In a strange little home built into the branches of a grove of trees live three robots – fatherly inventor android Giovanni Lawson, a pleasantly sadistic nurse machine, and a small vacuum desperate for love and attention. Victor Lawson, a human, lives there too. They’re a family, hidden and safe.
The day Vic salvages and repairs an unfamiliar android labelled ‘HAP’, he learns of a shared dark past between Hap and Gio – a past spent hunting humans.
When Hap unwittingly alerts robots from Gio’s former life to their whereabouts, the family is no longer hidden and safe. Gio is captured and taken back to his old laboratory in the City of Electric Dreams. So together, the rest of Vic’s assembled family must journey across an unforgiving and otherworldly country to rescue Gio from decommission, or worse, reprogramming.
Along the way to save Gio, amid conflicted feelings of betrayal and affection for Hap, Vic must decide for himself: can he accept love with strings attached?
Inspired by Carlo Collodi’s The Adventures of Pinocchio, In the Lives of Puppets is a masterful standalone fantasy adventure from the author who brought you The House in the Cerulean Sea and Under the Whispering Door.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 432
Imprint: Tor UK
Publication date: 25/04/2023
In the Lives of Puppets
by TJ Klune
Review by Mida
An invigorating story through the tried and true ‘Robots have taken over the earth!’ lens with a refreshing, cozy feel to it. Like a cottagecore version of The Murderbot Diaries, this book is a contemplative journey full of themes of humanity and the effects of our actions, all bundled up with themes of identity, love and the power of found family. It’s a delight!
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