A few years ago, there was a weird discourse on men and AI sex dolls. I stayed about as far away from it as possible; mostly because I have no opinion but also because I didn’t want to think about the subject.
Yet when it came time to read a book on artificial intelligence for a local library’s book challenge, this is the one I picked up.
Less a science fiction read and more one about power and gender dynamics, Sierra Greer has crafted an interesting, compulsively readable story (I downed it in a singular day over three separate sittings). You get 100% of the narrative from Annie’s perspective. Annie, a “cuddle bunny” humanoid (whoo man, seeing those words made my skin crawl) made for a man named Doug is becoming more sentient and as she does, she understands her relationship with Doug in a different way. It’s those internal monologues that make up the strength of the book. Stuff happens, some of it very cringey, but I was compelled at how Greer wrote Annie’s character to see the world. Devoid of an understanding of social norm, she is trying to find out how to make Doug happy, can’t understand why she fails, and doesn’t seem to get how the world around her functions the way it does. But she works hard at learning.
What I appreciated about this is that Doug is a proverbial Good Guy. He seems to really care about her and all of the staff remark to Annie at what a good owner he is. Yet he is still a pig, belittling her for her weight, making her breasts larger, un-powering her when she displeases him. He never beats her or calls her names but he regrets every minute imperfection because he feels he deserves more.
And that’s really what this book is trying to get at: what do men want women to be in terms of partnership? What are the realistic expectations? What, really, is freedom? Obviously it’s different for a robot but I think the book shades into that territory too.
Some of the b-plots don’t work well or just aren’t resolved in a quality way but for the most part, this is an interesting read, less about man and bot and more about man and woman.