Robot Love

[trinityofone]

'Cause I've clearly not been making the best reading material decisions lately, two book-related questions for y'all:

1. Do you know of any books that feature human-robot/android/cyborg/whatever romances? The only thing I can think of is Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? but I know there must be others. Robot/robot love would also be interesting, I think.

2. Stealing an idea from siegeofangels, rec me a book or books that starts with the same letter as your username. No serial killers, plz. Or, okay, no serial killer books unless they're really good. I'll rec one back, too, if you like. :)

Comments

[wychwood]

1. There are some short stories, but the one I'm thinking of right now (I think it's by Lester Del Rey? "Helen O'Loy") has *deeply cringeworthy* gender politics. Oh, oh, but there's a sort of thing like you want in the Maureen McHugh story "Nekropolis" (online in this book here), which I suspect is the first part of her *novel* Nekropolis - you might like that. There's also the Asimov - Robots of Dawn, I think it was. And sort of in the original I, Robot, although it's strictly one-sided.

2. *digs out booklog database*
I suggest Woman on the Edge of Time - feminist SF, by Marge Piercy, and one I felt survived rather better than most of that era. Well worth reading. Failing that, if you haven't read Greg Rucka's Whiteout (was it you who suggested it to me?), you might well like that. Did I make you read Watching the English? I think you *did* read that, at some point? Anyway, I still like it.

Rec me! :)

[wychwood]

Oh, and also: possibly Cherryh's azi, from the Merchanter / Alliance / Union universe? Particularly in Cyteen. There may also be some robot-love in the Culture books, by Iain M Banks, but I'm not sure about that - anyone more generally familiar with them than me?

[trinityofone.livejournal.com]

Cyteen's been on my TBR list forever. The sad answer to the question posed in the post seems to be: stuff you already have, that you haven't gotten around to yet. *facepalm*

[wychwood]

Hahaha. At least you know you have been choosing good books, I suppose? Cyteen is pretty good, I have to say.

[toft-froggy.livejournal.com]

Not that I remember, no, there's disappointingly little robot-love in the Culture novels. The robots are generally comic relief.

[wychwood]

Alas. The robots are usually awesome, though! And while I didn't think there was any robot/human sex, I had a vague memory of robot/robot (or, like, ship Mind/ship Mind), but that may have been fanfic...

[toft-froggy.livejournal.com]

There's FANFIC?

[wychwood]

There's always fanfic! I have *definitely* seen a) a Doctor Who / Culture crossover where, um, I think a Mind falls in love with the TARDIS, and b) a Culture / SGA crossover of AWESOME where John and Rodney are both ship-minds. If you haven't read that one, I suggest you hie thee to sgastoryfinders - I have no idea where it was, but it was great!

[toft-froggy.livejournal.com]

Oooh, an interesting idea. I think I haven't read any Culture novels for far too long, I can't really remember what ship minds are - are those just the personalities the ships have?

[trinityofone.livejournal.com]

I've been (very slowly) working my way through those Asimov books. Not much robot lovin' yet, but maybe I just have to be patient? I downloaded the McHugh—thanks!

I have Woman on the Edge of Time, but haven't read it yet. (Soooooooo many books, but never enough!) I did suggest Whiteout to you, but I haven't read it. (The 40-year-old guy my mom tried to set me up with is the guy who's writing the screenplay for it.) I liked Watching the English very much. :)

Recs. Gonna do a few Ws, 'cause if I have to do Ts all through here, that'll get old. I'd recommend World War Z, which I have already talked about enthusiastically here. Also, Wonder Boys is a lot of fun. And What Do You Care What Other People Think? by Richard Feynman. <3

[wychwood]

I need to re-read the Asimov series, actually; I'm not sure I ever read them all, and definitely not properly in sequence. The one I mentioned is later in the series, anyway.

I think you'd like Whiteout! I am a big fan, and I'm looking forward to the film although I'm sure it'll sex her up and I think they took out the second major female character, but WHATEVER. I TAKE WHAT I CAN GET.

Hahaha, I nearly recommended the Feynman to you! Only I was pretty sure you were the one who reviewed them first. It *is* great, definitely. Wonder Boys is Chabon, right? I want to read more of his. And World War Z sounded awesome - I wanted to read the manual, too. Zombies ftw!