Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Do robots live forever?
The Inevitable, a novel by Daniel Hope, features a charismatic robot grappling with a very human conundrum, the meaning of life and death.
Tuck is a charming robot who is literally on his last legs. He is the last functioning bot in the galaxy, a broken machine that once looked like a man. Bots were a luxury on Earth until the Bot Riots when humans betrayed and destroyed them. Tuck managed to survive, but is now a ramshackle version of himself wandering between planets in search of spare parts to stay operational. Programmed to value human life, Tuck kills only in self-defense or when those he protects (do robots love?) are threatened. Because he is compassionate, Tuck is haunted by the memories of the sixteen people he has had to kill over the last 150 years.
As the last bot, Tuck is a valuable commodity to collectors, and after a particularly dangerous run-in with one, a mysterious woman offers him immortality in exchange for assistance in a shady business venture. Tuck knows it's a bad idea, but he can't ignore his own need to survive, even if it means killing again. The truth is, Tuck is afraid to die.
Think Billy Jack in space fighting corporate greed.
Synopsis
Lidia Yuknavitch writes in the introduction to
The Inevitable "The first time I read Kazuo Ishiguro's
Klara and the Sun I bawled my face off. Daniel Hope serves up a similar creature, a humanoid robot named Tuck, and quite quickly in the story, Tuck began to remind me more of what matters about the human condition than I learn from most of the humans I know. Love stories are not what we've been told. A humanoid robot named Tuck reminds us how to build connections and be ever-giving in the face of death and loss."
In both
Klara and the Sun and
The Inevitable technological advances have created AIs that form complex relationships with humans.
In Hope's novel Tuck is a charismatic robot grappling with a very human conundrum, the meaning of life and death. He is the last bot in the universe after surviving the Bot Riots on Earth by escaping into space. He is grieving the loss of his family and forced to wander between planets looking for parts of himself that need replacement in order to stay functional, risking exposure even as collectors are hunting him. He alleviates his loneliness by adopting an abandoned AI integrated into a spaceship and naming it David after the boy he took care of on Earth. The two meet Maze, a genetically modified, escaped lab experiment who, like Tuck, has super-human speed and strength. Maze serves as first mate on a ship owned by a billionaire, who offers Tuck the parts he needs in exchange for assistance with her corporate raid against her main rival. Tuck finds renewed purpose in his life through Maze and quickly becomes devoted to her. Together they must survive in a world where they are at once misfits and precious commodities. The Inevitable examines the value of life in a technologically advanced society, the definition of humanity, and the complex relationships that arise in the gray area between AIs and humans.
Synopsis
Tuck reminded me more of what matters about the human condition than I learn from most of the humans I know. "Lidia Yuknavitch, author of
Thrust and
The Chronology of Water
Tuck is a charismatic robot grappling with a very human conundrum, the meaning of life and death. He is the last bot in the universe after surviving the Bot Riots on Earth by escaping into space. He is grieving the loss of his family and forced to wander between planets looking for parts of himself that need replacement in order to stay functional, risking exposure even as collectors are hunting him. He alleviates his loneliness by adopting an abandoned AI integrated into a spaceship and naming it David after the boy he took care of on Earth. The two meet Maze, a genetically modified, escaped lab experiment who, like Tuck, has super-human speed and strength. Maze serves as first mate on a ship owned by a billionaire, who offers Tuck the parts he needs in exchange for assistance with her corporate raid against her main rival. Tuck finds renewed purpose in his life through Maze and quickly becomes devoted to her. Together they must survive in a world where they are at once misfits and precious commodities.
The Inevitable examines the value of life in a technologically advanced society, the definition of humanity, and the complex relationships that arise in the gray area between AIs and humans.