vN

First I want to say that I hate the cover of this book. It's terrible and I wish it was better because the book is better.

I really enjoyed the universe in this book. Robots are awesome in general, and I especially like reading about AI interacting with humans. The whole deal with the failsafe and free will was really fascinating. This is one of those books where I might forget what happened in the story but I'll be thinking about the universe it happened in for a long time. What does it mean to be fond of something if your fondness is built-in? What does it mean to be “built-in” if you're a robot anyway? Isn't everything built-in? If you can believe that robot feelings are real and true, then how come the failsafe feelings aren't? Are Amy and Charlotte and Portia more real? Does more real have to mean more human? Are Javier's failsafe fondness and Amy's non-failsafe fondness different in any meaningful way anyway? Amy doesn't want to hurt humans any more than Javier does, but she's capable of it. Maybe it means more if you choose not to do it because you want not to do it, and not because you'll die if you do. Anyway, I'm thinking of more stuff, but I don't want to make this review too long.