Published By: Gollancz
Pages: 384
Released On: 17/04/2025
As the world falls apart around them, piece by piece, Abigail Fuller spends humanity’s final days looking after her husband David.
But that’s not true, not really. Abigail isn’t David’s wife. She’s not even human. She’s a replacement, built in the image of the real Abigail, who died sixteen years ago.
And in three weeks, when the law changes, Abigail will no longer have to do anything David says. She’ll be free to go where she likes, do whatever she wants to do. But having never lived for herself, Abigail now faces profound questions about what she is, how she wants to live, and who she wants to love.
Perhaps she should start with herself.
*****
Thanks to NetGalley and Gollancz for the advanced copy of this title in return for an honest review.
I have read a few of Lapinska’s children’s books, including Jamie, Stepfather Christmas, and the sequel The Biggest Christmas Secret Ever. I also own Artezans: The Forgotten Magic. I love their work, even if it has been directed at children up ’til now, and so I was thrilled to see that they had written an adult’s book. I love their kids books, but this gives them a chance to stretch their writing abilities and some of the work in this book is so poetic that it’s clear they have the potential to write for anyone.
Yes it is fiction, fantasy, sci-fi. But with the advances in technology and AI and robotics etc. I don’t think it’s that far away from being a reality, which is quite worrying.
It is narrated by the ‘robot’ Abigail, which was a fresh viewpoint for me. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book narrated by a machine as opposed to a human, and so this really stood out for me. It does have another viewpoint for a section in the middle, but I won’t spoil that, but for the most of it, it is the ‘robot’ Abigail we hear from.
It is very female heavy. I don’t mean that in a “women rule, down with men” kind of vibe. But in my opinion, whilst there are male characters, the female ones shine the brightest off of the page, they are directing the narrative.
It is an interesting thought, humans vs robots. If a robot has been made to look like, speak like, feel like, and for all intents and purposes be a person, do they not deserve the same respect as a human? Could you, say, shoot a robot that wore the face, and spoke the voice of your late mother, any more than you could shoot your real-life mother? That may be an extreme example but it’s these questions that made this book so interesting.
I will never understand why humanity is so hellbent on creating AI/robots that are so human-like, and are able to do, feel, and think. Why do we want to get to a stage where humans start to be controlled by robots? It freaks me out.
It isn’t an easy read. I don’t mean in sense of bad writing or anything, no. But in terms of content, violence, death, abuse – it’s very heavy, but I think it’s important for the story.
I did feel at times that the narrative was a bit clunky. Because it’s sci-fi, the author has to explain things to give context to the reader as they’re obviously new to this world. At times it felt like the characters were explaining things to each other that they would obviously already know, but because the reader needs to know, it’s added, and it just made it feel a little odd in places.
I did feel it was slightly like two books. Yes it was obviously the same story and characters, but there was a definite change in feeling between the first half and second which was a little stumbling block.
I had a couple of small issues with it, but as a whole it was a well thought out, well written story, with a lot to think about; well created if not always pleasant characters, and I think it bodes well for Lucy’s future books if they want to expand further into other genres.
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