Books: In the Lives of Puppets by TJ Klune (2023)

“In a secluded forest in some far-future Oregon, in a strange little home built into the branches of a grove of trees live three robots. There is fatherly inventor android Giovanni Lawson, Nurse Ratched, a pleasantly sadistic nurse machine (short for “Nurse Registered Automaton to Care, Heal, Educate, and Drill”), and a small vacuum named Rambo, who is desperate for love and attention. Victor Lawson, a human, lives there too. He came to Gio as a baby, but at age 21 now, Vic is trying to help his android father, who has a failing power source of a heart. Once again, Vic and his robot friends venture to the nearby Scrap Yard, which is filled with all sorts of discarded junk left by the mysterious Old Ones, in hopes finding something to help Gio. Then, one day, they stumble upon a damaged, yet semi-“alive” android. Hap, as the trio comes to call him, quickly imprints on Victor, who repairs the android’s body with wood and powers him with a carved heart containing a drop of Victor’s own blood. Hap is an angry, yet powerful android with a wiped memory. But when Hap unwittingly alerts other robots from Gio’s former life to their whereabouts, he is taken back to his old laboratory in the City of Electric Dreams. So together, Vic’s assembled family and dangerous new friend, must journey across an unforgiving and otherworldly country to rescue Gio from decommission, or worse, reprogramming.”

While inspired by Carlo Collodi’s The Adventures of Pinocchio, In the Lives of Puppets includes a bit of everything, like the Wizard of Oz, Star Wars, The Terminator, Stephen King’s The Stand, and The Brave Little Toaster. It’s this mish-mash of those other works that makes the book shine in many places. How far in the future this tale is set is never fully explained, but it’s clear that human let the AI’s get out of hand, and like all science fiction that let the robots take over, the first thing those sentient blobs of wire, plastic, and central processing chips do is eliminate the weak and fragile humans.

This is where we get some commentary on humanity, what it means to be human in a world where humanity has been deemed worthless –all because machines have no concept on what humans can and should do for each other. So, yes, the book can be a bit sentimental, tugging at the heart strings. But it’s also bittersweet and funny –especially the excitable Roomba like vacuum, Rambo and Nurse Ratched, who are literal machines with no filters (like the constant need to talk about how Victor has to “evacuate his bowels"). Still, I adore Ratched so much –she's blunt and deadpan, who could also be a bit psychotic when needed. Meanwhile, the weak link is Victor himself. While I felt for him and his plight, I never felt he rose above being a victim of circumstances. He never shined, even though his love for his Dad made him relatable to me.

And then the irony of the last human on the planet who happens to like boys – it would’ve been awkward had the run into a real female.

A bit overlong, a bit raunchy in places, a bit out-loud funny in others, In the Lives of Puppets is not a homerun, but still worth a read.