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2.95 AVERAGE
2.95 AVERAGE
I read Barren Cove in a day, mostly in one evening sitting. From the first line to the last, I loved every page, the synopses of my brain lighting up in strange and wonderful ways. The story is fresh and original. It is a sci-fi literary novel perfectly written and plotted. The characters distinct, for all their being robots. Yes, robots. And I quickly noted that the story line was a retelling of a 19th c. classic novel. Brilliant!
Sapien rents a beach house to get away from the city and for an opportunity to contemplate. Younger robots had chosen to deactivate. What was he hanging on for? One of the last human-built robots, Sapien lives in a world where robots reproduce 'children' and human life no longer holds any value.
When Sapien decides to visit the beach house owner, a human named Beachstone, he encounters a beautiful female robot name Mary and her distorted brother, Kent. There is a 21st c. gardener robot named Kapec and the house computer Dean. A young robot Clarke has a wild and cruel streak. Sapien is drawn into the family mystery when Dean tells him their history, how Asimov 3000 raised a human child with his children Mary and Kent, alienating his son, and the violent family war that ensued. Sapien does not find the answers he was seeking, but he finds clarity.
I would love to deconstruct the novel but I won't take the fun away from you. But I will say this is an amazing retelling of Wuthering Heights.
Sapien rents a beach house to get away from the city and for an opportunity to contemplate. Younger robots had chosen to deactivate. What was he hanging on for? One of the last human-built robots, Sapien lives in a world where robots reproduce 'children' and human life no longer holds any value.
When Sapien decides to visit the beach house owner, a human named Beachstone, he encounters a beautiful female robot name Mary and her distorted brother, Kent. There is a 21st c. gardener robot named Kapec and the house computer Dean. A young robot Clarke has a wild and cruel streak. Sapien is drawn into the family mystery when Dean tells him their history, how Asimov 3000 raised a human child with his children Mary and Kent, alienating his son, and the violent family war that ensued. Sapien does not find the answers he was seeking, but he finds clarity.
I would love to deconstruct the novel but I won't take the fun away from you. But I will say this is an amazing retelling of Wuthering Heights.
My first thought when seeing this book come out of the package was, "Hey, neat, the smart sister on 'Modern Family' wrote a book.'"
Author Ariel S. Winter may get that a lot. I'm reminded of the scene in the movie "Office Space," where someone suggests that a character named the same as Michael Bolton should change his name.
But there is plenty of room for two incredibly talented Ariel Winters; the one in this book happens to write "Barren Cove," a haunting science fiction story about robots and their ties to humanity.
It's at times both hopeful and bleak, as a robot questions his existence and looks for answers that we who are sadly not robots might never find.
Winter digs into the guts of the robot Sapien here, in a way that avoids the well-worn steps of Data on "Star Trek: The Next Generation" or The Vision in Marvel Comics.
Author Ariel S. Winter may get that a lot. I'm reminded of the scene in the movie "Office Space," where someone suggests that a character named the same as Michael Bolton should change his name.
But there is plenty of room for two incredibly talented Ariel Winters; the one in this book happens to write "Barren Cove," a haunting science fiction story about robots and their ties to humanity.
It's at times both hopeful and bleak, as a robot questions his existence and looks for answers that we who are sadly not robots might never find.
Winter digs into the guts of the robot Sapien here, in a way that avoids the well-worn steps of Data on "Star Trek: The Next Generation" or The Vision in Marvel Comics.
I've been on an A.I. kick, which is how I picked up this book that I normally wouldn't have noticed. And, really, it's about robots in a technical sense, the characters are machines. But, they're all just stand-ins for humanity's self-destruction and loneliness. They may be A.I. in a world where mankind is on the way out, but they act just like their precursors. It's a somber read that tricked my sci-fi radar and I'm glad it did.
I enjoyed reading this book. Was perplexed at times about what was actually happening. Are robots alive? What does alive even mean, to a robot?
Hands down, one of my favorite books of all time. This is one of those books that I read and wish so badly I had written it. A brilliant book that seamlessly reconciles human drama with science fiction. It has the complexity and devastation of Great Expectations and Wuthering Heights with the fantastical possibilities of the future. Through robots, Winter explores the human condition in a spectacularly haunting way: where we come from, in what image we are made and modeling, and where we choose to go. This is the only book I remember ever finishing, then immediately re-reading to put all the pieces of the narrative together. I cannot stress how much you need to read this book!
There is something about exploring humanity through something so explicitly inhuman that is really powerful here. Even with recognisable elements from its source material (Wuthering Heights), it still feels new and alien and tremendously moving, and I find I love it very much.
I received this from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Okay, so this is a retelling of Wuthering Heights with robots. I have never read Wuthering Heights, so a lot of the similarities and nuances probably went right over my head. However, even without the proper context, this is an interesting story that I enjoyed. I had some trouble figuring out when things were occurring, as the chapters jumped around in time. Overall, an interesting science fiction take on Wuthering Heights that you will enjoy more if you have actually read Emily Bronte's story.
Okay, so this is a retelling of Wuthering Heights with robots. I have never read Wuthering Heights, so a lot of the similarities and nuances probably went right over my head. However, even without the proper context, this is an interesting story that I enjoyed. I had some trouble figuring out when things were occurring, as the chapters jumped around in time. Overall, an interesting science fiction take on Wuthering Heights that you will enjoy more if you have actually read Emily Bronte's story.
I felt like there was really no point to this book. There was no character development and none of the characters were likeable or interesting. If there was supposed to be some Big, Important exploration of what it means to be human and blah, blah, blah, etc I didn't pick up on it. At least it was short.
Update: after reading other reviews apparently this is supposed to be a retelling of Wuthering Heights. Uh oh, I have that on my TBR...
Update: after reading other reviews apparently this is supposed to be a retelling of Wuthering Heights. Uh oh, I have that on my TBR...
I read this book in the space of just a couple of hours, and while I was expecting a story about Sapien, it was more a sordid tale of the residents of Barren Cove, told by the house computer to Sapien, and only experienced briefly by him. Imagine your standard tell-all about the quirks of odd, bored, inbred, rich families whose only problems seem to stem from the ones they inflict on themselves and each other, only the characters are (mostly) post-human robots who for all of their disdain for humans, act just like them. It was fun, but it was modeled as trash candy for the futurist set, and I would assume that was done with the intent of making a reader think about the implications of sentient life repeating the same patterns with which humans have struggled for roughly ever. The story features an abused, timid lives-for-everyone-but-herself doormat sister bot, the domineering, jealous, hateful asshole brother bot, the benign patriarch whose blind eye for his children's shortcomings makes him about the least benign of all of the bots, the human who's taken in and also becomes a weird, domineering asshole who can't admit help and uses sister bot just as thoroughly as everyone else, and the fucked up partying son bot who has feelings he can't admit because he'd rather be a rebel and a robot supremacist, and frankly feelings just haven't served him terribly well in the past. Oh, and Sapien, who is like WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE MOTHERFUCKERS... I gotsta hack their computer and get ALL their dirt, and also who is that hot young babe with the pink hair and can I get with her pleeeease. So, standard dirty old hippie man bot.
Anyway. Entertaining, but probably not something I'd revisit. Recommended for the speculative fiction fans who want to know what daytime drama would look like in a post-human time.
Anyway. Entertaining, but probably not something I'd revisit. Recommended for the speculative fiction fans who want to know what daytime drama would look like in a post-human time.