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Love in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
Set in a near-future LA, a man falls in love with a beautiful android—but when she is kidnapped and sold piecemeal on the black market, he must track down her parts to put her back together.
Bad luck for Eliot Lazar, he fell in love with an android, a beautiful C-900 named Iris Matsuo. That's the kind of thing that can get you killed in late 21th century Los Angeles or anywhere else for that matter – anywhere except the man-made island of Avernus, far out in the Pacific, which is where Eliot and Iris are headed once they get their hands on a boat. But then one night Eliot knocks on Iris's door only to find she was kidnapped, chopped up, sold for parts.
Unable to move on and unwilling to settle for a woman with a heartbeat, Eliot vows to find the parts to put Iris back together again—and to find the sonofabitch who did this to her and get his revenge.
With a determined LAPD detective on his trail and time running out in a city where machines and men battle for control, Eliot Lazar embarks on a bloody journey that will take him to the edge of a moral precipice from which he can never return, from which mankind can never return.
Judd Trichter's Love in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction is a science fiction love story that asks the question, how far will you go to save someone you love?
Bad luck for Eliot Lazar, he fell in love with an android, a beautiful C-900 named Iris Matsuo. That's the kind of thing that can get you killed in late 21th century Los Angeles or anywhere else for that matter – anywhere except the man-made island of Avernus, far out in the Pacific, which is where Eliot and Iris are headed once they get their hands on a boat. But then one night Eliot knocks on Iris's door only to find she was kidnapped, chopped up, sold for parts.
Unable to move on and unwilling to settle for a woman with a heartbeat, Eliot vows to find the parts to put Iris back together again—and to find the sonofabitch who did this to her and get his revenge.
With a determined LAPD detective on his trail and time running out in a city where machines and men battle for control, Eliot Lazar embarks on a bloody journey that will take him to the edge of a moral precipice from which he can never return, from which mankind can never return.
Judd Trichter's Love in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction is a science fiction love story that asks the question, how far will you go to save someone you love?
320 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 3, 2015
16 people are currently reading
1381 people want to read
About the author
Judd Trichter
2 books23 followersJudd Trichter grew up in New York City. He was a child actor who worked in adulthood before transitioning into writing. He used to write for Tucker Max's Rudius website and The Idiot Magazine. Judd currently resides in Los Angeles.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 135 reviews
September 7, 2015
This proved to be an excellent sci-fi noir story. The story was engaging and thought provoking. Judd Trichter used his near future sci-fi setting as the platform to offer some social commentary on plenty of issues relevant today. It was also a loose retelling of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth, which I enjoyed. The world building was excellent and I loved the dark, melancholy, and tense feel of the story.
This was set in late 21th century Los Angeles. It is a time when humanoid androids live side by side with humans. Unfortunately for the androids they are still viewed as property and "machines" in the eyes of the law and the majority of humanity. There is a rising movement within the android community that seeks to change their place in the world. As tension reaches boiling point police battle android rebels in the streets for control. It is in such a turbulent world that Eliot Lazar falls in love with Iris Matsuo. Iris is a C-900 model android. In 21th century Los Angeles, and most of the rest of the world, this is a crime punishable by death for both the human and android. The near mythical Island community of Avernus is rumoured to be accepting to both humans and androids. Eliot is saving to buy a boat so he and Iris can escape to the island haven. Unfortunately before he has enough to flee Iris is snatched by a "trapper" who chops her up and sells her various parts to the highest bidders. A distraught Eliot vows to track down each and every bit and reassemble his lover.
The plot proved to be quite captivating. Eliot is not your average hero. He is a broken character. He suffered a massive childhood trauma that has badly effected him and he also has a worsening drug addiction. Iris was the only thing that made his life bearable. His quest to reassemble Iris provides him with plenty of moral challenges. Just how far should one go to bring the one they love back to life? To further complicate matters Eliot soon finds he has attracted the attention of a dogged LAPD detective.
This was not the perfect story, but it was incredibly engaging and enjoyable. The world was an interesting one filled with grey characters and moral dilemmas. I was rooting for Eliot even if he was not always 100% likeable!
This was a standalone story with a satisfying ending, but the world was so interesting that I'd love Judd Trichter to return to it for a sequel or two in the future.
Rating: 5 stars. This was worth a 5 star rating even if its few flaws mean it will not be joining my list of favourite books!
Audio Note: Luke Daniels will never be a favourite of mine, but he did do a decent job with this one.
This was set in late 21th century Los Angeles. It is a time when humanoid androids live side by side with humans. Unfortunately for the androids they are still viewed as property and "machines" in the eyes of the law and the majority of humanity. There is a rising movement within the android community that seeks to change their place in the world. As tension reaches boiling point police battle android rebels in the streets for control. It is in such a turbulent world that Eliot Lazar falls in love with Iris Matsuo. Iris is a C-900 model android. In 21th century Los Angeles, and most of the rest of the world, this is a crime punishable by death for both the human and android. The near mythical Island community of Avernus is rumoured to be accepting to both humans and androids. Eliot is saving to buy a boat so he and Iris can escape to the island haven. Unfortunately before he has enough to flee Iris is snatched by a "trapper" who chops her up and sells her various parts to the highest bidders. A distraught Eliot vows to track down each and every bit and reassemble his lover.
The plot proved to be quite captivating. Eliot is not your average hero. He is a broken character. He suffered a massive childhood trauma that has badly effected him and he also has a worsening drug addiction. Iris was the only thing that made his life bearable. His quest to reassemble Iris provides him with plenty of moral challenges. Just how far should one go to bring the one they love back to life? To further complicate matters Eliot soon finds he has attracted the attention of a dogged LAPD detective.
This was not the perfect story, but it was incredibly engaging and enjoyable. The world was an interesting one filled with grey characters and moral dilemmas. I was rooting for Eliot even if he was not always 100% likeable!
This was a standalone story with a satisfying ending, but the world was so interesting that I'd love Judd Trichter to return to it for a sequel or two in the future.
Rating: 5 stars. This was worth a 5 star rating even if its few flaws mean it will not be joining my list of favourite books!
Audio Note: Luke Daniels will never be a favourite of mine, but he did do a decent job with this one.
November 9, 2015
On the bright side, it is clear that Trichter works in the entertainment business, as this novel is stream-lined and paced at a brisk jog. It reads like it is written for the screen. On the down side, the protagonist was an unlikeable jerk and the world was such an ugly, unpalatable mess that I was ready to cheer the robot revolution (sadly, we never get to see this). Plus, you know, the casual sexism and racism.
An attempt at noir (here meaning a sense of gritty cynicism and the word "broad" used unironically), the book follows Eliot Lazar as he attempts to piece together his murdered robot girlfriend, Iris. In the near future, Lazar's father has made robots better and more human. Lazar's father and sister are blown up by robot terrorists (so they say - more likely it was an evil human conspiracy). Now, Lazar is a slimy drug-addicted robot salesman in a world of crippling pollution and restless, exploited robots.
For what reason robots have been made without the Three Laws of Robotics and with very human emotions and psychology, we will never know. The robots of the future are essentially slave labor, and are subject to brutality and not protected by any laws. And yet the "heartbeats" (humans) have not made the bots to be placid and pain-free and happy in their labor. No, these bots are angry and miserable. A guerrilla bot leader has appeared. Rightwing human Militamen are agitating about a future robot revolution and how we better get those uppity bots before they get us. Robot revolution, you say? NO SHIT SHERLOCK. What do you think will happen when you create a better, faster, stronger race and then stand on their necks? The robot revolution IS coming and the humans WILL all die (or be enslaved in turn) because the humans are hateful, short-sighted idiots.
Anyway, Lazar wants to find all the parts of his missing bot girlfriend. Because somehow a bot's personality is determined by their "aura" which changes if they have different parts. I don't know how any of the characters can say this with a straight face and then still think robots don't have souls. If this magical "aura" idea is true, that means that there is an essence in the robot parts. How that happens is anyone's guess. Despite how crazycakes the "aura" idea is, it drives the entire plot. Because Lazar doesn't need to get any old parts to rebuild his girlfriend. He needs HER EXACT parts, otherwise it wouldn't really be "her." I guess that makes it very hard on robots if any of their parts get damaged/need to be replaced. Imagine if your very soul shifted if you got, say, a kidney transplant.
During the course of Lazar's investigation, he comes across
Lazar spends much of his time dismembering other bots to steal back his girlfriend's parts. He never feels bad about murdering other bots to save his murdered girlfriend, although he's all kinds of righteously angry that his loved one was murdered. Probably because Lazar does not value bots as sentient beings, and is instead just upset someone broke his toy before he finished playing with it.
Some of the bots conveniently die before he has to murder them. The ones he has to kill are grossly portrayed, while those who die first are more attractive or more pure. Trichter tries to keep Lazar from being a complete villain by not making him have to kill two sympathetic bots for Iris' parts. I don't know why Trichter bothers, because it just sends uncomfortable messages about what kind of being is more worthy (i.e., not transgender prostitutes). Plus, it's always clear that Lazar WOULD have killed whomever and whatever he needed, the entire time spouting vile racism about how bots don't have souls so it's justified (while trying to piece back together his bot girlfriend - which only makes sense when you understand that when Lazar says "love" he means "possession.").
There's a lot of racist stereotypes in this book, too. The bot moneylender/loan shark/gangster is Jewish. I don't know how a robot is Jewish, but he is. And he's repeatedly called a "shylock." And has a "large hooked nose." So a stingy, money-grubbing Jewish robot - a classic negative stereotype of a Jew. Then there's the Latino gangster robots that sound like Hollywood Latino gangsters. The Asian robot that speaks in Asian-accented English (???). The large black female robot that speaks like a stereotype of a poor African American woman. I know humans are likely to build their own prejudices into their creations but really?!? What purpose does it serve for all the racist stereotype bots to appear?
Trichter also has a weird attitude toward his female characters. Iris is some benighted saint quickly killed off to give the protagonist a purpose (where before he was busy mostly being a selfish, lazy drug addict). A lusty female boss is characterized by the hairy mole on her face that Lazar is utterly repelled by. An annoying leader of a modeling agency is grotuesquely fat. A female from HR is a "cunt" possibly just because she's from HR. Because the females Lazar doesn't get along with are disgusting inhuman creatures usually with some physical flaw (even the one bot that Lazar actually has to kill for its parts is overly lusty and fat - two characteristics that Lazar obviously cannot stand - while the more lovely bots conveniently die off before he has to do the deed).
Oh, and to top it all off Lazar pretends to be a gay modeling recruiter and speaks in an effette voice with a lisp while doing it. Because, you know, the gays.
The funniest, saddest part of it all is that the only real voice of reason about this is Lazar's brother, a generally terrible human being and a shallow n'er-do-well, who thinks bots are inhuman, but not so inhuman that he can't make use of enslaved bot whores. Yet even HE realizes what a selfish bastard Lazar is:
Brother: But your victim tonight was innocent.
Lazar: How innocent? Not only were her parts stolen, they weren't even assembled in any coherent manner. The bot was a monster.
Brother: Because she was biracial?
Lazar: Stop.
Brother: Because she was fat and of a mixed gender?
Lazar: She couldn't even speak in the first person. Her very being exuded the malfeasance of her construction.
Brother: You're full of shit. Had she been a beautiful and coherent android you still would have pulled her apart.
LAZAR. EVEN YOUR WASTE OF SPACE BROTHER KNOWS YOU ARE FULL OF IT.
Another favorite scene of Lazar making an idiot out of himself is when he asks his brother "Have you ever had someone taken from you? Someone you love taken before you could say goodbye?" To which his brother of course replies: "My sister. And my old man when I was twelve." YEAH LAZAR, DID YOU FORGET THAT YOUR BROTHER ALSO LOST HIS SISTER AND FATHER IN A TERRORIST ATTACK!?!? You are an embarrassment, Lazar. Try to not only think of yourself for more than like 10 seconds at a time.
A semi-antagonist here is Detective Flaubert, an Inspector Javert type who believes in the law, even when the law is clearly corrupted. He is dying from pollution and would be pretty great except he has the same bots-aren't-human prejudice of most people. So he's racist, but law-abiding. He Because everyone in this book was awful.
Lazar eventually
An attempt at noir (here meaning a sense of gritty cynicism and the word "broad" used unironically), the book follows Eliot Lazar as he attempts to piece together his murdered robot girlfriend, Iris. In the near future, Lazar's father has made robots better and more human. Lazar's father and sister are blown up by robot terrorists (so they say - more likely it was an evil human conspiracy). Now, Lazar is a slimy drug-addicted robot salesman in a world of crippling pollution and restless, exploited robots.
For what reason robots have been made without the Three Laws of Robotics and with very human emotions and psychology, we will never know. The robots of the future are essentially slave labor, and are subject to brutality and not protected by any laws. And yet the "heartbeats" (humans) have not made the bots to be placid and pain-free and happy in their labor. No, these bots are angry and miserable. A guerrilla bot leader has appeared. Rightwing human Militamen are agitating about a future robot revolution and how we better get those uppity bots before they get us. Robot revolution, you say? NO SHIT SHERLOCK. What do you think will happen when you create a better, faster, stronger race and then stand on their necks? The robot revolution IS coming and the humans WILL all die (or be enslaved in turn) because the humans are hateful, short-sighted idiots.
Anyway, Lazar wants to find all the parts of his missing bot girlfriend. Because somehow a bot's personality is determined by their "aura" which changes if they have different parts. I don't know how any of the characters can say this with a straight face and then still think robots don't have souls. If this magical "aura" idea is true, that means that there is an essence in the robot parts. How that happens is anyone's guess. Despite how crazycakes the "aura" idea is, it drives the entire plot. Because Lazar doesn't need to get any old parts to rebuild his girlfriend. He needs HER EXACT parts, otherwise it wouldn't really be "her." I guess that makes it very hard on robots if any of their parts get damaged/need to be replaced. Imagine if your very soul shifted if you got, say, a kidney transplant.
During the course of Lazar's investigation, he comes across
Lazar spends much of his time dismembering other bots to steal back his girlfriend's parts. He never feels bad about murdering other bots to save his murdered girlfriend, although he's all kinds of righteously angry that his loved one was murdered. Probably because Lazar does not value bots as sentient beings, and is instead just upset someone broke his toy before he finished playing with it.
Some of the bots conveniently die before he has to murder them. The ones he has to kill are grossly portrayed, while those who die first are more attractive or more pure. Trichter tries to keep Lazar from being a complete villain by not making him have to kill two sympathetic bots for Iris' parts. I don't know why Trichter bothers, because it just sends uncomfortable messages about what kind of being is more worthy (i.e., not transgender prostitutes). Plus, it's always clear that Lazar WOULD have killed whomever and whatever he needed, the entire time spouting vile racism about how bots don't have souls so it's justified (while trying to piece back together his bot girlfriend - which only makes sense when you understand that when Lazar says "love" he means "possession.").
There's a lot of racist stereotypes in this book, too. The bot moneylender/loan shark/gangster is Jewish. I don't know how a robot is Jewish, but he is. And he's repeatedly called a "shylock." And has a "large hooked nose." So a stingy, money-grubbing Jewish robot - a classic negative stereotype of a Jew. Then there's the Latino gangster robots that sound like Hollywood Latino gangsters. The Asian robot that speaks in Asian-accented English (???). The large black female robot that speaks like a stereotype of a poor African American woman. I know humans are likely to build their own prejudices into their creations but really?!? What purpose does it serve for all the racist stereotype bots to appear?
Trichter also has a weird attitude toward his female characters. Iris is some benighted saint quickly killed off to give the protagonist a purpose (where before he was busy mostly being a selfish, lazy drug addict). A lusty female boss is characterized by the hairy mole on her face that Lazar is utterly repelled by. An annoying leader of a modeling agency is grotuesquely fat. A female from HR is a "cunt" possibly just because she's from HR. Because the females Lazar doesn't get along with are disgusting inhuman creatures usually with some physical flaw (even the one bot that Lazar actually has to kill for its parts is overly lusty and fat - two characteristics that Lazar obviously cannot stand - while the more lovely bots conveniently die off before he has to do the deed).
Oh, and to top it all off Lazar pretends to be a gay modeling recruiter and speaks in an effette voice with a lisp while doing it. Because, you know, the gays.
The funniest, saddest part of it all is that the only real voice of reason about this is Lazar's brother, a generally terrible human being and a shallow n'er-do-well, who thinks bots are inhuman, but not so inhuman that he can't make use of enslaved bot whores. Yet even HE realizes what a selfish bastard Lazar is:
Brother: But your victim tonight was innocent.
Lazar: How innocent? Not only were her parts stolen, they weren't even assembled in any coherent manner. The bot was a monster.
Brother: Because she was biracial?
Lazar: Stop.
Brother: Because she was fat and of a mixed gender?
Lazar: She couldn't even speak in the first person. Her very being exuded the malfeasance of her construction.
Brother: You're full of shit. Had she been a beautiful and coherent android you still would have pulled her apart.
LAZAR. EVEN YOUR WASTE OF SPACE BROTHER KNOWS YOU ARE FULL OF IT.
Another favorite scene of Lazar making an idiot out of himself is when he asks his brother "Have you ever had someone taken from you? Someone you love taken before you could say goodbye?" To which his brother of course replies: "My sister. And my old man when I was twelve." YEAH LAZAR, DID YOU FORGET THAT YOUR BROTHER ALSO LOST HIS SISTER AND FATHER IN A TERRORIST ATTACK!?!? You are an embarrassment, Lazar. Try to not only think of yourself for more than like 10 seconds at a time.
A semi-antagonist here is Detective Flaubert, an Inspector Javert type who believes in the law, even when the law is clearly corrupted. He is dying from pollution and would be pretty great except he has the same bots-aren't-human prejudice of most people. So he's racist, but law-abiding. He Because everyone in this book was awful.
Lazar eventually
February 21, 2015
The technical skill level folded into this novel is unreal. This is a big and complicated world Trichter invented here, and I both bought into it and fully understood it within the first three pages of the book. He also managed to write a deeply wounded protagonist who is fueled by his painful desperation for the proper recipient of his love, which normally would make me want to die and punch things, but in the case of this novel, I legitimately believed Eliot's drive to be righteous, unsentimental, and utterly human. Iris is adored and loved, but though she's an android and theoretically could have been written as some cheap and irritating version of a perfect wank object (physically and emotionally), she wasn't. Instead the author wrote a pretty busted damsel in the sort of distress that doesn't detract from her ability. In a literary world packed with so many male authors revealing themselves to have underdeveloped perceptions and conceptualizations of women, Trichter swings in the other direction. He created Iris, an entirely complete, relatable, realistic, and respected portrayal of a human woman - and he did that while simultaneously writing her as an android believably. It's so incredibly rare that in a love story I don't find myself arriving at a seething odium for one or both of the characters swapping affection for one another. Not this time, I loved Eliot and Iris both and equally. Trichter, you sneaky jerk of an author, you made me love reading a love story.
February 16, 2015
Wow. What an incredible debut for Judd Trichter, who has written one of the best dystopian robot novels I have ever read. I gulped this down with the same keen sense of excitement I felt when I originally read Neuromancer by William Gibson and Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan. You just know that these once-in-a-blue-moon novels blaze a bad-ass trail across the literary firmament.
When we meet Eliot Lazar, he is in love with a C-900 android called Iris Matsuo. Iris goes missing in rather dramatic fashion, which propels Eliot on a madcap quest to recover Iris. The catch here is that in this particular iteration of the future, robots are definitely not more than the sum of their parts.
They are worth infinitely more when reduced to their individual components. So Eliot’s quest is akin to Dr Frankenstein assembling his creature. But Trichter also artfully weaves in elements of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth, for this is a great love story, after all, set in the Age of Mechanical (Re)Production.
Such a hackneyed plot is fraught with pitfalls for the first-time writer. Trichter’s execution is spot-on though, with sufficiently detailed (and highly plausible) world-building to give his story both depth and feeling. While there is a noirish edge here as well, it is definitely not a case of style trumping substance – which is so often the downfall of cyberpunk in general.
I suppose the logical question to be posed by a non-genre reader is why write about a fictitious world of oppressed robots when there are entire classes of humanity relegated to second-citizen status from Africa to the Middle East.
Well, this is an allegory after all, and a lot of the violence against (robot) women in this novel underscores the gender inequality still so prevalent today. At one point a character comments that every form of oppression has its own semantics. And that is exactly the point: there is so much violence, discrimination and inequality that is condoned (or even ordained) in the name of capitalism in particular and civilisation in general.
You can read this as a straight SF thriller; Trichter is a master at plotting, and the book rattles along faster than a robot on an assembly line. But under the hood there is a hell of a lot going on, driven largely by deft characterisation and a wonderful emotional core.
What I particularly liked about Eliot is how flawed a human being he is, and the slippery moral slope that his love (obsession?) with Iris places him on. A drug addict, and with a robot arm himself (we eventually learn what happened), Eliot’s quest is not as simple as tracking down all the missing bits and pieces (and at the same time solving the mystery of Iris’s disappearance).
Trichter prefaces the last third of the book or so with Eliot’s gradually diminishing chop-shop list of parts. Grisly, but supremely effective; and it underlines the fact that every stage of Eliot’s journey involves a moral (re)evaluation and, ultimately, a choice.
Sad and somewhat despicable, Eliot is often not a very likeable character, and he inhabits a very dark and messy world. But that is the nature of fearless SF: to show us the abyss of our own making, with nary a blink. Welcome to the pantheon of great SF writers, Mr Trichter.
When we meet Eliot Lazar, he is in love with a C-900 android called Iris Matsuo. Iris goes missing in rather dramatic fashion, which propels Eliot on a madcap quest to recover Iris. The catch here is that in this particular iteration of the future, robots are definitely not more than the sum of their parts.
They are worth infinitely more when reduced to their individual components. So Eliot’s quest is akin to Dr Frankenstein assembling his creature. But Trichter also artfully weaves in elements of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth, for this is a great love story, after all, set in the Age of Mechanical (Re)Production.
Such a hackneyed plot is fraught with pitfalls for the first-time writer. Trichter’s execution is spot-on though, with sufficiently detailed (and highly plausible) world-building to give his story both depth and feeling. While there is a noirish edge here as well, it is definitely not a case of style trumping substance – which is so often the downfall of cyberpunk in general.
I suppose the logical question to be posed by a non-genre reader is why write about a fictitious world of oppressed robots when there are entire classes of humanity relegated to second-citizen status from Africa to the Middle East.
Well, this is an allegory after all, and a lot of the violence against (robot) women in this novel underscores the gender inequality still so prevalent today. At one point a character comments that every form of oppression has its own semantics. And that is exactly the point: there is so much violence, discrimination and inequality that is condoned (or even ordained) in the name of capitalism in particular and civilisation in general.
You can read this as a straight SF thriller; Trichter is a master at plotting, and the book rattles along faster than a robot on an assembly line. But under the hood there is a hell of a lot going on, driven largely by deft characterisation and a wonderful emotional core.
What I particularly liked about Eliot is how flawed a human being he is, and the slippery moral slope that his love (obsession?) with Iris places him on. A drug addict, and with a robot arm himself (we eventually learn what happened), Eliot’s quest is not as simple as tracking down all the missing bits and pieces (and at the same time solving the mystery of Iris’s disappearance).
Trichter prefaces the last third of the book or so with Eliot’s gradually diminishing chop-shop list of parts. Grisly, but supremely effective; and it underlines the fact that every stage of Eliot’s journey involves a moral (re)evaluation and, ultimately, a choice.
Sad and somewhat despicable, Eliot is often not a very likeable character, and he inhabits a very dark and messy world. But that is the nature of fearless SF: to show us the abyss of our own making, with nary a blink. Welcome to the pantheon of great SF writers, Mr Trichter.
June 12, 2015
I read this book with my wife and, for the most part, enjoyed it. The premise was interesting, if a bit dystopian, and the characters were well-developed, especially in their flaws. You get the sense, when reading the book, that everything is definitely not ok in the world and that, while humanity has advanced in some ways in the past century, it has taken a huge step back in others.
Throughout the book, it was very, very obvious the parallels that the author was trying to make with the current state of society. I'd say that subtlety is not the author's strong point. I did like that the main character made a lot of morally ambiguous choices on their "hero's journey" throughout the work, as very little was black and white.
The book was an easy read. My wife and I finished it in about a day even though we were reading out loud to one another, so it definitely isn't a huge time commitment. I'd recommend this to anyone looking for some interesting sci-fi with flawed characters that can be finished on a long plane ride.
Throughout the book, it was very, very obvious the parallels that the author was trying to make with the current state of society. I'd say that subtlety is not the author's strong point. I did like that the main character made a lot of morally ambiguous choices on their "hero's journey" throughout the work, as very little was black and white.
The book was an easy read. My wife and I finished it in about a day even though we were reading out loud to one another, so it definitely isn't a huge time commitment. I'd recommend this to anyone looking for some interesting sci-fi with flawed characters that can be finished on a long plane ride.
June 4, 2015
Three and a half stars: A book with many philosophical ponderings on life and death when it comes to androids.
Eliot Lazar and his android lover sneak a few stolen moments beneath the marred Hollywood sign. Eliot spins another story about the paradise called Inverness, where the two hope to escape and live free of societal constraints. As it is, a heartbeat who loves a robot are at risk of being hunted down and killed. Before Eliot and Iris can realize their dream, tragedy strikes. Iris goes missing, and Eliot learns she has been chopped up and her parts sold. Eliot is determined to make Iris whole again, not knowing that in doing so, he may go too far. How far is he willing to go to save an android?
What I Liked:
*Love in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction is a book that is outside my normal comfort zone, but I was willing to take a chance on the audiobook version since it is narrated by Luke Daniels, one of my all time favorite narrators. All in all, I am glad that I went on this journey, and in the end, I was left musing over the many philosophical and moral points raised when it comes to android life. Is an android who looks, acts and behaves like a human deserving of a life in servitude and abuse? I enjoyed this crazy story and it is certainly one I will think on.
*At the heart of the story is Eliot Lazar. Eliot isn't the most likable character. He has a drug problem, and he is engaged in a forbidden love affair with a robot. Yet, when it comes to his business dealings, Eliot always tries to do what is right for the androids. When the android he loves is stolen and chopped up into parts, Eliot questions how far he is willing to go to retrieve her and put her back together, not knowing the dark road he will head down. Of course, with each part, Eliot must evaluate his moral compass. Is one android's life superior over another? It is right to kill another android to retrieve the parts that belong to a different android? Is a human life worth more than that of an android? Do humans have the right to kill androids at will? Eliot finds himself faced with all these tough questions and more, and the further he goes the more he loses sight of his beliefs. It was a tough journey with Eliot, and sometimes I admired his choices and at other times I cringed. In the end, I am not sure how I feel about everything, but I do know that this book made me think every step of the way.
*The world building was well done. I thought the author did a good job building a modern world plagued by an ongoing war with the androids due to humans trying to dominate and control androids. The cities are polluted and the humans are drug addicts all thanks to the androids. It is a world where heartbeats rule and androids are used and abused. It is a terrifying and frightening world, and I honestly found myself wavering as to who was right and who was wrong when it came to androids vs. humans.
*The audiobook version is fantastically done. Luke Daniels narrates, and without a doubt, he remains one of my all time favorite narrators. I always appreciate Luke's voices. His voice is amazing, and I will listen to almost everything he narrates.
And The Not So Much:
*The end was open and a cliffhanger. After all the turmoil and upheaval, just when Eliot as at the pivotal moment and everything is in the balance, it ends with no resolution. Not to mention, the author threw in a few more huge stumbling blocks, leaving me wondering if a happy ending was even possible. I was left grasping for more. Why oh why did he have to end it like that? Is there another book, because it sure feels like there is so much more story to tell.
*This book is a bit dark and depressing with heavy moral implications. It isn't an easy read and it requires patience. Even though it is far outside my comfort zone, I am glad I took a chance, because this is a book that will stick with me for a long time. If you can handle violence and a dark story line, take a chance and try this, I would recommend it on audio.
*I never had a firm grasp on how the androids were brought to life. There is the whole idea of an aura and personality and it seemed that the robot's personality wasn't all due to programming. The author needed to expand upon this part of the story, because as it stood, it seemed that the robots weren't all machine, they seemed to have a life spark beyond the machine.
Love in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction was a fascinating and dark read with many moral and philosophical ideas to muse over. I enjoyed the story line, and I liked thinking on all the ideas the author presented. I was disappointed though in the open/ cliffhanger ending. I hope there will be more story down the road because I want to know Eliot's fate.
I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own and I was not compensated for this review.
Posted@Rainy Day Ramblings.
Eliot Lazar and his android lover sneak a few stolen moments beneath the marred Hollywood sign. Eliot spins another story about the paradise called Inverness, where the two hope to escape and live free of societal constraints. As it is, a heartbeat who loves a robot are at risk of being hunted down and killed. Before Eliot and Iris can realize their dream, tragedy strikes. Iris goes missing, and Eliot learns she has been chopped up and her parts sold. Eliot is determined to make Iris whole again, not knowing that in doing so, he may go too far. How far is he willing to go to save an android?
What I Liked:
*Love in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction is a book that is outside my normal comfort zone, but I was willing to take a chance on the audiobook version since it is narrated by Luke Daniels, one of my all time favorite narrators. All in all, I am glad that I went on this journey, and in the end, I was left musing over the many philosophical and moral points raised when it comes to android life. Is an android who looks, acts and behaves like a human deserving of a life in servitude and abuse? I enjoyed this crazy story and it is certainly one I will think on.
*At the heart of the story is Eliot Lazar. Eliot isn't the most likable character. He has a drug problem, and he is engaged in a forbidden love affair with a robot. Yet, when it comes to his business dealings, Eliot always tries to do what is right for the androids. When the android he loves is stolen and chopped up into parts, Eliot questions how far he is willing to go to retrieve her and put her back together, not knowing the dark road he will head down. Of course, with each part, Eliot must evaluate his moral compass. Is one android's life superior over another? It is right to kill another android to retrieve the parts that belong to a different android? Is a human life worth more than that of an android? Do humans have the right to kill androids at will? Eliot finds himself faced with all these tough questions and more, and the further he goes the more he loses sight of his beliefs. It was a tough journey with Eliot, and sometimes I admired his choices and at other times I cringed. In the end, I am not sure how I feel about everything, but I do know that this book made me think every step of the way.
*The world building was well done. I thought the author did a good job building a modern world plagued by an ongoing war with the androids due to humans trying to dominate and control androids. The cities are polluted and the humans are drug addicts all thanks to the androids. It is a world where heartbeats rule and androids are used and abused. It is a terrifying and frightening world, and I honestly found myself wavering as to who was right and who was wrong when it came to androids vs. humans.
*The audiobook version is fantastically done. Luke Daniels narrates, and without a doubt, he remains one of my all time favorite narrators. I always appreciate Luke's voices. His voice is amazing, and I will listen to almost everything he narrates.
And The Not So Much:
*The end was open and a cliffhanger. After all the turmoil and upheaval, just when Eliot as at the pivotal moment and everything is in the balance, it ends with no resolution. Not to mention, the author threw in a few more huge stumbling blocks, leaving me wondering if a happy ending was even possible. I was left grasping for more. Why oh why did he have to end it like that? Is there another book, because it sure feels like there is so much more story to tell.
*This book is a bit dark and depressing with heavy moral implications. It isn't an easy read and it requires patience. Even though it is far outside my comfort zone, I am glad I took a chance, because this is a book that will stick with me for a long time. If you can handle violence and a dark story line, take a chance and try this, I would recommend it on audio.
*I never had a firm grasp on how the androids were brought to life. There is the whole idea of an aura and personality and it seemed that the robot's personality wasn't all due to programming. The author needed to expand upon this part of the story, because as it stood, it seemed that the robots weren't all machine, they seemed to have a life spark beyond the machine.
Love in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction was a fascinating and dark read with many moral and philosophical ideas to muse over. I enjoyed the story line, and I liked thinking on all the ideas the author presented. I was disappointed though in the open/ cliffhanger ending. I hope there will be more story down the road because I want to know Eliot's fate.
I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own and I was not compensated for this review.
Posted@Rainy Day Ramblings.
February 14, 2015
This novel was everything I was hoping it would be- a dark love story of the lengths people can go for love and how sadly racism will always exist in one form or another. While not technically biopunk like Jeffrey Thomas's Punktown, this novel feels and lives in the grimy brutality and disturbing worlds of biopunk while still eschewing closely to cyberpunk.
There is just so much going on here as our main character searches for the stolen parts of the robot he loves in the hopes that if he finds them all and puts them back together, the woman he loves will still be the same as she was before she was torn apart. There's just so much sad truth here- about society, about humanity, about hubris, desperation and blindness that I just became entranced by this world.
The only drawback is that while it is explained a bit how the world got to be the way it is, there still wasn't enough depth to the world to get a clear picture. I felt more as an onlooker looking at a piece of art rather than being in the moment. Still this one is all about the characters and it just really excels in that department.
There is just so much going on here as our main character searches for the stolen parts of the robot he loves in the hopes that if he finds them all and puts them back together, the woman he loves will still be the same as she was before she was torn apart. There's just so much sad truth here- about society, about humanity, about hubris, desperation and blindness that I just became entranced by this world.
The only drawback is that while it is explained a bit how the world got to be the way it is, there still wasn't enough depth to the world to get a clear picture. I felt more as an onlooker looking at a piece of art rather than being in the moment. Still this one is all about the characters and it just really excels in that department.
February 3, 2015
This was such a depressing robot story. Eliot may have a noble and sad quest trying to collect the pieces of his missing robot girlfriend, but his “ends justify the means” attitude was not very pleasant.
Due to his attitude, Eliot himself is not a very likable character. His drug addiction doesn’t help his case, no matter how sympathetic he is to the robot discrimination that permeates his world. The fact that he doesn’t care what he needs to do in order to put Iris back together is not noble, and some of the actual actions he takes are almost despicable.
The feel of the world and setting were quite well developed, and my intense dislike of Eliot is probably a good indication of writing quality, but it’s hard to like a book when you dislike the main character. While I can commend the writing and putting together of the book, the story itself was not for me.
Due to his attitude, Eliot himself is not a very likable character. His drug addiction doesn’t help his case, no matter how sympathetic he is to the robot discrimination that permeates his world. The fact that he doesn’t care what he needs to do in order to put Iris back together is not noble, and some of the actual actions he takes are almost despicable.
The feel of the world and setting were quite well developed, and my intense dislike of Eliot is probably a good indication of writing quality, but it’s hard to like a book when you dislike the main character. While I can commend the writing and putting together of the book, the story itself was not for me.
February 25, 2015
Too many questions after finished reading this novel
1. Why androids could feel actual pain
2. Why the android who caught by the police was interrogated with the ancient method of law and order. Why not just hacked his memory drive for information?
3. How can android's hardware made of metal can be exposed to the virus and not the software?
4. Etc
and the ending???? just like that??
1. Why androids could feel actual pain
2. Why the android who caught by the police was interrogated with the ancient method of law and order. Why not just hacked his memory drive for information?
3. How can android's hardware made of metal can be exposed to the virus and not the software?
4. Etc
and the ending???? just like that??
February 20, 2015
Head over to the HEA blog to check out an interview with the narrator :)
http://www.usatoday.com/story/happyev...
http://www.usatoday.com/story/happyev...
February 26, 2016
Jesus Christ, was this book hard to read. I took about a month long break with ~100 pages left and finally decided that I should force my way to the end of this book, lest the mystery remain unsolved.
Every character in this book is unlikable and the story is lackluster. It's played off as murder-mystery/seek-and-find when in reality the mystery is solved less than a quarter of the way through the book. The rest of the story is just Eliot going from place to place collecting Iris' pieces with hardly any resistance. I take that back: he faces resistance, but always manages to schmooze or punch his way out of it with the next body part in hand.
I really wanted to like this book, truly I did. But it seemed as though the author made the beginning and the end moderately interesting and then when it came time to write the middle he ran out of steam.
All in all, this book was OK. I think Judd Trichter has potential as an author, but his first swing at it did not impress.
Every character in this book is unlikable and the story is lackluster. It's played off as murder-mystery/seek-and-find when in reality the mystery is solved less than a quarter of the way through the book. The rest of the story is just Eliot going from place to place collecting Iris' pieces with hardly any resistance. I take that back: he faces resistance, but always manages to schmooze or punch his way out of it with the next body part in hand.
I really wanted to like this book, truly I did. But it seemed as though the author made the beginning and the end moderately interesting and then when it came time to write the middle he ran out of steam.
All in all, this book was OK. I think Judd Trichter has potential as an author, but his first swing at it did not impress.
March 25, 2015
At its spine this is a golden fleece story set in the noir dystopian ghost of Los Angeles future. Around that spine Trichter coils steel threads of insight on race, labor, consumerism, media, politics, family, love, sex, addiction, police work and prizefighting. Trichter has a lot to say but it rarely feels like a lecture, just a very messy world we hurtle through while he points out the most fucked up features along the way. The result is a fast paced thriller that makes you laugh, think and feel more than a little afraid. If you want a satisfying victory and moral redemption tied in a little bow, well, too bad. Trichter knows it can't be that easy for his characters or the reader. You'll feel confilcted to the end, but when you're finished you'll be sure you just read a damn fine book.
December 2, 2015
The premise of this book was very intriguing to me, and reminded me of the film 'Ex Machina' which I just recently watched and really enjoyed. Unfortunately the narrative was kind of all over the place, and I found it difficult to get invested in the characters or the story line. The author does a good job building up this world, and I liked some of the words he made up for things, but I could never really tell where the story was going. The connection between the main character and the robot he was in love with, Iris, was not developed enough in the beginning to get me to care what had actually happened to her. I am sure others will like this novel, but the mystery/noir style of it did not work for me. The idea for this novel has a lot of promise, unfortunately it just does not deliver in my opinion.
March 10, 2015
Before writing my review, I decided to look at a few of the others and I found a few people questioning the "science" of the robots. While this book is certainly science fiction, it is first and foremost a hero's journey through a future world and this is where the author, Judd Trichter succeeds.
The world we explore is Los Angeles, a city I happen to live in, but a city that is both familiar and alien in this future dystopian world. More importantly, it's not about the science, it's about the mythic journey of our hero's quest. We have, in this book, a new mythology as Eliot Lazar (our protagonist) begins his private odyssey. But whereas, Odysseus fights epic monsters in his attempt to return home and reunite with his wife, Eliot Lazar, is trying to leave home. He's in love with a robot in a world where robots are second class citizens; objects to be owned, not loved. After being caught by a trapper, someone who captures robots and sells off their parts, Lazar embarks on his own Odyssey through the city and the southwest encountering new mythic monsters, both human and robotic as he attempts to rebuild his love so they can sail off into the sunset, to a new world where he hopes their love with be accepted. Does he get there? Does anyone?
"Love in the Age..." serves as a futuristic philosophical exploration in mythic storytelling. These aren't Asimov's robots and they aren't logical. Instead, they are a mirror of our own humanity and inhumanity. It's a journey worth exploring.
The world we explore is Los Angeles, a city I happen to live in, but a city that is both familiar and alien in this future dystopian world. More importantly, it's not about the science, it's about the mythic journey of our hero's quest. We have, in this book, a new mythology as Eliot Lazar (our protagonist) begins his private odyssey. But whereas, Odysseus fights epic monsters in his attempt to return home and reunite with his wife, Eliot Lazar, is trying to leave home. He's in love with a robot in a world where robots are second class citizens; objects to be owned, not loved. After being caught by a trapper, someone who captures robots and sells off their parts, Lazar embarks on his own Odyssey through the city and the southwest encountering new mythic monsters, both human and robotic as he attempts to rebuild his love so they can sail off into the sunset, to a new world where he hopes their love with be accepted. Does he get there? Does anyone?
"Love in the Age..." serves as a futuristic philosophical exploration in mythic storytelling. These aren't Asimov's robots and they aren't logical. Instead, they are a mirror of our own humanity and inhumanity. It's a journey worth exploring.
December 26, 2019
This book would make a terrific action science fiction film, in the style and genre of The Fifth Element or Blade Runner.
This was tense, pulpy, and a bit dark. The protagonist's devotion to his illicit relationship with his bot girlfriend leads him to some shattering conflicts. If bots are now sentient, and able to be manufactured by other bots as well as humans, what's the new nature of society? Who has rights? Who's "real" and deserving of dignity? What is murder when bot parts can be put back together again, or even chopped out to other bots? Is human DNA sacred, or obsolete?
This book features a few great, sympathetic characters, balancing largely for the many filler ones, even those supporting the main character... Shelley in particular seemed to go along for the ride much more enthusiastically than was realistic. Detective Flaubert is a dusty, vintage noir character and his introduction of the Orpheus myth added depth and richness of meaning to the tale's sordid plot. Eliot is all too human, despite his mechanical arm, and his struggles of conscience are deep. Some of the depictions of street bots are quite cringey -- namely the crass drug-peddling Cuban style Kindelans and the "Jew bot" Blumenthal. The distaste is intentional to the story, but the generalizations are insensitive.
Overall I was pleasantly surprised by this one. It has lots of classic sci-fi tropes, but is engaging and originally framed.
This was tense, pulpy, and a bit dark. The protagonist's devotion to his illicit relationship with his bot girlfriend leads him to some shattering conflicts. If bots are now sentient, and able to be manufactured by other bots as well as humans, what's the new nature of society? Who has rights? Who's "real" and deserving of dignity? What is murder when bot parts can be put back together again, or even chopped out to other bots? Is human DNA sacred, or obsolete?
This book features a few great, sympathetic characters, balancing largely for the many filler ones, even those supporting the main character... Shelley in particular seemed to go along for the ride much more enthusiastically than was realistic. Detective Flaubert is a dusty, vintage noir character and his introduction of the Orpheus myth added depth and richness of meaning to the tale's sordid plot. Eliot is all too human, despite his mechanical arm, and his struggles of conscience are deep. Some of the depictions of street bots are quite cringey -- namely the crass drug-peddling Cuban style Kindelans and the "Jew bot" Blumenthal. The distaste is intentional to the story, but the generalizations are insensitive.
Overall I was pleasantly surprised by this one. It has lots of classic sci-fi tropes, but is engaging and originally framed.
June 26, 2015
I’ve been wanting to review this book for such a long time I just haven’t had the time until now. Yay. I’m going to try to keep this short (meaning gifs will not be used :( oh well.)
Considering I don’t really read adult novels, just because I don’t like to, I am really glad I won the ARC from the Goodreads giveaway because I can honestly say tat I loved this book. I took forever in reading it because I had already decided in my mind that it was going to be bad, since it was an adult book, but in fact it was the opposite. Eliot, the main character, and his actions always kept me on the edge of my seat. When I thought I had him figured out, he completely took me by surprise when he did something that I had not thought he would do. I also like how he basically sacrificed everything in order to get back the girl/robot he loved. I had expected this to be a book about the forbidden love between a man and a woman robot but it was so much more than that. It was about a man finding himself while on a “quest” to recover his loved one, and in the end he is not so sure if his loved one was really who he thought she was. This book has in a way convinced me to read other adult book but only in the dystopia genre.
Considering I don’t really read adult novels, just because I don’t like to, I am really glad I won the ARC from the Goodreads giveaway because I can honestly say tat I loved this book. I took forever in reading it because I had already decided in my mind that it was going to be bad, since it was an adult book, but in fact it was the opposite. Eliot, the main character, and his actions always kept me on the edge of my seat. When I thought I had him figured out, he completely took me by surprise when he did something that I had not thought he would do. I also like how he basically sacrificed everything in order to get back the girl/robot he loved. I had expected this to be a book about the forbidden love between a man and a woman robot but it was so much more than that. It was about a man finding himself while on a “quest” to recover his loved one, and in the end he is not so sure if his loved one was really who he thought she was. This book has in a way convinced me to read other adult book but only in the dystopia genre.
March 16, 2015
I very much enjoyed the premise of this book. However it wasn't well-paced or crafted. The characters were flat and unremarkable, and the story didn't seem able to decide if it was a dystopic thriller, a love story, a commentary on the ills of too much reliance on machines, or a combination. Instead it jumped from one attitude to another about its own purpose and wrapped up unsatisfactorily in a manner of a few paragraphs. This book would be a great first draft but isn't much of a final product.
May 6, 2015
This was almost a 5 star book. It had many things going for it: futuristic L.A. on the brink of social breakdown, a conflicted protagonist that is still sympathetic, and interesting perspectives on humanity/science/our future. I knocked off a star because this is a sci-fi book about androids, and the sci-fi element was decidedly weak at times (e.g. it makes *no sense at all* for an android's personality to be determined by her individual parts; what happens when she needs repairs?). Shortcomings aside, I definitely recommend this book.
February 14, 2015
Written by an old classmate so I figured I'd give it a try. Could not put it down—I read it all in one sitting! Judd creates a highly original and, sadly, all-too-believable futuristic society. I empathized with the protagonist's plight and yet struggled, as he does, with the moral implications of his actions.
March 14, 2015
I stand behind my book.
November 13, 2015
Terrible book... for many reasons.
April 20, 2019
There are books that you love to read. And there are books that take you on such a whirlwind ride, exploring difficult and contentious issues with characters that are flawed, sometimes unlikeable, that offer no easy answers to the moral quandaries they pose. 'Love' isn't quite the word I'd use to describe my feelings about this book. But 'blown away' definitely comes to mind.
I couldn't believe this was a debut. Trichter creates a convincing and horrific world - a near future L.A. that's painfully believable. From the politics of humans versus androids, to the cough that all humans start to suffer from as the polluted air builds up in their lungs, to the vices of a future where android women can literally play out any fantasy - it was like Trichter had a time machine and popped forwards a few decades, bringing back a wealth of experience to draw into his story. Yes, he does resort to the occasional info-dump, but honestly I didn't even care, because the material was so interesting.
And the characters were great too. I really liked how they all played off each other. Eliot the 'hero' with his missing lover he'd do anything to find has the kind of one sided morality that allows him to convince himself that he's doing the right thing. He likes bots and wants to save his bot lover, but he'll spout the anti-bot vitriol when it suits his purpose. For every move that makes him seem the dashing hero, he pulls another that makes him look selfish. He's complex and flawed, and I still couldn't decide if I liked him or not even as the credits started rolling on the audiobook.
The story explores a lot of themes that are relevant to current affairs - taken to extremes and blown up in a way that takes the reader to what could be viewed as the inevitable conclusion of things we do now that are just 'harmless fun.' In particular, the objectification of women is rife in the story. A character asks a robot to swap heads with another to better serve his sexual gratification. She's just a robot... Well, in certain parts of the world women are not held in much higher esteem. It's uncomfortable reading at times, but really makes you think hard about the world we live in today.
Trichter makes lots of reference to the story of Orpheus and Eurydice throughout the book - the lovers of ancient Greece with a tragic end. It's interesting, because Eliot and Iris' story becomes a sort of parable or cautionary tale in itself. It's difficult to explain what I mean without spoiling, but the Epilogue raises some questions that really got me thinking about the whole story in a new light - cleverly leaving readers with something to chew over for the days to come.
The narration of the audiobook is fantastic. Luke Daniels is one of the best narrators I've had the pleasure of listening to. With a challenging range of accents to deal with, as well as the cough older characters develop, there was a lot to challenge a reader, and Daniels performed everything brilliantly.
It's not a perfect book, no book ever is, but it was such a thought provoking, interesting and unique read, that it definitely gets the full five stars from me. I'd recommend it to any sci-fi fan without hesitation.
I couldn't believe this was a debut. Trichter creates a convincing and horrific world - a near future L.A. that's painfully believable. From the politics of humans versus androids, to the cough that all humans start to suffer from as the polluted air builds up in their lungs, to the vices of a future where android women can literally play out any fantasy - it was like Trichter had a time machine and popped forwards a few decades, bringing back a wealth of experience to draw into his story. Yes, he does resort to the occasional info-dump, but honestly I didn't even care, because the material was so interesting.
And the characters were great too. I really liked how they all played off each other. Eliot the 'hero' with his missing lover he'd do anything to find has the kind of one sided morality that allows him to convince himself that he's doing the right thing. He likes bots and wants to save his bot lover, but he'll spout the anti-bot vitriol when it suits his purpose. For every move that makes him seem the dashing hero, he pulls another that makes him look selfish. He's complex and flawed, and I still couldn't decide if I liked him or not even as the credits started rolling on the audiobook.
The story explores a lot of themes that are relevant to current affairs - taken to extremes and blown up in a way that takes the reader to what could be viewed as the inevitable conclusion of things we do now that are just 'harmless fun.' In particular, the objectification of women is rife in the story. A character asks a robot to swap heads with another to better serve his sexual gratification. She's just a robot... Well, in certain parts of the world women are not held in much higher esteem. It's uncomfortable reading at times, but really makes you think hard about the world we live in today.
Trichter makes lots of reference to the story of Orpheus and Eurydice throughout the book - the lovers of ancient Greece with a tragic end. It's interesting, because Eliot and Iris' story becomes a sort of parable or cautionary tale in itself. It's difficult to explain what I mean without spoiling, but the Epilogue raises some questions that really got me thinking about the whole story in a new light - cleverly leaving readers with something to chew over for the days to come.
The narration of the audiobook is fantastic. Luke Daniels is one of the best narrators I've had the pleasure of listening to. With a challenging range of accents to deal with, as well as the cough older characters develop, there was a lot to challenge a reader, and Daniels performed everything brilliantly.
It's not a perfect book, no book ever is, but it was such a thought provoking, interesting and unique read, that it definitely gets the full five stars from me. I'd recommend it to any sci-fi fan without hesitation.
March 13, 2015
"Eliot’s father built androids; the son will rebuild them, or at least he'll rebuild this one as best he can. With whatever parts he can recover."
Eliot's android girlfriend is kidnapped and dismembered, her parts sold off to various places. This is completely legal since Iris didn't belong to anyone - she was a free agent - and the police only concern themselves with wrongs against "heartbeats", not bots. So Eliot becomes obsessed with finding all her parts and getting his girlfriend back.
I decided to read this book based on how much I liked the cover art and despite everything in the description and title. Who can say they have ever judged a book by its cover to such an extent? I've never read anything or been compelled to read anything involving androids and I really do dislike romantic themes. But this is not a romantic book (as I would define romance) and personally I've never encountered androids quite like this. The android girlfriend is barely in a few scenes and the rest of the time our protagonist is obsessed with finding her - her parts that is - even though he has the doubts we all have about love no matter how infatuated we may be.
"... did she lie to rush me into finding a boat? Did I ever want to leave this world and live on a tropical island before I met her, or did she plant the seed within me and water it until it grew? Whose life am I living, whose dreams and desires am I risking everything to fulfill?"
But Eliot's love of Iris is greatly overshadowed by the all the action unfolding in the plot. If you are looking for romance you're in the wrong place. If you're looking for shiny, innocent androids following Asimov's rules you are also in the wrong place. If you're looking for seedy characters and plenty of action and cringe factor, welcome to Love in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction by Judd Trichter.
Eliot is a prime example of something people have been talking about in book circles; that characters don't have to be relatable or likable to be great characters. He's an addict, is inactive or apathetic in the face of depravity, and is constantly making excuses for himself, but only to himself because nobody else seems to care. This is a world apparently devoid of enlightened minds, or at least, those who think with compassion and hope have been killed, exiled, and pushed into corners. Eliot's oftentimes sidekick is his older brother; a man who is perfectly thrilled to live in a city constantly threatened by android versus human terrorism, polluted to the point of universal toxicity, and overflowing with debauchery and corruption. Despite his brother being part of the big-picture problem, he is loyal to Eliot and will stand by him in his dangerous escapades. These are complex characters and it makes for excellent plot development.
As Eliot is sucked further and further into the ugliest parts of a completely fucked up and, well, ultimately fucked city he constantly has to reason out his own personal moral choices. In fact, the main theme of the entire story is morality. Where does one draw the line? At one point he asks himself, "... how could this happen? How could a goal so noble come to this? How could a love I felt for another turn me into this?"
And ...
“I fucked up,” says Eliot.
“Only by your own terms.”
“What other terms are there?”
The story always goes back to this rough philosophising over good intentions and the value of the lives of two equally sentient species, one biological, the other synthetic. Eliot usually ends up doing what could be loosely said to be the right thing but he doesn't usually get a happy ending out of anything he does. The collateral damage takes its toll on him.
A side note about the author and creation of this story - this was in the acknowledgements:
"A couple of years ago, I was incapacitated by a painful injury in my lower back. Thankfully, my mother was kind enough to fly out to Los Angeles and look after me for the months it would take to recover. While bedridden, when I was unable even to pick up my head and see the screen on my laptop as it rested on my stomach, I somehow, through a fog of painkillers, typed out the first few drafts of this story. Without my mother’s help, I never would have been able to manage the ordeal of my injury let alone write a novel during that time."
As someone who is disabled- well, I won't go into it too much but I took heart when reading this bit of information. It certainly endeared me to the author's efforts.
And so, I have but a few criticisms on this novel. Sometimes the world building seemed a bit sloppy and confusing, and I have a dislike of future worlds having a sort of cut and paste of present-day society's woes when it is supposed to be a hundred years into the future. By then, society will have changed in ways we can't predict. Why not show more creativity in that area?
And finally, I just want to include this sentence which kept echoing in my mind as I read the last ten percent of the story...
Eliot's android girlfriend is kidnapped and dismembered, her parts sold off to various places. This is completely legal since Iris didn't belong to anyone - she was a free agent - and the police only concern themselves with wrongs against "heartbeats", not bots. So Eliot becomes obsessed with finding all her parts and getting his girlfriend back.
I decided to read this book based on how much I liked the cover art and despite everything in the description and title. Who can say they have ever judged a book by its cover to such an extent? I've never read anything or been compelled to read anything involving androids and I really do dislike romantic themes. But this is not a romantic book (as I would define romance) and personally I've never encountered androids quite like this. The android girlfriend is barely in a few scenes and the rest of the time our protagonist is obsessed with finding her - her parts that is - even though he has the doubts we all have about love no matter how infatuated we may be.
"... did she lie to rush me into finding a boat? Did I ever want to leave this world and live on a tropical island before I met her, or did she plant the seed within me and water it until it grew? Whose life am I living, whose dreams and desires am I risking everything to fulfill?"
But Eliot's love of Iris is greatly overshadowed by the all the action unfolding in the plot. If you are looking for romance you're in the wrong place. If you're looking for shiny, innocent androids following Asimov's rules you are also in the wrong place. If you're looking for seedy characters and plenty of action and cringe factor, welcome to Love in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction by Judd Trichter.
Eliot is a prime example of something people have been talking about in book circles; that characters don't have to be relatable or likable to be great characters. He's an addict, is inactive or apathetic in the face of depravity, and is constantly making excuses for himself, but only to himself because nobody else seems to care. This is a world apparently devoid of enlightened minds, or at least, those who think with compassion and hope have been killed, exiled, and pushed into corners. Eliot's oftentimes sidekick is his older brother; a man who is perfectly thrilled to live in a city constantly threatened by android versus human terrorism, polluted to the point of universal toxicity, and overflowing with debauchery and corruption. Despite his brother being part of the big-picture problem, he is loyal to Eliot and will stand by him in his dangerous escapades. These are complex characters and it makes for excellent plot development.
As Eliot is sucked further and further into the ugliest parts of a completely fucked up and, well, ultimately fucked city he constantly has to reason out his own personal moral choices. In fact, the main theme of the entire story is morality. Where does one draw the line? At one point he asks himself, "... how could this happen? How could a goal so noble come to this? How could a love I felt for another turn me into this?"
And ...
“I fucked up,” says Eliot.
“Only by your own terms.”
“What other terms are there?”
The story always goes back to this rough philosophising over good intentions and the value of the lives of two equally sentient species, one biological, the other synthetic. Eliot usually ends up doing what could be loosely said to be the right thing but he doesn't usually get a happy ending out of anything he does. The collateral damage takes its toll on him.
A side note about the author and creation of this story - this was in the acknowledgements:
"A couple of years ago, I was incapacitated by a painful injury in my lower back. Thankfully, my mother was kind enough to fly out to Los Angeles and look after me for the months it would take to recover. While bedridden, when I was unable even to pick up my head and see the screen on my laptop as it rested on my stomach, I somehow, through a fog of painkillers, typed out the first few drafts of this story. Without my mother’s help, I never would have been able to manage the ordeal of my injury let alone write a novel during that time."
As someone who is disabled- well, I won't go into it too much but I took heart when reading this bit of information. It certainly endeared me to the author's efforts.
And so, I have but a few criticisms on this novel. Sometimes the world building seemed a bit sloppy and confusing, and I have a dislike of future worlds having a sort of cut and paste of present-day society's woes when it is supposed to be a hundred years into the future. By then, society will have changed in ways we can't predict. Why not show more creativity in that area?
And finally, I just want to include this sentence which kept echoing in my mind as I read the last ten percent of the story...
April 21, 2015
A few decades into the future, the mass production of androids has revolutionized the world. They do manual labor, creative work, pretty much everything short of management. They have virtually no rights. Bot/human tensions are high; bot/human relationships tend to be a death sentence for both parties. Against this backdrop a so-called "spinner" is kidnapped, dismembered, and sold as spare parts. Her human boyfriend scours the state for her components in a longshot attempt at reconstituting her.
The world and history Trichter has assembled was fascinating, the high point of the book. In short, the android revolution came about suddenly; a massive recession results from the abundance of cheap labor; the predictably brutal exploitation of that labor leads to great social unrest; tribalism and systematic dehumanization provoke a cataclysmic "race" war between bots and people.
The characters were fairly well drawn. The hero is a limp, drug-addicted corporate salesman, driven by love to greater acts of clumsy courage than he'd normally be capable of. He compares himself repeatedly to Orpheus (and if you're a book that wants to get on my good side, DO incorporate Greek mythology). His bluff blowhard brother rings true. They're pursued by an exhausted, dying detective who's somehow both an idealist and a realist. He pulls it off.
That's where the good stuff ends. While the historical events hold together well, internal logic and plausibility take a holiday for the duration of the protagonist's story.
The action bits are routinely awful. In one instance,
The protagonist keeps finding himself stuck with potentially interesting moral dilemmas () only to be saved by lucky happenstance ()
Trichter contrives a succession of situations that allow him to shine a light on aspects of real-world systematic oppression. There's an android recycling plant where the need for profit drives horrific working conditions. An anti-bot activist making a torture/snuff film. A blind, sexless bot model driven by her prospects to suicide. Wretched, bottom-rung android prostitution. Bot coyotes who take advantage of the desperate spinners who come to them for help. If he had anything original to say it might be interesting but it came off cumbersome and simple.
And in creating a world full of deconstructible racial injustice, the author makes up whatever rules of law or physiology or psychology are convenient to his immediate point. Limbs that are sawn off can be easily reattached, though at other times doing so requires ports and tools and locking mechanisms. Androids are almost universally sexual--and in pretty vanilla human fashion--even though they can't get pregnant or catch STDs. They have no childhood or altricial period, their parts (even heads?!) are interchangeable and easily removed, and instead of being motivated by survival and reproduction they're simply driven to stay powered up. Yet in the book they're virtually identical to humans, psychologically and behaviorally. They love, fear, hope, get high, get laid; they're brave, cowardly, short-sighted, visionary, enraged by social injustice, indifferent to social injustice. It's senseless. Trichter missed a huge opportunity to imagine a culture that would necessarily be vastly different from those of humans.
The world and history Trichter has assembled was fascinating, the high point of the book. In short, the android revolution came about suddenly; a massive recession results from the abundance of cheap labor; the predictably brutal exploitation of that labor leads to great social unrest; tribalism and systematic dehumanization provoke a cataclysmic "race" war between bots and people.
The characters were fairly well drawn. The hero is a limp, drug-addicted corporate salesman, driven by love to greater acts of clumsy courage than he'd normally be capable of. He compares himself repeatedly to Orpheus (and if you're a book that wants to get on my good side, DO incorporate Greek mythology). His bluff blowhard brother rings true. They're pursued by an exhausted, dying detective who's somehow both an idealist and a realist. He pulls it off.
That's where the good stuff ends. While the historical events hold together well, internal logic and plausibility take a holiday for the duration of the protagonist's story.
The action bits are routinely awful. In one instance,
The protagonist keeps finding himself stuck with potentially interesting moral dilemmas () only to be saved by lucky happenstance ()
Trichter contrives a succession of situations that allow him to shine a light on aspects of real-world systematic oppression. There's an android recycling plant where the need for profit drives horrific working conditions. An anti-bot activist making a torture/snuff film. A blind, sexless bot model driven by her prospects to suicide. Wretched, bottom-rung android prostitution. Bot coyotes who take advantage of the desperate spinners who come to them for help. If he had anything original to say it might be interesting but it came off cumbersome and simple.
And in creating a world full of deconstructible racial injustice, the author makes up whatever rules of law or physiology or psychology are convenient to his immediate point. Limbs that are sawn off can be easily reattached, though at other times doing so requires ports and tools and locking mechanisms. Androids are almost universally sexual--and in pretty vanilla human fashion--even though they can't get pregnant or catch STDs. They have no childhood or altricial period, their parts (even heads?!) are interchangeable and easily removed, and instead of being motivated by survival and reproduction they're simply driven to stay powered up. Yet in the book they're virtually identical to humans, psychologically and behaviorally. They love, fear, hope, get high, get laid; they're brave, cowardly, short-sighted, visionary, enraged by social injustice, indifferent to social injustice. It's senseless. Trichter missed a huge opportunity to imagine a culture that would necessarily be vastly different from those of humans.
March 7, 2015
Love sucks, love sucks hard, especially when you're in love with a robot in a society that disdains such feelings. Such is the premise of Love in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Now I picked this up off the cover alone and, while the adage may hold true for some books, this book's cover lived up to its contents.
On its own, the plot seems to be a bit thin. Love? Robots? That's it? Really? Oh, but no it is not it, there's so much more! The world building, or future building I suppose it would be, that Judd Trichter does is phenomenal, and more than a little scary with how plausible it all is. We all know robots and machines are taking over, but Trichter takes it a step forward and a bit to the side and gives them sentience and free will. Only, they're second class citizens, property. Now if that doesn't stir your knickers, add to the fact that it's just far enough in the future that they're starting to realize that they don't want this and, shit, these meat bags shouldn't control us! Ah yes, now we're talking, love, robots, REVOLUTION! Trichter does a hell of a job balancing these mighty themes (all of which have been entire genres all by themselves) and gives the story enough focus to really move you. Who of us hasn't been in love? Who of us hasn't lost our loved ones? But yet, if given the option, who of us wouldn't do anything and everything to get that love back, even if it meant doing the worst of the worst? With this very human element, Trichter gives us a wonderful story, full of memorable characters, insane situations, and more than a little food for thought.
The only real gripe I had with the book, and I hesitate to even call it a gripe, was a single piece of technology that was extremely prevalent in Trichters future. No, not the robots either. It was something called a brain, at first it seemed that this brain was merely a clever name for the future cell phones, but as the book goes on, we learn that it is in nearly everything. Instead of a newspaper, a newsbrain, instead of a tv, a video brain, on and on everything that could possibly have a screen (and plenty of stuff that didn't) was a brain! It got a bit tiresome, but not nearly enough to make the book less enjoyable.
Bottom line folks, go get this. If you're into sci fi, robots, love, hell if you're just into a good story with well done characters, this book is for you. Those of you with your eyes on the future, tomorrows Elon Musks, it may be worth paying heed to some of the philosophical and moral points that Trichter brings up here, cause sooner or later, we will have to answer some of these questions.
On its own, the plot seems to be a bit thin. Love? Robots? That's it? Really? Oh, but no it is not it, there's so much more! The world building, or future building I suppose it would be, that Judd Trichter does is phenomenal, and more than a little scary with how plausible it all is. We all know robots and machines are taking over, but Trichter takes it a step forward and a bit to the side and gives them sentience and free will. Only, they're second class citizens, property. Now if that doesn't stir your knickers, add to the fact that it's just far enough in the future that they're starting to realize that they don't want this and, shit, these meat bags shouldn't control us! Ah yes, now we're talking, love, robots, REVOLUTION! Trichter does a hell of a job balancing these mighty themes (all of which have been entire genres all by themselves) and gives the story enough focus to really move you. Who of us hasn't been in love? Who of us hasn't lost our loved ones? But yet, if given the option, who of us wouldn't do anything and everything to get that love back, even if it meant doing the worst of the worst? With this very human element, Trichter gives us a wonderful story, full of memorable characters, insane situations, and more than a little food for thought.
The only real gripe I had with the book, and I hesitate to even call it a gripe, was a single piece of technology that was extremely prevalent in Trichters future. No, not the robots either. It was something called a brain, at first it seemed that this brain was merely a clever name for the future cell phones, but as the book goes on, we learn that it is in nearly everything. Instead of a newspaper, a newsbrain, instead of a tv, a video brain, on and on everything that could possibly have a screen (and plenty of stuff that didn't) was a brain! It got a bit tiresome, but not nearly enough to make the book less enjoyable.
Bottom line folks, go get this. If you're into sci fi, robots, love, hell if you're just into a good story with well done characters, this book is for you. Those of you with your eyes on the future, tomorrows Elon Musks, it may be worth paying heed to some of the philosophical and moral points that Trichter brings up here, cause sooner or later, we will have to answer some of these questions.
July 14, 2018
Neat concept, horrible follow through. I'd actually give it a 1.5 because while I didn't hate it outright, by the end of it I knew I'd be disappointed regardless.
This is basically a kill fest full of sexism and racism that screams first book syndrome to me. I'm not sure if this is the case but while the pacing moves the reader through the book quickly, the payoff is just not there. It's got this great science fiction/"noir" styled mystery of the main character trying to find his girlfriend (a robot)'s parts after she's attacked, piecing together both a mystery of who she actually was, identity, and self worth.
The concepts in this book are amazing - but it almost feels like too much crammed into a book that doesn't know what it wants to be. It's not quite a love story, though there's implications of it, but not really a mystery either. While it's more of a "how far will you go for love" sort of book - there's this level of ultra violence around almost every turn and while the main character is an unlikable, selfish prick with tunnel vision, you still root for him a bit to manage to get to the end.
Of course, the book leaves you with more questions than answers regarding everything that's happened throughout the storyline, since the main character is unreliable, but I was dissatisfied with it on a whole. The character I was the most interested in was the girlfriend, but even at the end you get basically no resolution to anything regarding her. It fizzles out or purposely does this for a sequel, but the rest of the book left a bad taste in my mouth regarding stereotypical representations of race and gender. Sexist and racist behavior within the world and characters makes sense for how hostile it is, but I personally found it very off putting.
I finished the book because I wanted to see if the main character made it - so that's a success there, but I don't know if I'd read another if this turned into a series. The pace of the book read like an action flick, which was fun, but there's so many unanswered questions regarding everything else that I'm kind of left feeling empty even experiencing it. I could see this adapted for TV but even then it felt a lot of times like shock factor and after awhile I got desensitized to it. The violence was essentially constant that by the time the book was done I didn't care who was harmed or not. I'm not sure if that's intended but it isn't something I could recommend to others. Especially with his horrible depictions of women, gay men, transgenders, and basically being a shitty human being all around.
I'd skip it if I were you.
This is basically a kill fest full of sexism and racism that screams first book syndrome to me. I'm not sure if this is the case but while the pacing moves the reader through the book quickly, the payoff is just not there. It's got this great science fiction/"noir" styled mystery of the main character trying to find his girlfriend (a robot)'s parts after she's attacked, piecing together both a mystery of who she actually was, identity, and self worth.
The concepts in this book are amazing - but it almost feels like too much crammed into a book that doesn't know what it wants to be. It's not quite a love story, though there's implications of it, but not really a mystery either. While it's more of a "how far will you go for love" sort of book - there's this level of ultra violence around almost every turn and while the main character is an unlikable, selfish prick with tunnel vision, you still root for him a bit to manage to get to the end.
Of course, the book leaves you with more questions than answers regarding everything that's happened throughout the storyline, since the main character is unreliable, but I was dissatisfied with it on a whole. The character I was the most interested in was the girlfriend, but even at the end you get basically no resolution to anything regarding her. It fizzles out or purposely does this for a sequel, but the rest of the book left a bad taste in my mouth regarding stereotypical representations of race and gender. Sexist and racist behavior within the world and characters makes sense for how hostile it is, but I personally found it very off putting.
I finished the book because I wanted to see if the main character made it - so that's a success there, but I don't know if I'd read another if this turned into a series. The pace of the book read like an action flick, which was fun, but there's so many unanswered questions regarding everything else that I'm kind of left feeling empty even experiencing it. I could see this adapted for TV but even then it felt a lot of times like shock factor and after awhile I got desensitized to it. The violence was essentially constant that by the time the book was done I didn't care who was harmed or not. I'm not sure if that's intended but it isn't something I could recommend to others. Especially with his horrible depictions of women, gay men, transgenders, and basically being a shitty human being all around.
I'd skip it if I were you.
March 21, 2015
Judd Trichter's debut novel is a good one. It had elements of various scifi ideas, but not so blatantly out there that you're thinking, "Oh wow, he just ripped that off from..." Since this book deals with a near future where humans exist alongside androids, the major influence that comes to my mind is Isaac Asimov. Trichter's robot world doesn't exactly follow Asimov's 3 Laws, but you can tell he knows about them. I especially liked his idea of how an android's whole personality could change with the replacement of a single part of their body.
The main character, Eliot Lazar, has issues, but his motive in this story is one that I could understand. He had an unwavering desire to be reunited with a love that was stolen from him. Does he put himself in harm's way to do this? Most definitely...many times. Does he make some stupid decisions? Yeah. Does he go about single handedly kicking off a human/android war because of his actions? Pretty much.
While this story focused on Eliot's quest, it did touch upon issues that we may one day face. As we enter an age where artificial intelligence becomes more and more advanced, I wonder if the day will come when we have to decide on the rights of androids.
At just over 300 pages, this was a pretty quick read. Trichter's writing style gives good detail, without bogging down the flow of the story. I will certainly be looking forward to more of his work in the future.
The main character, Eliot Lazar, has issues, but his motive in this story is one that I could understand. He had an unwavering desire to be reunited with a love that was stolen from him. Does he put himself in harm's way to do this? Most definitely...many times. Does he make some stupid decisions? Yeah. Does he go about single handedly kicking off a human/android war because of his actions? Pretty much.
While this story focused on Eliot's quest, it did touch upon issues that we may one day face. As we enter an age where artificial intelligence becomes more and more advanced, I wonder if the day will come when we have to decide on the rights of androids.
At just over 300 pages, this was a pretty quick read. Trichter's writing style gives good detail, without bogging down the flow of the story. I will certainly be looking forward to more of his work in the future.
February 8, 2015
Love in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction: A Novel
Judd Trichter
This was a different novel, to say the least. It's set in near-future (late 21st century) LA, and the world is made up of humans and androids. Even humans can have enhanced parts for whatever reason they might have. Eliot Lazar is obsessed with androids, specifically one named Iris Matsuo. He's fallen in love, but this is not something that's readily accepted by society. Unfortunately for Lazar, Matsuo has been kidnapped and parted out by an android killer. His only chance to regain the love of his life is to find the various parts of her (wherever they are and regardless of who happens to be using them) and try to rebuild her. Getting everything to function together is the easy part, though. He has no idea whether she will still be the "person" he loved when everything is turned back on.
This is a very dark, very dystopian novel, but it has humor and some bizarre scenes that wouldn't let me put it down.
Judd Trichter
This was a different novel, to say the least. It's set in near-future (late 21st century) LA, and the world is made up of humans and androids. Even humans can have enhanced parts for whatever reason they might have. Eliot Lazar is obsessed with androids, specifically one named Iris Matsuo. He's fallen in love, but this is not something that's readily accepted by society. Unfortunately for Lazar, Matsuo has been kidnapped and parted out by an android killer. His only chance to regain the love of his life is to find the various parts of her (wherever they are and regardless of who happens to be using them) and try to rebuild her. Getting everything to function together is the easy part, though. He has no idea whether she will still be the "person" he loved when everything is turned back on.
This is a very dark, very dystopian novel, but it has humor and some bizarre scenes that wouldn't let me put it down.
November 28, 2015
This is one book that I did judge by the cover. I mean look at it. It's pretty cool!! I am a bit picky when it comes to book covers. I guess this has to do from my days of collecting comics. Every book store that had this book in stock, for some reason the dust jacket was all crumpled or torn. Shame these stores can't keep books in good shape. Well it kept me from buying the book. I was about to buy it for my Nook when I was at a random B&N and saw a great copy. I was excited and quickly purchased it and began reading.
I went into this blind. No set up nothing. 50 pages in and WOW! Such a great story! Love, suspense, action. Eliot Lazar has the love of his life. One day he comes home and realizes that his love has been kidnapped and stripped of her parts. Yes she's an android. The story follows Eliot on his quest to put the pieces back together to reclaim the woman he loves. He encounters some interesting characters along the way. Some helpful. Some not so helpful. Strong 4 stars. Hopefully there is a follow up but I would be fine with the ending. Great debut. Look forward to more from this author.
I went into this blind. No set up nothing. 50 pages in and WOW! Such a great story! Love, suspense, action. Eliot Lazar has the love of his life. One day he comes home and realizes that his love has been kidnapped and stripped of her parts. Yes she's an android. The story follows Eliot on his quest to put the pieces back together to reclaim the woman he loves. He encounters some interesting characters along the way. Some helpful. Some not so helpful. Strong 4 stars. Hopefully there is a follow up but I would be fine with the ending. Great debut. Look forward to more from this author.
January 22, 2015
I received an advanced copy of the book, and by the second chapter I was captivated and had trouble putting it down. For starters, this is NOT a romance novel. I sincerely hope people look past the title and read the description before writing it off as one because they would seriously miss out. The main character, Eliot, will not bore you with his feelings and woe over losing his android girlfriend, Iris. Instead this book is all action and follows a guy who is actually going to do things to help his situation. What's more, Trichter does a wonderful job developing the setting of his novel He vividly describes both the landscapes and the android revolution, the current status of each and how it came to be. This was key to developing his story and making me believe each of the characters would act the way they did. There is a lot of action that keeps you turning pages, and a main character that, while flawed and somewhat unlikable, has you rooting for him the entire time. I would definitely read a followup to this book to see just where Trichter takes his world and characters.
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