In the Lives of Puppets

“‘If there was ever perfection in this world, it would be you.’ His chest ached once more, but it was for entirely different reasons. Giovanni didn’t need to calculate what he felt now. He knew what it was. It was love.”

The prologue introduces the themes of The Complexity of Love and What it Means to Be Human by presenting the curious case of Giovanni Lawson, an android who raises a human child. While love heals Giovanni’s loneliness, it is also described as an ache, indicating that love is both powerful and painful. The novel goes on to further explore the complexities of love and the reasons why Giovanni chose to raise Victor.

“In a flat, mechanical voice, she said, ‘If you were to die, I would play with your corpse. There is much I would be able to learn. I would drill you until there was nothing left.’ This—as Nurse Ratched had undoubtedly planned—set the vacuum off once more. ‘Oh no,’ it whimpered. ‘Oh no, no, no, this will not do. Victor!’”

Nurse Ratched and Rambo’s vibrant personalities help to establish the blurred line in this novel between machines and people. This exchange typifies the dynamic between the blithely sadistic nurse and the perpetually petrified vacuum at the start of the story. Over time, Nurse Ratched becomes more openly caring and protective toward the members of her found family, including the fearful Rambo. The robots’ back-and-forth provides much of the novel’s comic relief, lightening up a story that might otherwise be weighed down by its examination of guilt, humanity’s extinction, and philosophical ruminations.