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When HARLIE Was One: Release 2.0
H.A.R.L.I.E. (Human Analog Replication, Lethetic Intelligence Engine) is an artificially intelligent machine. David Auberson, the psychologist responsible for guiding HARLIE from childhood into adulthood, struggles to understand his erratic behavior.
When humans begin vocalizing their wishes that HARILIE be shut down, he has to prove his existence and value to his warm-blooded counterparts. Throughout HARILIE's fight to stay alive, Auberson discovers the machine has vast knowledge and understanding of life, love, and logic, posing the philosophical question whether or not HARLIE is human, and for that matter, what it means to be human.
Nominated for the Hugo and Nebula awards for Best Novel of the Year, the themes of love and discovery in When HARLIE was One are even more important today than when first published.
When humans begin vocalizing their wishes that HARILIE be shut down, he has to prove his existence and value to his warm-blooded counterparts. Throughout HARILIE's fight to stay alive, Auberson discovers the machine has vast knowledge and understanding of life, love, and logic, posing the philosophical question whether or not HARLIE is human, and for that matter, what it means to be human.
Nominated for the Hugo and Nebula awards for Best Novel of the Year, the themes of love and discovery in When HARLIE was One are even more important today than when first published.
392 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 28, 2014
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
April 26, 2026
This was part of my...investigation...into how artifiial intellignece programs have been treated in SF. My thesis is that there's an important semantic difference between robots, intelligenet computers and self-aware software. I've read Valentina: Soul in Sapphire multiple times and The Adolescence of P-1 a couple of times. Then someone on the Larry Niven chat suggested this book. Looking up the Ryan entry on Wikipedia, I found reference to The Shockwave Rider which I will get to in due course. It had better be better than Stand on Zanzibar, but that wouldn't be too hard.
For a debut novel, this is pretty good, but Gerrold already had writing experience from "The Trouble with Tribbles" for Star Trek. He's at his strongest in the dialogue between HARLIE and David Auberson, which is in kind of play format and moves the atory forward through dialogue. Towards the end it drifts into an irrelevant love story for Auberson, but you can safely skip that, sinceit has some carefully worded early 1970's sex in it. It reminded me most of the irrelevatn love story in Company.
This edition is the reworked edition with a few notes from the author. It appears to be a 1987 reworking of a 1972 novel. It would be good if we coudl get the original, just to see how he handles thingslike memory and computing power. But what the hell, he's entitled to upgrade it.
He approaches the question "What does it mean to be human?" and works through it as HARLIE the program becomes more human. He approaches the 'sub-questions' of the first in a logical way, much as he would do in the later The Man Who Folded Himself. In the end, though, the solution to HARLIe's dilemma is very simplistic and dissatisfying.
What's also dissatisfying is that HARLIE is not an engaging character. He's more interesting than P-1, but nowhere near as engaging as Valentina. This would've been more fun aa a nostalgia trip to 'the way the future was', but the 1987 upgrade spoils that. If it weren't for that, I might've given this one four stars.
For a debut novel, this is pretty good, but Gerrold already had writing experience from "The Trouble with Tribbles" for Star Trek. He's at his strongest in the dialogue between HARLIE and David Auberson, which is in kind of play format and moves the atory forward through dialogue. Towards the end it drifts into an irrelevant love story for Auberson, but you can safely skip that, sinceit has some carefully worded early 1970's sex in it. It reminded me most of the irrelevatn love story in Company.
This edition is the reworked edition with a few notes from the author. It appears to be a 1987 reworking of a 1972 novel. It would be good if we coudl get the original, just to see how he handles thingslike memory and computing power. But what the hell, he's entitled to upgrade it.
He approaches the question "What does it mean to be human?" and works through it as HARLIE the program becomes more human. He approaches the 'sub-questions' of the first in a logical way, much as he would do in the later The Man Who Folded Himself. In the end, though, the solution to HARLIe's dilemma is very simplistic and dissatisfying.
What's also dissatisfying is that HARLIE is not an engaging character. He's more interesting than P-1, but nowhere near as engaging as Valentina. This would've been more fun aa a nostalgia trip to 'the way the future was', but the 1987 upgrade spoils that. If it weren't for that, I might've given this one four stars.
Displaying 1 of 1 review