A review by mark_cc
Central Station by Lavie Tidhar

4.0

At first blush this book is high-minded and intellectual and mostly about the ideas of a far-future science fiction. It takes place long past (what I understand to be) the traditional definition of the Singularity, and visits characters living in a bunch of different parts of the new structures of human (and Other) society. It briefly touches on questions about how intrinsic some of humanity's problems are, like war or prejudice, and how we're unable to overcome them even when the other parts of society become unrecognizable. It also touched on themes as humanity as a big messy family where everyone and no one tells the story and a lot of cerebral stuff.

However, certain parts of this were very goofy. There was a robot priest named Brother Patch-It heading the Church of Robot and I couldn't get this image out of my head. There was an elevator programmed to make pleasant conversation and I could have sworn it was going to say "Share and Enjoy" at the end. All the robots talk about the afterlife like they do in Red Dwarf. I find it hard to imagine these were unintentional because they're such a part of the canon. This really endeared the book to me.