Pun Salad

Or, specifically, he is now the only humanoid robot. Because the positronic brain of the only other humanoid robot, R. Jander Panell, has been sent into an irreversible lockup. The prime suspect is Daneel's and Jander's creator, Dr. Han Fastolfe; even he, with a characteristic lack of modesty, admits that he's the only one with the requisite skills and knowledge to "kill" a robot in this manner. Yet he denies that he's the culprit.

Baley is sent to the scene of the crime: Aurora, the first planet to be colonized by Earth. By a convoluted (and not too convincing) argument, the very future of mankind depends on the outcome of Baley's investigation: unless Fastolfe is cleared, his political enemies will gain the upper hand. And his political enemies believe that Earth must never be allowed to participate in futher settlement of the galaxy's inhabited worlds.

Things are somewhat enlivened by the confession of Gladia (a reappearing character from the previous book in the series), for whom Jander was working. It turns out that she and Jander had been canoodling in secrecy; that sordid revelation would probably not have made it into a 1950s Asimov novel.

But otherwise—as usual with an Asimov novel—it's talk, talk, talk. Page after page of wooden dialog. It takes until page 319 (in my 408-page copy) before something resembling normal mystery action occurs. Asimov makes up for this with his fantastic world-building and plotting skills.

This book also continues Asimov's project of tying together his Foundation series with his robot series, with Fastolfe working on something he calls "psychohistory"—a key element in the Foundation books—and tantalizing hints about the upcoming Galactic Empire (where, as we know, the Terran origins of humanity have been forgotten).