Greer’s novel is, in fact, a brilliant pas de deux, grappling with ideas of freedom and identity while depicting a perverse relationship in painful detail ... I was struck by Greer’s nuanced portrait of a person whose soul is curdled by his exercise of power over another being ... There are moments when the novel strains credulity: We never learn how Doug earns enough money to purchase a custom sex robot, and despite living in an advanced technological era, he still has 783 analog books on his shelf. We do, however, learn that he is liberal. I suspect these details are meant to illustrate that erudition and liberal politics do not inoculate against misogyny, but they feel pat. The novel also gestures toward the significance of race and transgender identity in a world where humans and A.I. intermingle, but these ideas remain unexplored. The novel’s sparse world-building and relatively quiet prose do not detract from its strength, though. Like Annie conserving the memory in her CPU, the novel marshals its real power to depict its central relationships. The result is a gripping depiction of the ideologies that shape this novel’s world — and our own world too.
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