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4.5 

The Inevitable

By Daniel Hope & Lidia Yuknavitch
The Inevitable by Daniel Hope & Lidia Yuknavitch digital book - Fable

Publisher Description

Lidia Yuknavitch writes in the introduction to The Inevitable "The first time I read Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun I bawled my face off. Daniel Hope serves up a similar creature, a humanoid robot named Tuck, and quite quickly in the story, Tuck began to remind me more of what matters about the human condition than I learn from most of the humans I know. Love stories are not what we’ve been told. A humanoid robot named Tuck reminds us how to build connections and be ever-giving in the face of death and loss."

 

In both Klara and the Sun and The Inevitable technological advances have created AIs that form complex relationships with humans.

In Hope's novel Tuck is a charismatic robot grappling with a very human conundrum, the meaning of life and death. He is the last bot in the universe after surviving the Bot Riots on Earth by escaping into space. He is grieving the loss of his family and forced to wander between planets looking for parts of himself that need replacement in order to stay functional, risking exposure even as collectors are hunting him. He alleviates his loneliness by adopting an abandoned AI integrated into a spaceship and naming it David after the boy he took care of on Earth. The two meet Maze, a genetically modified, escaped lab experiment who, like Tuck, has super-human speed and strength. Maze serves as first mate on a ship owned by a billionaire, who offers Tuck the parts he needs in exchange for assistance with her corporate raid against her main rival. Tuck finds renewed purpose in his life through Maze and quickly becomes devoted to her. Together they must survive in a world where they are at once misfits and precious commodities. The Inevitable examines the value of life in a technologically advanced society, the definition of humanity, and the complex relationships that arise in the gray area between AIs and humans.

2 Reviews

4.5
“3.5 Stars, but I went ahead and rounded up to four. When we first meet Tuck he is a mess. He is wandering across the universe looking for parts to put himself back together. He's the last bot in the universe and his only mission is to survive. Tuck meets a suspicious man named Gerad who promises to give Tuck what he wants in exchange for his help. Let's just say Gerad doesn't have Tuck's best interest in mind. Tuck meets some interesting characters during his journey. Maze is a woman who seems to have the strength and intelligence of a bot, but is human. Then you have Lim who is a scared soldier on Gerad's ship and is in love with Maze. I can't forget to mention the delusional robotics doctor who thinks he is a spy. I wanted to punch him in the face. My favorite character is David. He is the AI on Tuck's ship. He is much younger than Tuck and doesn't know how to interact with humans very well. This leads to some funny dialogue. After 150 years, Tuck acts and feels like a human. This leaves him with the same fears that humans have. Tuck's main fear is death. This is the main subject of the book. We get to see Tuck's struggle with accepting the inevitable just as we all struggle with it. I enjoyed quite a lot about this book. I love Tuck and his internal struggles. Most of his thoughts and worries about death mirrored my own. I thought the supporting characters were done very well. I thoroughly enjoyed it when Tuck would go into his memory and show the reader important parts of his past. These memories are very important to the story. They allow you to see Tuck as a new bot fresh out of the box, meet David for the first time, see his first kill, and more. Each memory seems to be more tragic than the last. I also enjoyed seeing Maze grow. In the beginning, she is very cold and willing to kill someone without thinking twice about it. She changes after befriending Tuck and Lim. The ending is bittersweet. I won't say more than that to avoid spoiling anything. Now that I think about it, the entire book is bittersweet. Daniel Hope writes dialogue very well. In my notes I kept writing how well the dialogue flowed. The only time my interest faded was during the action sequences. For some reason, those scenes just didn't work for me. Other than that, I don't have any real complaints. I will warn you that your heart will break a few times throughout the book. So, if you enjoy science fiction with some philosophy(which I believe the best scifi will always have) and don't mind a bit of heartbreak then I suggest reading The Inevitable.”

About Daniel Hope

Dan Hope likes writing and science fiction, so it should be no surprise that he combines them. By day, he works with user experience designers to make apps easier to understand. His muted pessimism has been generously characterized as the Voice of Reason by the design team. He lives in Colorado with his family. His nerdy interests have been generously characterized as Super Lame by his kids.

Lidia Yuknavitch

Lidia Yuknavitch is the National Bestselling author of the novels The Book of Joan and The Small Backs of Children, winner of the 2016 Oregon Book Award's Ken Kesey Award for Fiction as well as the Reader's Choice Award, the novel Dora: A Headcase, and a critical book on war and narrative, Allegories Of Violence (Routledge). Her widely acclaimed memoir The Chronology of Water was a finalist for a PEN Center USA award for creative nonfiction and winner of a PNBA Award and the Oregon Book Award Reader's Choice. The Misfit's Manifesto, a book based on her recent TED Talk, was published by TED Books, and her new collection of fiction, Verge, was released in 2020. Lidia’s newest novel is Thrust.

She has also had writing appear in publications including Guernica Magazine, Ms., The Iowa Review, Zyzzyva, Another Chicago Magazine, The Sun, Exquisite Corpse, TANK, and in the anthologies Life As We Show It (City Lights), Wreckage of Reason (Spuytin Duyvil), Forms at War (FC2), Feminaissance (Les Figues Press), and Representing Bisexualities (SUNY), as well as online at The Rumpus.

She founded the workshop series Corporeal Writing in Portland Oregon, where she teaches both in person and online.  She received her doctorate in Literature from the University of Oregon. She lives in Oregon with her husband Andy Mingo and their renaissance man son, Miles. She is a very good swimmer.


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