October 2022 SFFKit: Robots & AI

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Frame from the Italian movie "The Mechanical Man" (1921), the first film to have shown a battle between robots. Public Domain/Creative Commons

Welcome to this month's thread where we feature robots, automatons, and AI!

In the realm of SFF, robots cans be evil or benign, simple mechanical structures or capable of sentience...

The first robot in literature is arguably, R.U.R. (by Karel Čapek) which gave us the term "robot" and; one of the most notorious AI is HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey (by Arthur C. Clarke). A LT favorite can be found in Martha Wells's Murderbot series and; a popular short story collection about robots is I, Robot (by Isaac Asimov)-- the latter is a bit retro in feel; but the shorts-- about our relationship with anthropomorphized machinery-- are still well-written.

Today, it seems like the line between the science fiction of yesterday and the state-of-the-art technology present in everything from our cell phones (e.g., Siri, Alexa) to Elon Musk's Gigafactories to actual service models (Boston Dynamics, ASIMO and, Quori)-- is increasingly blurred. As such, it can be thrilling and terrifying as what it means to be human comes into play with the things we invent.

Plenty to choose from whether your tastes run to Klara (Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro) or Daleks (Dr. Who), giant robots (The Themis Files by Sylvain Neuvel) or humanoids (The Lunar Chronicles by Melissa Meters)...

"robots": https://www.librarything.com/tag/robots
"automatons": https://www.librarything.com/tag/automatons
"AI" https://www.librarything.com/tag/AI

Have fun and don't forget to update the Wiki!
https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/2022_SFFKIT#October:_Robots_and_Sentient...

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I'm stacking Klara and the Sun (by Kazou Ishiguro) for this challenge. 🤖

I will finally read Iron Widow for this one. It was for a January book club read - better late than never!

I am planning on reading Sea of Rust by C. Robert Cargill.

I highly recommend the Murderbot series by Martha Wells.

>6 fuzzi: I adore the series and was kind of hoping that the book that was to have been released this month was going to be a Murderbot story...but it turns out it's a fantasy title and it's been pushed back to May, 2023! :-/

>3 Tanya-dogearedcopy:, I hope you enjoy Klara and the Sun--I just adored that book!

For anyone wanting a slightly lighthearted read, I'd highly recommend A Robot in the Garden by Deborah Install--I absolutely fell in love with it when I stumbled on it a few years ago.

As for me, I started Martha Wells' Murderbot series a year or so back and never got around to the second one, so I've slated Artificial Condition for my read this month.

>8 whitewavedarling: I will second the recommendation for A Robot in the Garden, I also loved it!

I have finished my read of Sea of Rust by C. Robert Cargill. This was a book that I couldn't put down!

I've just started Vortex by Robert Charles Wilson and maybe he'll tell me what the heck 'The Hypotheticals' really are!

>7 Tanya-dogearedcopy: maybe I will reread All Systems Red.

Finished Artificial Condition by Martha Wells. It was...okay? I know the Murderbot stories have a ton of fans, but I can't help feeling like I want more completion in terms of story--first from the first novella, and now from this one.

>13 whitewavedarling: The four novellas actually tell a complete story.

>14 ronincats:, I'm getting that sense. I think I'm just annoyed, in that case, that they're all split up into novellas. I expect a novella by itself to have a complete story that's powerful/worthwhile in itself, and though I've been reading more novellas than ever these past few years, this is the only author/series that doesn't seem to treat them that way. They may just not be for me.

I'm reading Robot in the Garden.
And if you liked Sea of Rust read the next one - Day Zero. I liked that even more.

I just finished Terminal Peace, which includes a helpful AI.

I changed my mind and decided to start Sea of Rust (by C. Robert Cargill; narrated by Eva Kaminsky). This features a scavenging, sentient robot named “Brittle” who roams the post-apocalyptic landscape of Ohio & Illinois. I had been avoiding this one for a couple of years as I wasn’t mentally ready to head into a PA landscape during a pandemic; but here we are!

I put aside Klara & the Sun (by Kazuo Ishiguro) only because I impulsively picked up Never Let Me Go earlier this month and I’m still thinking about it. And while I do, I just don’t want more Ishiguro in my head! 😂

>13 whitewavedarling: When I binged the series a couple years ago, I thought that, from the second book on in the series, the novellas seemed to arc together; but that the first one stood alone nicely. Clearly I am misremembering!

I was absolutely hooked from All Systems Red and really hoping to get a Murderbot fix this month; but it’s not to be. Sigh.

Sorry that it didn’t work out for you.

I read a short story anthology, Robots vs. Fairies, that is pretty much what it says on the tin.

I highly recommand the following two short stories which are about sentient robots and are a delight: Fandom for Robots by Vina Jie-Min Prasad and The secret Life of Bots by Suzanne Palmer. Both are available online and if you own an ebook reader it's easy to convert them to epub with the dotEPUB browser extension.

Now I'm going to go and think about what I'll read for this theme! Klara and the Sun is tempting but I've _just_ finished a short-story book by Ishiguro so I don't know if I want to dive into another one of his right now.

I'll most probably read The Alchemy of Stone by Ekaterina Sedia.

Browsing the tag lists I see that a favorite book of mine has not been mentioned: The windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi. This is set in a future wrecked by climate change in which edible plants are GMOs issued by coroporations, and fossil fuel is out so the energy is provided by huge springs. The world is bleak but very well constructed and the windup girl of the title is a sentient automaton powered by such a spring.

I finished listening to Sea of Rust (by C. Robert Cargill; narrated by Eva Kaminsky). Years ago, when book blogging was a thing, I had asked a couple of my online friends about their audiobook recommendations. “The Guilded Earlobe” had listed this post-apocalyptic tale about a robot who looked for magic in the flash of green at sunset, as one of his all-time favorites. So, I dnloaded the book but it never quite made it into rotation until now.

Brittle is a sentient robot and a veteran of the war that annihilated the humans from the face of the earth. Plagued with memories, existential questions and dwindling resources, she scavenges the former Rust Belt and gets caught up in a cause greater than herself…

I liked it. It had an interesting premise, action sequences, character development, vivid, descriptive language that enabled the reader to easily imagine the scenes… There was absolutely nothing wrong with it— So I’m a little bemused as to why I don’t like it more. A fun 3.5 stars.

Ah! Powell’s is having their annual sale on their used books (online only; code is NEVERMORE at checkout, if you are interested).* Anyway, I just put Machines Like Me (by Ian McEwan) in my cart. From the book description, it’s about a couple who buy one of the “first synthetic humans” in an alternate 1982 London… I suspect that, never having heard much about this when it was first released, it might not be one of McEwan’s better efforts; but since I’m one of the few who genuinely liked and appreciated Solar, I’m willing to take a risk on this one. Unfortunately, it probably won’t arrive until after the month (and challenge) are over; but if it comes in early. I’ll try and work it in 🙂

* I don’t work for or have any affiliation with Powell’s nor do I receive any compensation monetarily or otherwise from Powell’s. I just spend an absurd amount of time & money there when I’m in Portland and when I visit their website! 😂

>24 Tanya-dogearedcopy:
My all-time favorite bookstore!
I'd like to move to Portland and live within walking distance of Powells.

The alchemy of Stone by Ekaterina Sedia was an good book about a female automaton who is officially emancipated from her constructor - but this man still has a hold of her both because of the way society works and because he built her in a certain way. This sometimes felt rushed and a bit naive about the motivations of the characters, and there was a part that felt really not sympathetical to trans people (I hope it's just oliviousness rather than active anti-trans talk) but besides these flaws was very well written for the most part and the problematics of the automaton woman with her "creator" were a very clever way to talk about feminism.

Red this one by chance and it turns out it fits the theme perfectly: The metamorphosis of Prime Intellect by Roger Williams.

The main issue with this book is that it is not a good thing in my opinion for a man to write about a woman voluntarily submitting to extreme torture and deriving sexual pleasure from it - even though it's in a cyberspace in which the body is regenerated to full health after the fact, and the main character does this to relieve the boredom of eternity spent having all her wishes instantaneously granted.
It would have been so easy to change the gender of the two main characters, and have a male character submitting to torture and rape to _feel_ something, and a woman who built the supercomputer that allows this cyberspace to exist, and make a much more interesting book. Or tone down the description of these tortures and rapes...

This being said, after a first chapter that was difficult to stomach due to the above issue this was an interesting book about a cyberspace in which all of humanity lives, powered by a sentient super quantum computer - the Prime Intellect of the title. It's difficult to say much about it without spoiling the plot but I thought it offered a very interesting perspective on the theme of sentient AI. Without the rape culture theme this would have been an excellent book. With this theme strongly present I don't quite know what to make of this book.

I'm reading off my shelves this year, couldn't' find anything to fit this challenge, unfortunately.

Waiting for the November thread...

Here's November thread :
November SFFKIT

I read Robbie by Asimov, a short story, in I Robot. Early robot, obtained to watch a child.

>30 Kristelh: I loved that story.

>30 Kristelh: I bought I, Robot a few years ago for a SFFkit prompt; but didn't get around to reading it then;, but a couple years go, I finally read it (again for a SFFkit prompt)-- and it had been so long since I had purchased it that the cover had changed a couple of times over! Anyway, I was surprised at now much I actually enjoyed the book. It had a distinctly retro feel to it and yet, I can see why it ended up being the sort of bedrock for future robot/AI stories. (Incidentally, Sea of Rust specifically refers to one of the inviolate rules of robots & sentience from I, Robot without actually saying the name of Asimov's classic... But everybody knows... 😉 )

>32 Tanya-dogearedcopy: it's definitely dated, but that's one of the hallmarks of classics!

Speaking of classics, I did find Android at Arms on my shelves, and made a good faith try at reading it...I just couldn't get more than 30 pages in. I have enjoyed other Norton books but this one just...well...

I squeezed in You Sexy Thing, which is the name of a bio-ship and deals, among other things, with the broadening of the ship intelligence's horizons by having more crew onboard.