The fate of humanity is in the balance once again for TJ Klune, author of the 2020 New York Times bestseller, “The House in the Cerulean Sea.” This time the protagonist is Victor Lawson, who lives in a forest near the Scrap Yards with his adoptive father Gio, and his friends Nurse Ratchet and Rambo.

Gio is a wise, loving and perfectly lifelike android; Nurse Ratchet is a large, cabinet-like mobile medical unit with a brutal bedside manner but an empathy protocol several petabytes wide; and Rambo is a small, naive and enthusiastic vacuum unit. They live as a family, hidden and safe.

The day Vic salvages and repairs an unfamiliar android labelled “HAP,” he learns of a shared dark past between Hap and Gio–a past spent hunting humans.

When Hap unwittingly alerts robots from Gio’s former life to their whereabouts, the family is no longer hidden and safe. Gio is captured and taken back to his old laboratory in the City of Electric Dreams. So together, the rest of Vic’s assembled family must journey across an unforgiving and otherworldly country to rescue Gio from decommission, or worse, reprogramming.

Along the way to save Gio, amid conflicted feelings of betrayal and affection for Hap, Vic must decide for himself: Can he accept love with strings attached?

This fantasy/sci-fi mashup novel contains plenty of humor and heart. It asks interesting philosophical questions about humanity, many of which we glean through the eyes of robots. It’s a story of forgiveness, found family, and what it means to love unconditionally.

The book is rated by goodreads.com as the best science fiction in 2023.

（SD-Agencies)