looks at the dangers and compromises inherent in unchecked technological advances, something he started in previous books Never Let Me Go and The Buried Giant. A Guardian reviewer even suggested these three novels are in fact a trilogy, looking at the darker side of technology.
It is interesting to me that novels I have enjoyed with AI characters (Klara and the Sun, Machines and Me by Ian McEwan and The Murderbot Diaries, a series by Martha Wells) all explore the issues of human/AI interaction and loneliness, both human and AI. Murderbot, a cyborg and the main character in the popular SciFi series, draws upon 1,000s of hours of soap operas he has watched, looking for scenarios to use as a guide in his interactions with humans. I’ve never been a soap fan, but my mother loved The Young and the Restless, and I laugh every time I think of someone using that as a model for human behavior! Klara and the Sun and Never Let me Go, both by Kazuo Ishiguro, are shelved in the Fiction section of the Coffman Library. The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro, Machines and Me by Ian McEwan, and the eight titles in The Murderbot Dairies are all at the Ramsey County Public Library.
At the moment, I have developed a plan for my library visits. I now own two books (one I bought, one was given to me by a friend) that contain long lists of books that the authors consider worth reading. One, 100 Novels That Changed the World by Colin Salter, gives a one-page summary of each book along with a brief commentary on why the book is important. The other, The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Scwalbe, is a memoir that covers the last two years that Will spent connecting with his mother as she battled cancer. The two of them loved books. Picking out their favorites and reading and discussing them together energized both of them. The book is a positive portrayal of the power of words.
Many of the titles mentioned in these books are in our library. I am planning to donate both of these books to our collection. I hope that you, too, will find them useful. |
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