In the Lives of Puppets

 

In the Lives of Puppets by T. J. Klune.  432 pp

Victor lives with his father, Gio, in a series of tree houses in a forest adjacent to a scrap yard.  He enjoys seeing what the scrap yard has to offer, but it is dangerous.  Several machines guard it from outside interference.  He already found a vaccum which he repaired and named "Rambo" and a robot nurse called Nurse Ratched (Ratched is actually the initials for Registered Automaton to Care, Heal, Educate, and Drill).  One day while in the scrap yard, Victor finds an android that seems to still be alive.  Unfortunately, by the time he removes everything on top of it, it is no longer functioning, but he takes it home to his lab to tinker with it.  Eventually, he is able to repair everything but the battery that makes it work.  He takes a heart he made in case his father needs it (Gio is an android, too) and puts a few drops of blood in and the android comes to life.  The android doesn't know who he is or what his purpose is, but he has some initials on his body HAP, so that is what Victor, Rambo, and Nurse Ratched call him.  Nurse Ratched also calls him Hysterically Angry Puppet since he is very grumpy.  When Gio sees what Victor has done, he is upset since Gio built HAP originally as a human destroyer (HARP stands for Human Annihilation Response Protocol) and Victor is a human.  Some government androids realize that HAP is alive and that there may be a human around, so Gio makes everyone go into a safe room.  The government androids take Gio back to the City of Electric Dreams and destroy his heart.  When Victor and his friends emerge from the safe room Gio is gone and the tree houses have been destroyed.  They they go on a quest to rescue Gio.

This is not my usual type of story (not big into Sci Fi), but I had read another T. J. Klune book and wanted to read this.  The robot friends are very funny (shades of MST3K).  Many reviews say this is a modern day Pinocchio.  I can see this as Gio creates Victor (he is already a "real" boy) and there is a workshop/lab for tinkering.  I really enjoyed it.

Wires And Nerve Volume 1

Wires And Nerve Volume 1 by Marissa Meyer, 238 pages

“In her first graphic novel, bestselling author Marissa Meyer extends the world of the Lunar Chronicles with a brand-new, action-packed story about Iko, the android with a heart of (mechanized) gold. When rogue packs of wolf-hybrid soldiers threaten the tenuous peace alliance between Earth and Luna, Iko takes it upon herself to hunt down the soldiers' leader. She is soon working with a handsome royal guard who forces her to question everything she knows about love, loyalty, and her own humanity. With appearances by Cinder, Cress, Scarlet, Winter, and the rest of the Rampion crew, this is a must-have for fans of the bestselling series.” Iko might be my favorite character in the series.  Although graphic isn’t usually my preferred format, I really liked this, maybe better than the original books in the series.  Anyone who liked the Lunar Chronicles or likes action filled graphic novels will want to read this.

Alex + Ada Volume 2

Alex + Ada Volume 2 by Jonathan Luna, 128 pages

The science fiction graphic novel series that looked at the realm of artificial intelligence and the dilemmas that result from it certainly took a romantic turn with this second volume.

Now that Ada can feel and love she wants to experience life and everything it has to offer. But when Alex questions if things are moving too fast everything starts to fall apart in their lives.

I was really hoping this graphic novel series would continue to look at the developing issue of AI and the social concerns it would raise. But instead nearly the entire issue is the building love story.

The story was still very good and extremely well illustrated. But it was like I went to a restaurant expecting steak and ended up with a cheeseburger. Here I was expecting AI science fiction and a rights discussion and got a romance. It was still good, but I would have preferred my steak.

Lock In

Lock In by John Scalzi
336 Pages

In the future a flu epidemic known as Hayden's has killed over 40 million and left millions in a condition where they cannot move or communicate or a locked in state.  This caused the United States government to spend billions finding a way to alleviate or make life more bearable for these victims of Hayden's disease.  Now they can hold jobs and interact with society by using androids, (known as threeps) controlled by their human bodies.  
On the dawn of new legislation to curtail the amount of money being spent by the federal government on Haydens FBI agent Chris Shane, a Hayden sufferer himself himself investigating a series of crimes where integrators (people who were infected by Hayden's but not locked in but experience a brain remapping) are committing crimes.

Scalzi has created a world that is interesting and well thought out.  Definitely recommended.

Alex + Ada

Alex + Ada Volume 1 by Sarah Vaughn, 120 pages

Alex + Ada was another table top find. I am not sure which patron has such good taste in graphic novels but I thank them.

The story is about a man name Alex who is depressed with his life. His girl friend left him and he is just drifting along. That is until his very rich grandmother decides what he needs is an advanced android he calls Ada. Most androids are perfectly fine and get along well with humanity as long as they aren't sentient.
Despite having Ada in his life Alex feels like he is talking to a toaster. So he looks into how to make her more alive.

Alex + Ada has a nice storyline too it, though it is simplistically illustrated. If movies are any indication, trying to make an android realer is a bad idea, so it will be interesting to see where this story will go.