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A review by nwhyte
He, She and It by Marge Piercy
4.0
https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2974689.html
We are in the near future (to 1993); the Middle East has been destroyed in a war, global warming and pollution run rampant, and corporations control all aspects of life for those who accept the security of living in their communities. Our protagonist, Shira Shipman, flees a nasty divorce in one of the corporate burgs to a Jewish free town, to link up with her robot-building mentor; meanwhile a parallel narrative recounts the story of the Golem of Prague. I generally really hate stories with cute robots, and the android here is not just cute but sexy. But it's far from being the entire point of the story, which involves identity in several different ways, and also is based in really effective world-building and characterisation of the various relationships. Apparently Arthur C. Clarke himself was rather pleased that it won his award, though it is pretty far from Clarke's own style.
We are in the near future (to 1993); the Middle East has been destroyed in a war, global warming and pollution run rampant, and corporations control all aspects of life for those who accept the security of living in their communities. Our protagonist, Shira Shipman, flees a nasty divorce in one of the corporate burgs to a Jewish free town, to link up with her robot-building mentor; meanwhile a parallel narrative recounts the story of the Golem of Prague. I generally really hate stories with cute robots, and the android here is not just cute but sexy. But it's far from being the entire point of the story, which involves identity in several different ways, and also is based in really effective world-building and characterisation of the various relationships. Apparently Arthur C. Clarke himself was rather pleased that it won his award, though it is pretty far from Clarke's own style.