Thursday, September 6, 2012

The Android That Ate its Grandmother

vN
Madeline Ashby
Angry Robot Books
448pp trade paperback
$12.99 US $14.99 CAN
448pp B-format paperback
£8.99 UK
ebook $4.89 Kindle $6.01 Nook

This book took me over two weeks to read, but please don't take that as a negative comment on the book.  It's actually a high compliment.  Life was happening at the time, and the fact that the book could hold my attention when I wasn't able to read it for literally days at a time speaks highly of the author's ability to tell a compelling story.

Normally, I don't get excited about the whole androids who act like humans subgenre, partly because I got enough of it with ST:TNG and Commander Data.   I like Data, but the whole trope gets old after a while.

Fortunately something I read in a blurb by Joe Lansdale on a novel by Christopher Golden years ago is true:  There are no boring genres, only boring writers.  Madeline Ashby is not a boring writer, and vN is anything but a boring book.  This one surprised me several times by the direction it took.