A dyspeptic story of our future
4 stars
This book reminded me of two other books I've read in the past few years. One was [[The Cyberiad]] by Stanisław Lem which also had robots for characters, but which was more of a collection of satiric fairy tale stories than a sustained narrative, the other was [[The Children of Men]] by P. D. James which shares an end-of-the-world viewpoint but has nothing like the absurd humor of this book. It seemed to me like quite a departure from the rest of this author's work with a distinct sociological edge. The reader starts to want this bizarre world to start to make sense. The narrator, a robot called "Uncharles" for most of the book experiences a malfunction in the early chapters, and after he leaves his familiar surroundings wanders through a broken world hoping to find something similar to his previous existence. I think there might be a lot of …
This book reminded me of two other books I've read in the past few years. One was [[The Cyberiad]] by Stanisław Lem which also had robots for characters, but which was more of a collection of satiric fairy tale stories than a sustained narrative, the other was [[The Children of Men]] by P. D. James which shares an end-of-the-world viewpoint but has nothing like the absurd humor of this book. It seemed to me like quite a departure from the rest of this author's work with a distinct sociological edge. The reader starts to want this bizarre world to start to make sense. The narrator, a robot called "Uncharles" for most of the book experiences a malfunction in the early chapters, and after he leaves his familiar surroundings wanders through a broken world hoping to find something similar to his previous existence. I think there might be a lot of P. G. Wodehouse in the characterization of Uncharles. Along the way he encounters a being known as "The Wonk" whose breezy, cavalier attitude toward everything conceals a serious quest for meaning. It is a slow-paced telling partly to remind us of the love of orderly routine most simple machines like these robots favor, to make their chores easier. There are close scrapes with danger and lots of misunderstandings as they look for a place with the answers, only to find that they were mirages. By the end, the two of them reach a kind of understanding in a nice, cozy way with a hint of how the rest of the awful world might be induced to stop falling into ruin. But by this point, the reader might be too skeptical to believe a happy outcome possible.
I did like the way the audiobook was narrated by the author, but it is a slow process of making it to the end. If you pick this up, set aside enough time to make it through or you'll be frustrated. I was pleased to hear writer/blogger Dr. Janelle Shane called out in the acknowledgements for contributions to the creation of this book, of whom I am a fan.
