The Holy Machine Book

Wow. What an incredibly affecting novel this is about what it means to be human. It is also one of the best novels about robots I have ever read.

The main protagonist is George Simling, upstanding citizen of Illyria, a bastion of rationality and science in a sea of fractured states and religious fundamentalism.

Illyria has an underclass of human-like robots performing its most menial tasks ... and displacing real workers from desperately-needed jobs, which creates an undercurrent of resentment and class rebellion. Ultimately, this leads to violent revolution, raising the question of just how liberal and forward-thinking Illyria really is.

Meanwhile, George thinks he has fallen in love with a robot sex worker, while his mother whiles away her life in the virtual realms of SenSpace. Both are deeply disconnected human beings who have been disenfranchised from their humanity by technology.

And then Lucy the robot sex worker (there is much riffing on the phrase 'I love Lucy!') shows a spark of self-awareness, which is the greatest sin against humanity in secular Illyria, leading George to a profound, and terrible, choice.

What happens is quite unpredictable and tragic. Ultimately, however, this is an uplifting novel about the meaning of faith and the faith we place in the importance of meaning in our lives. This is science fiction at its provocative and entertaining. Fantastic.

My only quibble: the Kindle version is littered with typos and errors that detract from the reading experience. A book of this calibre needs more attention paid to the editing.