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reviewed The Electric State by Simon Stålenhag (Tales from the Loop, #3)

Simon Stålenhag: The Electric State (Hardcover, 2018, Skybound Books)

In late 1997, a runaway teenager and her small yellow toy robot travel west through …

A road trip through a disturbing and gloomy landscape

A road trip through a landscape littered with the debris of robots and mechanical creatures from an unsaid war, while most of humanity is apparently too preoccupied wearing headsets and living in a virtual world to the point of starvation. Said road trip is by a girl and her 'pet' robot that behaves in a rather unrobotic way. The reason for this, and the purpose of the road trip, only becomes clear at the end when the girl (also the narrator) provides the reason.

The book is filled with illustrations from the road trip, of a landscape where robots roam at will and emaciated people gawk in wonder through their headsets.