Books reviews, current events, and other musings

In Marge Piercy's novel He, She, and It, the characters create artificial humanoid life to protect them from outside danger. The main storyline takes place in mid-21st century America, after various economic, military, and ecological disasters. A scientist builds a cyborg to protect his community. A programmer, responsible for training the cyborg, tells it a fable about a rabbi in 17th century Prague who creates a golem to safeguard the Jewish ghetto. He, She, and It alternates between these two stories, displaying some clever parallels.

The possibilities and philosophical questions about human-like robots cover some familiar territory. Piercy's treatment reminded me of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Commander Data on Star Trek, and Isaac Asimov's robot stories. She surpassed earlier work in one aspect: exploring the emotional relationships between man and machine, from each of their perspectives. A common sci-fi limitation came into play -- the difficulty of portraying non-human intelligence and emotions. The cyborg and golem were human with some twists. They lacked a childhood, were physically stronger, and were more rational and kinder than real people. Actually, from the perspective of the female characters, they were better-than-human ideal men.

The world situation and other technologies interested me more than the cyborg story. Governments had collapsed, corporations ruled, most people lived in poverty, and the ecology was a total mess. Meanwhile, technologies such as computers, biotech, and entertainment had matured significantly. That background might be standard cyberpunk, but I haven't encountered much it before.

Overall, I'd give He, She, and It a mixed review. However, the four women in my book club all liked it a great deal more than I did. Its themes, along with the preponderance of strong female characters, might appeal more to women.