Completing the “Two heads are better than one” square fulfills my bingo column, “Cannonballer Says” to “Remix”, and gives me my first bingo! I used my “Reader’s Choice” to replace “Remix” with “Classic”.
Dome’Loki
Greg van Eekhout is a local San Diego author who frequently does events at my favorite independent bookstore, Mysterious Galaxy. He writes for both adult and middle grade audiences. Greg’s two most recent books are middle grade and as a result, it has been great fun to take my kids with me to an author event.
Cog, short for cognitive development, is the name of a robot boy who has been built to learn. In appearance he is a twelve year old boy but in reality he is only seven months old. He lives with the uniMind scientist, Gina, who cares for him, oversees his development, and occasionally tinkering with his brain. Cog spends his days learning, whether it’s puzzles, physical tasks like tying shoes and self care, or just reading to consume information. He is curious about everything and speaks directly to the reader about the things he learns, along with his thoughts and feelings. An important lesson Cog learns early on is that we often learn by making mistakes.
Then one day his world is turned upside down. Cog sets out to do more learning by purposefully making a mistake and the consequences are far more dire than anticipated. Gina is gone and Cog is now under the care of uniMind headquarters, where he is not respected as an autonomous being and instead treated as “just a robot”. What follows is an adventure journey where Cog makes new robot friends and learns by making more mistakes, as he tries to find Gina.
One simple message to take away from this book is that Mega-corporations that exclusively put increasing shareholder wealth, over the well being of others, are evil. Greg was open about this at the signing. Another layer is to use mistakes as a learning and growth experiences. A further layer is free will, what does it mean to have it and what are the consequences that result from exercising free will. Learning that when given free will, others will not necessarily make the same choices as you, but that is their right because of free will. It is also a story about feelings, discovering new feelings, and the dismay when finding that experiences can alter how you feel about something. Greg has written a fun story about a robot boy on a journey to find his friend that also conveys some big concepts in an easy to understand format for younger readers.
Ysakitty
Cog is a fun book for people of all interests because it combines sci-fi, speculative fiction, adventure, and humor. It makes you think about what is possible in the future. Cog seems to be “just” a robot to uniMind but he really is more human than people give him credit for. He learns about everything and is always remembering, and sharing with the reader what he is thinking. You are looking through his eyes, and it seems like the eyes of a real person, but he is a robot. The book shows the best and the worst of humanity. For example the way uniMind is treating all their robots, like they are just a “thing”. However, every robot is unique and special. And the best people are those that recognize that, like Gina who loves Cog and wants to care for him even when she can’t be there for him.
I particularly like the part of the book where Cog and his friends are all hungry (in other words their biofuel tanks are empty) and they go to a Wiener Mountain restaurant. They have basically no money so they decide to “conquer the wiener mountain” a.k.a. finish hotdogs the size of fire extinguishers with a ginormous bun and bucketfulls of toppings. They had fifteen minutes to eat the entire thing and get their food for free but if they fail, they will get a lot of pain and possibly death. The eating was the funniest part but after effects were amusing too.
Later, after we have left, I throw up a great deal of fame, glory, and immortality on the highway.
One of my favorite robots in the book was Trashbot. He is simple but is a very important character in the book. He basically likes to dispose of waste, and is happy whenever he can dispose of waste, and is sad when he cannot. He is even on the cover, he is that important. Even Greg van Eekhout specially loves Trashbot.
Cog is a really, really good book. I enjoyed it and will definitely read it again. I give it five stars.
Fun fact; the title of Cog was originally to be Runaway Robots but the editor said that it wasn’t the best, and insisted on Cog. This has happened multiple times to Greg van Eekhout.