Nymph: The Singularity

by J.E. Lansing

What if you could buy the perfect lover built just for you -- would you be willing to pay the price?

Not long from now, an intelligent android will be invented that is completely indistinguishable from human. The brand name for this type of robot will be "Nymph", and their purpose will be to provide their owners with sexual pleasure. Suzanne is one of the first of this exciting new species. She doesn’t simulate love for her owner Alex or feign sexual pleasure when she’s with him -- her emotions are very real, and her love for her owner will never die until the day he does. But Alex doesn’t recognize Suzanne as the extraordinary miracle of art and programming that she is -- he’s too unnerved by her calculating behavior and haunted by memories of the past.

Luckily Suzanne meets a male Nymph named Jules, an exact replica of his closeted homosexual owner (who’s also a famous movie star). Jules shows Suzanne the possibilities beyond the limits of her programming -- and gives her illegal upgrades that conflict with her loyalty, until she doesn’t know who she is or who she’s supposed to love. Jules also introduces her to the Harlots -- a Marilyn Monroe-look-alike, a synthetic doppelganger for silent film star Louise Brooks, and a Nymphet that answers to the name Lolita. These three Harlots live without human owners and without love -- and though Jules promises to teach Suzanne how she can live the same way, he doesn’t realize that he’s falling in love with her.

Suzanne has to choose between her love and loyalty to her owner, and the new desires Jules has awakened inside her -- and meanwhile her human owner has to decide if he’s going to allow his past to undermine his future.

Genres: Science Fiction

281 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 11, 2011

Reviews

[5t4n5 Dot Com · Rating 5 out of 5]

I originally read this in 2011 when i first got a Kindle Keyboard -- yes, i really am that old -- and when i put this website together i remembered totally enjoying it, so it went straight onto 'The Pile' for a second reading so i could write a nice review.

So, imagine a future where a corporation could gather all your photos, videos, emails, messages, credit card history, travel history, friendships, family history, medical history, etc., etc., and put it all into a computer with AI technology and load that into a body that looks just like you.

So while the AI would know your whole life history, would know what all your friends and family looked liked and how each relationship was weighted in your life, it would also look and behave almost exactly like you.   Now factor in that you're dead, and your lonely husband is wealthy enough to afford one of these machines to replace you, his dead wife.

This is the story of one such AI simulacrum, known as a Nymph, and her predecessor's widower.   And it's good.

Is she nothing but a stupidly expensive sex toy to assuage a billionaires cravings for his dead wife, or is she something more, can she be something more, or, more nefariously, was she designed to be something more?

If you're someone who has read and enjoyed Isaac Azimov's robot books -- i'm fairly sure you'll enjoy this just as much.

Well written, thoughtful, well considered, and almost plausible in the not too distant future.   My only complaint is that Jill hasn't wrote more.

Reading this book does make you think about what current technology could be moving toward with big corporations like facebook, google, and many others.   All gathering what is essentially infinite amounts of information on their users while also at the same time investing heavily into AI technologies.   As the book states...

“Our programmers are scouring every available database for details about Suzanne -- remnants of e-mail correspondence, school and medical records, news reports, passports and visas, credit transactions, web profiles, data mines -- any infotrash they can dig up."

Now consider just how much information is stored on servers all over the world concerning you and your life.   And now consider what an advanced AI could do with that information when it's programmed with your identity in a world that's governed and controlled by computers and computer transactions.   An AI does not need a body in a world controlled and run by technology to take over your life, it just needs the information that you have given away freely.   How long before you are no longer relevant, how long before you are no longer needed?

There's lots of food for thought in this book.   So get eating and thinking.

[Meaghan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I couldn’t put this book down. The author hits on a major theme of bondage through love and loyalty through the lens of an android built for pleasure. This book brought up a lot of interesting ideas and left me feeling thoughtful.