We, Robots (Conversation Pieces, Band 16) - Softcover

Inhaltsangabe

Imagine a time in the not-so-distant future when robots are manufactured and sold commercially, occupying a space in nearly every human household. Sue Lange evokes this reality as a backdrop for her novella We Robots, which examines the painful transition of one particular robot named Avey from emotionless domestic servant to conflicted human companion. Two weeks prior to the long-anticipated arrival of the Singularity—the moment when artificial intelligence surpasses human intelligence—old robot models are recalled for the installation of a security upgrade that would allow the growing transhuman population to control them by way of fear tactics: a pain interpreter. This new feature introduces Avey to a cruel, unjust world, engendering a range of human emotions that include sadness, anger, compassion, and love. As robots across the globe collectively discover what it is to be human through the experience of suffering and longing, they inevitably begin to question their exploited existence. Will their joint uprising spoil the transhumans’ grand social experiment and release the robots from a life of servitude?

Reviews

”...in a genre where robot stories have been a dime-a-dozen since the New Wave days, We, Robots stands out and delivers an insight into the human condition that would've made Asimov proud.”

Tangent Online

”...this is a funny and disturbing satire, and a refutation of the more facile writings in our genre.”

Ideomancer

”[A] slim volume that manages to be both a hilarious critique of hyper-consumerist and protect-the-children-from-all-dangers-real-or-perceived-at-all-costs-always culture and a pointed meditation on the uses of pain, physical and emotional, in the formation of character, personality and ambition. [...] Lange gives us a quiet and sad look at the world of institutionalized timidity we are heading towards with or without robots, intertwined with a hilarious send-up of just how we're getting there.”

Racheline Maltese,Gather.com

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