In The Lives Of Puppets by T. J. Klune – is inspired by Carlo Collodi’s The Adventures of Pinnocchio. Amongst the branches of a grove of trees, in a curious little house, live three robots.
Android, Giovanni Lawson, has painstakingly built a somewhat sadistic nurse machine called Ratched, and a small vacuum he has named Rambo, who craves only love and attention. Victor Lawson, a human, lives with the strange trio. They operate as a family, concealed and safe.
One day, on a sortie with his two mechanical friends, Vic rescues and repairs an unknown type of android labelled ‘HAP’. It is then that he discovers there is a shared dark past between Hap and Gio – a past spent hunting human beings!
Hap inadvertently alerts robots from Gio’s former life to their whereabouts, and the family is no longer safe from harm. Gio is seized and taken back to his former laboratory in the City of Electric Dreams. Vic decides that those remaining must make the hazardous journey across a grim and otherworldly country to retrieve Gio from recall, or, even worse, reprogramming.
While on their perilous travels to save Gio, and at odds with the sense of dishonesty, despite his infinite fondness for Hap, Vic must make a crucial decision. Can he accept love with myriad complications attached?
Both whimsical and heart-wrenching, the author’s superb imagination brings these unusual characters to life. He describes a world that is unimaginable in the here and now, but which in the future could become an abominable possibility.
This intriguing novel, which can be very dark indeed, is brightened by the comedic interaction of the characters, who have a ‘thing’ regarding the 1935 romantic, musical comedy, “Top Hat”, starring Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire.
On the darker side, it also serves to remind us of the possible future dangers of Artificial Intelligence.
Another brilliant must-read for this year!
ISBN: 9781529088038
In The Lives Of Puppets is available in hardback, paperback and e-book.
About T. J. Klune
T. J. Klune is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling, Lambda Literary Award-winning author of Under the Whispering Door, The House in the Cerulean Sea, The Extraordinaries, Wolfsong and more. Being queer himself, TJ believes it’s important – now more than ever – to have accurate, positive, queer representation in stories.
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