobic individuals shrank back in terror.

Well, I keep thinking, we're beginning to be a bit like that now. I'm experiencing that same kind of fear whenever I am faced with the prospect of going anywhere where I might have to get close to somebody else. Monday I had to take my cat to the veterinarian and yes, there were other people there, and yes, I was worried. Tomorrow I'm going to have to take my car in for servicing, and yes, I don't look forward to it. I'm having to go to the grocery store every ten days or so, and every time, I absolutely dread it.

I'm trying to remember the names of some of those Asimov novels ... The Currents of Space? The Caves of Steel? The Robots of Dawn? If I could find my old paperback copies of them, I'd read them again. I've sure got the time. And they are sure good reads, all of them.

-- Ron