Service Model
June 19, 2024 11:13 AM - Subscribe
(Publisher's description):
Meet Charles™, the latest in robot servant technology. Programmed to undertake the most menial household chores, Charles is loyal, efficient and logical to a fault. That is, until a rather large fault causes him to murder his owner.
Understandably perplexed, Charles finds himself without a master – therefore worthless in a society utterly reliant on artificial labour and services. Fleeing the household, he enters a wider world he never knew existed. Here an age-old human hierarchy is disintegrating into ruins, and an entire robot ecosystem devoted to its wellbeing is struggling to find a purpose.
Charles must face new challenges, illogical tasks and a cast of irrational characters. He’s about to discover that sometimes all it takes is a nudge to overcome the limits of your programming. But can he help fix the world, or is it too badly broken?
I liked this! It held up to the high-praise cover blurb from Scalzi, and was a dense but quick read, if that makes any sense.
I'm not a computer programming expert, and the "follow program logic to a fault" elements of the book seemed to vacillate a lot to me -- sometimes slavish adherence to the concept, sometimes it seemed to kind of wobble out of orbit when convenient to the plot or a good joke.
I loved the apocalypse setting as a "no one thing, capitalism and shitty people just kind of ground everything down" situation, but it felt like it had been very well sold throughout, so the big reveal at the end was kind of a "...and?" moment.
On the whole, though, really enjoyed it. Laugh-out-loud funny sometimes, genuinely creepy other times, got me right in the feels a few times as well.
I liked this! It held up to the high-praise cover blurb from Scalzi, and was a dense but quick read, if that makes any sense.
I'm not a computer programming expert, and the "follow program logic to a fault" elements of the book seemed to vacillate a lot to me -- sometimes slavish adherence to the concept, sometimes it seemed to kind of wobble out of orbit when convenient to the plot or a good joke.
I loved the apocalypse setting as a "no one thing, capitalism and shitty people just kind of ground everything down" situation, but it felt like it had been very well sold throughout, so the big reveal at the end was kind of a "...and?" moment.
On the whole, though, really enjoyed it. Laugh-out-loud funny sometimes, genuinely creepy other times, got me right in the feels a few times as well.
Adrian Tschaikovsky, who is awesome.
posted by wenestvedt at 9:18 AM on June 20 [1 favorite]
posted by wenestvedt at 9:18 AM on June 20 [1 favorite]
Ah! Cool! I really, really loved Children of Time! (Children of Ruin, not so much.)
posted by Thorzdad at 10:02 AM on June 20 [1 favorite]
posted by Thorzdad at 10:02 AM on June 20 [1 favorite]
Just finished this one. Really enjoyable - kind of like spielberg’s AI and futurama in a blender.
posted by WedgedPiano at 1:24 PM on June 21
posted by WedgedPiano at 1:24 PM on June 21
I'm not sure how easy they'd be to find these days but people who like absurdist robot bildungsromane might want to seek out John Sladek's works Roderick, Roderick at Random, and Tik-Tok.
posted by Nerd of the North at 1:59 PM on June 21
posted by Nerd of the North at 1:59 PM on June 21
You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments
posted by Thorzdad at 7:02 AM on June 20 [2 favorites]