348 pages
English language
Published Dec. 3, 2012 by Angry Robot, Distributed in the U.S. by Random House.
"Amy Peterson is a von Neumann machine--a self-replicating humanoid robot. For the past five years, she has been grown slowly as part of a mixed organic/synthetic family. She knows very little about her android mother's past, so when her grandmother arrives and attacks them, Amy wastes no time: she eats her alive. Now she's on the run, carrying her malfunctioning granny as a partition on her memory drive. She's growing quickly, and learning too. Like the fact that in her, and her alone, the failsafe that stops all robots from harming humans has stopped working. Which means that everyone wants a piece of her, some to use her as a weapon, others to destroy her"--Publisher's description.
Interesting take on artificial intelligence; what does a failsafe to always do what humans want mean when robots become truly sentient? The failsafe makes them love humans, it kills them when they see violence being done to humans.
Sentience is not freedom, Portia said. Real freedom is the ability to say no.
Engaging sf novel about robot/android humans and how they grow up. Explicitly a take on Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics, the novel pushes into philosophical questions of parenting, versioning, and how ethical boundaries also mark the boundaries of being.
As a thriller, things inevitably go wrong and the very thing which must not be breached, is. A vN’s failsafe which means they cannot abide violence as a way to protect humans, malfunctions and Amy ends up on the run.
It started off slow and seemed jumpy, skipping some formative scenes, especially towards the end where it switched POV. Also seemed to have a few to many deus ex machina moments (no pun intended). Over all I found it a interesting read.
