When something feels out of place in a well-written book, it’s sometimes more fun to look through a lens of in-universe explanations rather than craft criticism. We can often find something in the book’s world that can explain the weirdness, and that can feel more playful and layered than deciding it’s all up to poor craft.
But sometimes in-universe explanations, even when they’re entirely plausible, are just frustrating. I had a lot of skill- and craft-related issues with this book. The fact that all of my disappointments could plausibly be justified and waved away by the twist at the end doesn’t feel playful or layered to me; it just feels like an excuse. The in-universe explanations don’t tempt me here.
The lackluster prose makes sense for a first-ever creative attempt by a robot, and the flat characterization is perfectly appropriate for a robot author who’s met exactly one human in her lifetime. But that doesn’t change the fact that I’ve just read a book full of lackluster prose and flat characters.
I might be even more frustrated by how the twist ending might apply to the themes than how it might apply to the craft. A lot of this book’s approaches to tech-related ideas just seem like odd choices for 2025. Tech optimism isn’t necessarily a problem for me, especially in the context of disability assistance and accommodation, but this book seems to treat all tech advancements, and the CEOs that push them, as unambiguously good.
Tech Startup CEO Boyfriend has a pure heart and deep pockets for funding Zelu’s writing. CEO Boyfriend’s app, which appears to require unlimited access to its users’ communications, is not only unobjectionable, but eventually lifesaving. Jeff Bezos is the only one who really understands Zelu’s dreams, and his Katy-Perry spaceflight isn’t a tone-deaf PR failure, but true space innovation. Also, Jeff Bezos’s unapproved, untested gene-altering injection is great and cool and not sinister at all.
Once we know this book was written by a robot, we could point to Ankara’s bias as an explanation for any uncomfortable billionaire admiration—tech CEOs created AI; of course AI would see them and their work positively. But the narrative never gives us evidentiary winks to suggest Ankara might be an unreliable narrator, and there’s still no critical engagement with the narrative’s CEO worship. I have no reason to suspect that the billionaire positivity belongs to Ankara rather than to the book itself.
And then, of course, there’s the matter of AI authorship. We spend most of the book hearing that AI can’t create, but then Ankara and Ijele save the world by writing a novel—we thought authors died with humanity, but now that AI has learned a special trick, authorship is resurrected! No humanity required!
Again, the twist could make this book’s attitude toward AI a matter of perspective. An AI wouldn’t look askance at a story about AI learning to replace human creatives. And I feel like I can see the story defending itself against that characterization—since AI had to change fundamentally before it could create, then this book doesn’t show LLMs as we know them now replacing human authors. But I don’t hear this story saying “AI can’t create unless it fundamentally becomes something else”; I just hear it saying “AI can’t create… yet”.
The twist gives us an opportunity to point out that the robots love tech billionaires and the robots wrote a story about AI replacing human authors, but it doesn’t add any critical engagement with those ideas to the text. We’ve still read a book that loves billionaires and shows AI replacing human authors. And this just seems like a weird time to write a book that loves tech billionaires and AI authorship.
None of the plausible in-universe explanations for these complaints give me anything to play with or think about, because I’m not tempted to buy them. They’re not convincing, and they don’t change the way the book deals with its themes. They really just highlight the fact that I’m not seeing any complex engagement with these themes at all.
Ankara’s authorship was a fun twist in a storytelling sense; I’ll admit that much. But I don’t think it accomplished anything substantial, and I don’t think it adds any creative color to the craft issues and thematic weirdness in this book.
onemanonedogmanybook commented...
6w
Especially when you get to the higher levels where everyone thinks they’re the smartest in the room. One would think a masters or PhD candidate would have gotten knocked down a few pegs but I’ve met many people who still believed they farted rainbows and unicorns 🙄