vN

2.5 stars Originally published at FanLit.
http://www.fantasyliterature.com/reviews/vn-the-first-machine-dynasty/

Amy???s kindergarten graduation ceremony was going pretty well until Amy ate her grandmother on stage. Now Amy is on the run and there are lots of people who want to get their hands on her for different reasons. But Amy is only five years old and she doesn???t know where she should go or who she can trust. She???s even more freaked out when she realizes that Granny hasn???t died ??? she???s sharing the hardware in Amy???s head.

Amy is a self-replicating machine based on the thought experiments proposed in 1948 by John von Neumann (hence the title: ???vN???). In Ashby???s story, vNs were created by Christian fundamentalists who were worried about the people who???d be left behind after the Rapture. They created the humanoid robots as companions and helpers and built in a failsafe that prevents them from harming humans. In fact, the failsafe makes the vN love all humans and causes them to shut down when they see blood or violence.

It???s obvious to everyone that Amy???s failsafe has malfunctioned and that suggests that her entire model may be a security threat to humans. Amy soon finds out this is true when she meets her aunties ??? the vN who???ve iterated from Granny. Amy needs to avoid her aunties, figure out who she is, come to terms with the horrific act she committed, and prove to herself and others that her programming isn???t her destiny. And she needs to get Granny out of her head!

I give Madeline Ashby credit for creativity. Her story riffs off (and has allusions to) Philip K. Dick???s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Isaac Asimov???s ROBOT books, and other old SF, but it???s inventive, smart, and thought-provoking. There???s plenty of action, but there???s also time to stop and think about love, nature vs. nurture, how our experiences as children influence our own parenting style, what it means to be human and, of course, how humans should interact with artificial intelligence. I was fascinated by some aspects of Ashby???s story ??? especially the ideas about how our ???programming??? in the form of our genes and upbringing determine our behaviors as adults and how our parents??? personalities are embedded in our own ???software??? in much the same way Granny was embedded in Amy???s.

Though I loved the ideas Madeline Ashby presents, I had a hard time getting through the latter half of vN.

Read the rest at FanLit:
http://www.fantasyliterature.com/reviews/vn-the-first-machine-dynasty/

It wasn't when the idea was introduced of a girl who was starved in order to imitate the process of a growing human child. Or even when she met a pedophile who did this to his “wife.”

It wasn't until Amy met Rory (so to speak), the robot who developed her diet plan, and she thought to herself, “Each of Rory's ro-bento pings maintained this same level of cheeriness and delight, as though starving yourself was just the most fun thing in the world and you should be happy to do it for your parents. As though you should enjoy feeling so hungry and hollow all the time.”

At that point, I stopped and thought Oh. I see what you did there, Ms. Ashby.

This past NaNoWriMo, I began a novel about a robot and a girl. I began it with the intention that it would simply be about their relationship, but quickly found that it was impossible to talk about robots without talking about the many implications of their existence and sentience. What does it mean when creatures are made specifically to be in servitude to others? It's one thing to imagine them as so powerful, so intelligent that they fight violently for their freedom. But what does it mean for them to really be free?

Ashby gives you access to the information long before it comes into full form in Amy's mind. When she meets the pedophile, he expresses his gratitude for his prepubescent humanoid robots for if he did not have them, he might hurt “real” children. But his wife and his daughter are real. Amy is real. The fact that her diet starved her to the point that she ate her grandmother is proof of that. Ashby uses the politics of the robot body to reflect what's happening to bodies here and now.

“Sentience is not freedom, Portia said. Real freedom is the ability to say no.”

Ashby's job, her real life job, is to imagine what the future will look like so that companies can anticipate it. So you should know that this is no gimmicky dystopia. You're in good hands here. Ashby factors in not only technological innovations, but the progress of language and culture. There is thought given to fandom behavior, and social justice thinking. Ashby is keyed in to what is going on in the past, present and future. Nonetheless, as natural so the futuristic elements of this book are, there is still a bit of the fantastical, the most of which are the vNs themselves. They grow, they eat, they give birth. I think the only organic thing they don't simulate is shitting. And yet, they are machines, but more than that they are separate species that has their own way of existing, their own values. Even though they are built with a failsafe that makes them inherently love and desire humans, Ashby makes it clear that they are not human. I can't tell you how much I appreciate that. A lot books these days are exploring non-human characters, but few are really taking the time to create a new point of view, one that is familiar but decidedly alien at the same time.

The line blurs, of course, with our protagonist, Amy. Her failsafe is broken, and that makes her capable of great and terrible things. I've mentioned before this ongoing trend in books of young girls who are afraid of themselves. In this case though, it's not a controversial supernatural ability, or a bad temper. Amy literally has another person in her, one that could easily take control and wreak an extraordinary amount of havoc. Her fear of the violence she is capable of is real, because even though her programming doesn't automatically endear her to humans, she is a good person who doesn't want to do harm. She's real, even if she's not human.

vN doesn't move in a straight line. There's a lot of action and drama, but Amy meanders as she struggles to find her place in the world, having been driven away from her picture perfect life. I didn't mind, because each page revealed a little bit more about this world and these creatures and I found it all endlessly fascinating. Javier is probably one of my favorite love interests I've read. His casual and sardonic demeanor doesn't present him as such right away. But slowly Amy chips away at his walls and reveals someone who is considerate and faithful. Their best moments are the ones when you remember that by human terms they're still children. They have tickle fights. They play in a sandbox. They keep building, hoping that eventually they'll have a place that'll be their own.

I love this book. I could talk about it for days and the more I think about it the more I want to say.