Recommendations from our site
“This book started because I very much wanted to write from the point of view of a robot…There are things that we would think of as absolutely basic impulses for a human being which Uncharles doesn’t really care about, up to and including self-preservation. There are a variety of circumstances in the book where it’s perfectly logical that he allow himself to be destroyed, because there’s no particular reason why he wouldn’t. As the book goes on, and as things get more complex and confused, he gets more and more inputs – and you start to see that maybe there is more going on with Uncharles’s interior than he would necessarily admit. But it is at least an open question, even at the end of the book, as to just how much Uncharles is a thinking and sapient being, and how much he is simply sentient and following a complex logic chain.” Read more...
Adrian Tchaikovsky, Novelist
“I’m not sure I see Charles as rebellious – it’s just obeying its programming. (Have you read The Good Soldier Švejk where the main character keeps getting into trouble for obeying orders?) Charles is a robot valet, whose master has died, in fact Charles may have murdered him. H’mm, I guess that’s rebellious!” Read more...
The Best Science Fiction Books of 2025
Andrew M. Butler, Film Critics & Scholar
