We, Robots, a novella of the Singularity
by Sue Langeebook, 64 pages
Published March 2010 by Book View Cafe
Read November 2011
This was a strange little story. Not in a bad way, just in a different kind of way. When the author sent the book to me, the description reminded me of a movie I watched as a kid. I don't remember the name of it, but it was about a family and the mother died. The children were upset and the father worked for a company or something like that and was offered a robot housekeeper of sorts. The family got to go the factory and choose everything about the woman who would take care of them. I remember the little boy had a special marble that was used for the robots eye color (I'm describing the movie because I'm hoping someone else remembers watching it and can tell me the name so I can stop driving myself crazy trying to remember).
Anyways, as I was saying. The description reminded me of this movie which I enjoyed as a child so I thought I would give the book a try. I did not see the cover until I went to load it on to my Nook. Probably had I, I would not have accepted the book for review. There is just something about the cover that at first glance kind of turned me off to the book. Maybe it was too cartoonish? I'm not sure and now having read the book the cover isn't so bad. Though there is still something a bit off for more.
The story was interesting. The domestic robot is telling the story and it gives the reader many things to think about without really drawing conclusions for the reader. This would be a great book for discussion on what it means to be human, how technology can be "good" or "bad" and is there a point in the advancement of our technology that is too far.
The story was well written, but it isn't anything fabulous. It is the part of sci-fi that I don't generally enjoy - the opening pages describing what Singularity is was a bit confusing to me. I'm just not a big fan of reading about technology. There wasn't really anything that made me "not want to put it down", but equally there wasn't anything about it that made me not want to read it. For these reasons, I gave it 3 stars (Oh my gosh, just had a flash back to my 4-H judging days with that sentence).
This book would have made a good topic for my college computer science class (the class focused a lot on the use of technology, not how to use computers per se). If you are looking for thought-invoking short story, then I would recommend We, Robots.
Note: Since I posted the review the cover has changed. This review now displays an updated cover photo.
Posts
The Electric Grandmother. It was a tv movie.
ReplyDeleteI remember the song that went...
Timothy...Timothy...where have you gone?
Just stuck with me. I LOVED that movie. Give me Maureen Stapleton any day!