Книга от начинающей писательницы Madeline Ashby. Недалекое будущее, рядом с человеком живут синтеты. Ранее они создавались для определенных целей: восстановление лесов, ухаживание за больными после разрушительного землетрясения – каждая модель обладала определенными навыками. Серия моделей с одинаковой функцией называлась клайдом.
"What are you doing?" Amy asked.
"My job." Javier picked up one pinecone with his good hand and screwed it into the sand until it stood upright. "Planting trees."
Синтеты обладают возможностью размножаться, если в наличии достаточно материала. Всех их объединяет одно: failsafe, механизм блокирующий причинение вреда человеку.
Весь сюжет завязан на сбое этого механизма у одной из таких моделей, девочки, живущей в смешанной человеко-синтетической семье. Морально-этические проблемы и противоречия, не уступают аналогичным у Азимова в цикле Я робот, хотя и более "человечны".
Понравилось описание процесса итерации:
"It's just the stemware copying itself. First my search engine clones itself in him, then it just goes hunting for relevant data and imports it."
Интересные отсылки на другие фантастические произведения:
Like the Rusty Innards, all the items on the menu had goofy names that somehow related to robots, although Amy sometimes didn't understand the references. There was a cocktail called Tears in the Rain, for example, that she had no clue about. But it was meant for humans, so it didn't matter. Даже на игры:
"Let me check into it," Amy said, and returned a moment later with the last slice of opera cake and a crowd of her fellow servers, all of whom sang the Electric Sheep's birthday song:
This cake is for you
This cake is for you
This cake is no lie
And it's just for you.
Происхождение синтетов весьма оригинально:
"It's total bullshit, is what it is. This whole culture, it doesn't give a good goddamn about women." Shari pointed at Amy. "There are only two industries in this world that ever make any kind of progress: porn, and the military. And when they hop in bed together with crazy fundamentalists, we get things like you." She rested her elbows on her knees and grinned at Amy. "I'm telling you. Big men with their little heads. You know?" Синтетов создала церковь:
The angel investor supporting the development of von Neumann humanoids was not a military contractor, or a tech firm, or even a design giant. It was a church. A global megachurch named New Eden Ministries, Inc, that believed firmly that the Rapture was coming any minute now. It collected donations, bought real estate, and put the proceeds into programmable matter, natural language processing, and affect detection – all for the benefit of the few pitiful humans regrettably left behind to deal with God's wrath. They would need companions, after all. Helpmeets. And those helpmeets couldn't ever hurt humans. That was the Horsemen's job.
Итог: весьма интересно, хоть и на любителя. Когда выйдет вторая книга, обязательно прочитаю.
