Caves of Steel - Isaac Asimov | Audiobook

[@isaacislaughter]

Fitting to have a robot read this book.

[@rainey82]

I am immensely grateful for your work!

[@dogbeachiracing5998]

Excellent cover illustration. In my twenties (the 80’s) I tore through every Asimov I could.

[@myheadhurts1927]

Good enough to be a good listen 👍

[@astralwerks4]

Even 10 years ago we'd have been amazed this AI voice could be as good as it is. It's happening good Dr

[@kristapsmuravjovs7061]

Very good AI voice! Not sure if I'm happy or sad that I listened to The Naked Sun first, but I'm loving it none the less.

[@kristapsmuravjovs7061]

"Leejay" is weird and confusing though.

[@KF1]

Naked Sun was good

[@blakesimpson9350]

@@kristapsmuravjovs7061I’m experiencing this exact situation lol, I finished naked sun yesterday and just found out there is a prequel & sequel😂

[@zephyrjmilnes]

Appreciate this mate!

[@Epoch11]

If Mr Asimov only knew about the population we have today. And the problems it is causing.

[@mariokajin]

Funny, how nowadays you could easily object to the “theory” from the story (ch. 12) of specialized robots. You could argue that (for the car example) for a robotic vehicle you could throw out the steering wheel, steering column, driver’s seat, etc.. and that a single robot is inefficient at multitasking as a human being. You don’t need legs for a robot that welds car chassis on a conveyor belt. But because of the time period when the novel was written it is prophetic.

[@jsa-z1722]

When you’re reading a physical book, the quotation marks tell you who is speaking. When someone is reading the book to you, their tone of voice tells you who is speaking. One single AI voice doesn’t do that, so it’s hard to know who’s speaking. to get around that, people use different AI voices for different characters

[@mosart7025]

Yes! That's one of my biggest complaints! And that a lot of times they can't quite get the emotional inflection right. Or the pauses. But man the voices themselves have sure improved!

[@tobysurmann1936]

It’s a free audio book on KZbin….

[@IronBlimp]

They should have started that foundation show right here at the beginning. It’s really Daniels story

[@prasoonjha6314]

I think they only have the rights to the Foundation books. Even then though, they could have adapted "Prelude to Foundation" first instead of starting from "The Psychohistorians" and changing the whole story in the process.

[@tonygreenfield7820]

Pretty decent production overall but the pronunciation of the main characters name is jarring. It is being pronounced "lee jay" . The name is Elijah or "lige' for short and which is usually pronounced lyge. It took a few uses before i figured out who Lee Jay was supposed to be.

[@AetherialAnthologies]

Thank you for your comment. The audiobook is generated using AI, and unfortunately, I can't control the pronunciation. This channel is just a hobby for me, so while I appreciate your input, I'm unable to make changes. I hope you still enjoy the content!

[@fraymond3]

What is it jarring? Jam or somethin'?

[@philipblythe6535]

Do not use AI! Pay a person or do not post! AI is bad for humanity and the planet! It is an mind infection!

[@pmboston]

@@fraymond3. Seriously? Dictionaries are freely available. And not what but why was your question. Which I, for one, found jarring.😅

[@Mr.Wednesday.]

⁠Well, Boston, if you want to be pedantic, a sentence can not begin with the word ‘and’. I find that jarring, it creates inroads for confusion. The nerd was joking, a very retarded peasant joke, but for you it still just went wooooosh….. 💨 right over the ol’ dome

[@rasspilta]

I wish the AI Narroator was not so apathetic with every character and the standard narrator dialoge. But better than I expected.

[@sebfox2194]

You wish the AI narrator was not so robotic?

[@KF1]

​@@sebfox2194quite so

[@KF1]

Was this before or after Elijah went to space? Before, I guess

[@brendancolfer9131]

Before. The next book in the series The Naked Sun was set on Solaria where Baley travelled

[@KF1]

@brendancolfer9131 I really enjoyed Naked Sun. Cool character. My fav book written around this time is The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

[@oriolesfan61]

This isn't the best but i don't think there aee any other audiobooks on Asimov's robot novels still on KZbin

[@rileykelly4003]

Their are loads

[@pounchoutz]

Hey if no human will take the time to read azimov for free on the internet, I’ll take this voice. Its pretty good for a robot reading the robot series

[@swiftmatic]

Chapter 14, foreshadowing the Zeroth Law

[@VincentConti-m5j]

Excellent! I enjoy the forward With mention of Campbell and "Fred Pohl" ...did not know he was Asimov's agent at one time!!! Read this in 1960? At nine years young...yikes!!!!

[@mac195000]

Asimov was prescient in many things, but one of the most interesting aspects of this book is what he got so far wrong. How could someone so well-informed and insightful have believed that 8 billion people on Earth would be a crushing overpopulation burden? He thought producing food for that many would be so difficult that it would necessitate a global dystopia of ultra-efficient production and consumption... just to keep people alive on yeast! As it turns out, advances in farming technology have more than kept pace with the human population increase over the past 70 years, and our main problem today is not starvation but overabundance and obesity. Why did Asimov believe as he did? How common was his sort of thinking in the 1950s?

[@swiftmatic]

Perhaps he'd been talking with Clarke

[@astralwerks4]

The overpopulation today is true at about 7 billion. Not in amount of space, but in impact to the environment per square km. Still one of our biggest problems.

[@mac195000]

@@astralwerks4 The current global population is 8.2 billion, even higher than in Asimov's imagined far-future dystopia. Yet there are no food shortages apart from temporary situations caused by wars and natural disasters. Big agriculture would produce far more food than it does if there was a market for it. Air and water quality, and general living conditions, are better than they were 50 years ago. Climate change is a major challenge to be sure but, on the whole, there's little reason to claim the world is overpopulated.

[@KF1]

​​​@@mac195000Perhaps the US obese assume the entire world suffers the same ailment. Starvation exists. Asimov was simply repeating the tales of history, of which we are a part.

[@NPC-fl3gq]

Not all that sure myself that global warming was ever anything more than a way of "big solar" getting billions in subsidies, mostly sucked out of the working/middle class (just as the MIC likes to have constant low intensity wars to create a reason for politicians to funnel middle class wealth into the war machine). Nuclear winter would more than offset global warming, but even if runaway warming is an actual thing (I'm not convinced, coz if a feed-forward mechanism existed the world would already have cooked during the Cambrian explosion etc) then couldn't a series of carefully calibrated and staged non-nuclear explosions heft the right amount of dust into the atmosphere to cool things down enough!? And yes, non-nuke explosions can create mushroom clouds that push ejecta high into the atmosphere. Just a thought.

[@3DMaterializer]

Please post the name of the AI program that read this.

[@martinaubol9170]

2:21:22

[@paulgerg6879]

Am assuming (and hoping) that Robots of Dawn will follow this audiobook? AI voices are still missing the different character voices that good narrators use, when that happens audiobook readers may be out of a job!

[@melaniemccoard2359]

What exactly is Bailey's first name? Lee? Lee-jee? Leah? Lagh-ee? Lee-jay? Li-jah? Lige? Very annoying.

[@lisianedavid523]

❤

[@sharonzenit541]

I'm gonna pass on this, and find a human reader.

[@sharonzenit541]

The reader sounds a bit too machine-like. Of course, that's the way the character Detective Elijah Bailey would talk. It's the 'Sam Spade' archetype that Bogart made famous. Anyway, seems like a productive way for you to produce copy for KZbin.

[@segwar]

Rowbaat

[@boris010666]

Good story, but the AI voice has a terrible tendency to mispronounce names.

[@pounchoutz]

People mad in the comments about a robot reading the robot series hahahaha

[@DaisyJones116taurus]

I understand that you used, at great benefit, an ai reader…. BUT FIX THE SHORT NAMES.🤦‍♀️ Seriously, it’s “Lie-ja”, “Liej” long i silent e …. AHHH it is driving me nuts! I hate the “robot voice” and droll readings of this story…but this I liked, except the frequent annoyance of Elijah’s nick names… Much like the annoyance’s and “customs”😉 each of us from different cultures must respect. Lie-ja…as a nickname for Elijah? Lie-ja or Liej, thanks.

[@bardsamok9221]

Don't tell people what to do entitled mofo

[@gillewilbanks8328]

I like the AI reader about as much as self checkout. I don’t.

[@AetherialAnthologies]

🤖

[@KF1]

The trick to self checkout is to fool it into thinking that you're buying rice, when in fact you come home with cashews

[@freemarketjoe9869]

The voice is miserable, no emotion, like listening to an insurance adjuster. I'll pass.

[@rasspilta]

R-deniel

[@Modernnannenginemarineengine]

Let’s spell this phonetically ok. Elijah EL LIE JA . Not il hay lol

[@jpaulparker]

I hate these AI read books. "Leege" instead of "Lige"...geesh

[@rastifan7863]

What an insult to Isaac Asimov to have a soulless Ai voice narrating his work. You basically nicked his work and pissed on it for KZbin points.

[@hhermon6415]

How is it an insult, I'd assume he'd be honored if he were still alive ofc, he spent much if his life writing tales of fiction about artificial intelligence and now artificial intelligence is retelling his works.

[@blaketurner7989]

You think the guy who loved robots, would hate it if AI could narrate one of his books?? You're joking right...there's no way you're not joking😂

[@CarmenBarrett-w7r]

Yes I was hoping to have one of the really great voices that read the first foundation novel I heard on KZbin. The mechanical voice, weird, off cadence and mispronunciation does detract from the story.

[@KF1]

Are you a Spacer?

[@drewa6891]

This is not an audiobook

[@LMinem]

This AI voice cannot correctly pronounce the name of the main character. That is important for understanding the story. This is a rather significant failure in the reading. Skip this. Find a reading by a human.

[@jeanettesdaughter]

Boring plodding plot.

[@user-nd8rp9tl4k]

I disagree. Asimov tends to have lots of 'talking heads' and exposition and is not great on characterisation but I like his plots and his subversions.

[@Epoch11]

1:59:00

[@jeffcampbell5755]

4:56:31