Thank you to Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book. This is a relatively short read. The whole story harkens to the Asimov Laws of Robotics. Not a very deep read but enjoyable nevertheless.

I started reading this book and found that it was not for me. I didn't want to review a book that I didn't finish.

ALMOST HUMAN by HC Denham

A science-fiction book about AI (artificial intelligence) as personal home robots are being developed and deployed into the public's homes. Everyone seems to have a different idea about them, usually, they love them or hate them. Typical of people's mindset in today's society. All love or hate.

The book follows a test group that is employed by the robotics company to see if people can deal with the mental issues that arise having something living in your home.

Several of the men in the test group seemed to have an almost sexual type of relationship with their female robots. The machines were not anatomically correct, but the men seemed to rely heavily upon them.

Thank you to #netgalley for the complimentary copy of #almosthuman I was under no obligation to post a review.

While this one was a quick read, and dips into the premise of my favorite show Westworld, it didn’t have any of the twists and turns. Instead, it had a lot of superfluous details that got a bit annoying. Every plot point was reinforced at least two or three times through repetitive dialogue to the point that I almost dnf’d. But it was a short enough book to finish.

There seemed to be some disconnect between the first and second halves of the story. And so many underlying things that were hinted at were never uncovered in the end... so why mention them in a half-interested way?

In addition, the only female character constantly berates herself and calls herself neurotic and “a pain” for simply voicing thoughts (that I would also have in her situation) to the other characters that were 90% male.

I so wanted to like this one, but was pretty disappointed with how surface-level it ended up being.

Almost human

This story begins with a fascinating and terrifying mystery regarding a married couple’s trial period with two androids. Something goes massively wrong. At first, each android performs flawlessly and the couple seems extremely pleased. However, the wife ends up being committed to a mental hospital and the husband ends up taking his own life. Huh? Why?!? And then when the android company comes to retrieve their property, they discover more mysteries. It has been padlocked away in an unused ‘fridge with its face smashed in but in otherwise perfect condition. Wow!! What’s the story here?!?

Some time afterwards, the work assistant of the dead husband chats with the android’s programmer; she wants to get to the bottom of the mystery, too. In reply, he starts to confess something—something that really, really pissed me off. She’s not sure exactly how far the confession extends, and she describes some downright inexplicable behavior that she witnessed the androids doing, and he completely dismisses her observations.

As a result, she is so freaked out by everything, and she flees the country. Fast forward ten years, and we see her life has completely changed. Descriptions of the bucolic countryside, insights into her serious romance with her new boyfriend, and lots of interior monologues.

Although all of this is extremely readable, at times I found myself flipping over pages of descriptions to look for some action—especially some robot action. For example, at one point, her phone rings and we must wait through a page and a half of her thoughts before she answers it. So much reader torture!

Finally, an android shows up, and gad zooks, it will be her mother’s home health caretaker! I cannot spill the beans, let the cat out of the bag, or spoil the details of what happens next!

But fairly soon the book ends. And it is so abrupt I found myself flicking and flicking my reader’s interface, trying to get more pages to appear. More robots, please!

Even though I wanted more robots, I do think the author is a good writer, especially the mystery parts, which convey some excellent, heart thumping horror!

4-5 stars for the initial vignette, 1 star for the resolution, 3 stars for the quality of prose

Thank you NetGalley for providing me with this preview and for listening to my feedback.

Writing: 3/5 Plot: 3/5 Characters: 2/5
A cautionary tale of a future where AI based humanoid robots may be slowly taking over the planet while the human population they are intended to serve remains blissfully unaware. All but one — the utterly competent, perfectly empathic, friendly humanoid robots just give Stella Mayfield the creeps.

While the plot had potential, I really didn’t enjoy this book. The characters were extremely stereotyped (and really, although Stella was a Biologist with a PhD, she behaved like the stereotypical neurotic woman while the men behaved like stereotypical men — completely out of touch with their feelings blah blah blah. The techie robot engineer was the biggest stereotype of all (and spoke some weird dialect that didn’t match anything I’m familiar with and I live and work in Silicon Valley!). There is very little science and very little plot — instead it includes lots of filler encompassing a lot of clichéd relationship stuff that had little to do with the plot. Writing is decent enough that I finished the book, but nothing special, and the end was completely predictable. Could have made a decent short story with better characters and more philosophic depth.