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his is the middle book in a trilogy which began last year with Tiedemann's Isaac Asimov's Robot Mystery: Mirage and is projected to conclude next year with Isaac Asimov's Robot Mystery: Felony of Conscience. Its internal chronology seems to mandate that it occur not long after the events of Asimov's seminal The Caves of Steel (1954) and The Naked Sun (1957).
Coren Lanra, once an official investigator for Earth security, is now an unmarried, somewhat disreputable free-lancer working for a politician named Rega Looms. Mandated to keep an eye on Looms' rebellious daughter, Nyom, with whom he has previously had a loveaffair, Coren finds out she is involved in smuggling illegal immigrants off Earth to one of the human colonies among the Fifty Worlds, specifically Nova Levis. Coren confronts Rega, but is prevented from stopping her latest illicit expedition, which she accompanies off-planet herself. This proves to be the last time Coren will see Nyom alive, for her jury-rigged cargo pod of immigrants makes it only as far as the orbital trans-shipment facility Kopernik Station, where all are discovered dead of highly unnatural causes inside their locked container.
This gruesome discovery eventually brings onboard several other key investigators: Sipha Palen, security head on Kopernik, as well as Spacers Ariel Burgess, a member of Aurora's Earth embassy, and her robotics expert, Derec Avery. Together with Coren, they begin to untangle a supremely twisted web of crime extending back 25 years, involving both Spacers and Earth-based corporations, as well as a mysterious creche of diseased children. Quizzing nervous executives and retired cops, venturing high and low in Earth's overpopulated warrens, the detectives are meanwhile pursued by the implacable superhuman killer who brutally murdered the immigrants and Nyom. Suspected of being a rogue robot, the killer is ultimately revealed as something much stranger, before justice is served.
A marriage of mystery and SF
This novel extends the core Robot mythos created by Isaac Asimov in much the same way the Foundation series was recently amplified by Gregs Benford and Bear, and David Brin. But much like those novels, even though Tiedemann has the right mindset--neither too reverential nor too revisionist--and also manages to embody Asimov's themes and values in something approaching the elder statesman's own literary style, the book does not pack the wallop of the originals, and it's hard to imagine how it could.
Tiedemann constructs an elaborate mystery that would do Raymond Chandler proud (and like many a Chandler plot, it's almost impossible sometimes to follow who did what and why). He gooses the story along at a fair pace, inserting action scenes among all the somewhat dry witness-quizzing to juice up the intensity. And the mystery involves real speculative issues. In this fashion, Tiedemann honors Asimov's original concern with making the mystery elements of his hybrid novels as important as the SF. Additionally, Tiedemann draws some convincing characters, perhaps better than Asimov ever did. The various low-key romances--between Coren and Ariel and between Derec and an assistant named Rana--come off plausibly. And Derec's Jeeves-like assistant Hofton provides some light moments. So much on the plus side of the ledger.
But here are the two main problems with this book: there are really no robots of interest, and the background is flat.
Recall the presence of R. Daneel Olivaw in the original books, then compare what we have here. Because robots are outlawed on Earth, we see only the following few mechanicals. An illegal robot assistant to Nyom named Coffee, who "dies" a few pages into the story, and is thus removed from consideration as a personality. A robot maid named Jennie for Ariel, seen in a walk-on moment or two. A semi-intelligent desk that Coren uses to surf databases. And, finally, another desk-bound, fully sentient intelligence named Thales, who is Derec's robotic partner. And none of these positronic critters has an ounce of charisma.
As for the fabled paved-over urban hive that is Earth, with its weird social customs, all sense of its oppressive roofs and cubicles and half-demented inhabitants is missing. Anyone not conversant with the earlier books might in fact miss this aspect of the new novel entirely. And because we never venture to any of the Spacer worlds, their cultures remain equally hazy, despite a verbal nod or two.
Ultimately, readers will enjoy this book for its convoluted tale enacted by likable characters in a ready-made setting. But no one will experience the shock of the new that the Asimov originals once supplied--and still supply--to the lucky SF newbie. -- Paul
Also in this issue: Redgunk Tales: Apocalypse and Kudzu from Redgunk, Mississippi, by William R. Eakin
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