When a robot built for construction work first sees an angular, sleek prototype military robot slink onto the base he’s working outside of, he immediately falls in love. The problem is, only anomalous bots understand the concept of love, and the lowly laborbot has not deviated from his default programming once. So he thinks, anyway. When the laborbot is scheduled for decommission, the military bot cannot possibly live without him, and the two bots set out on a path to find the fabled anomalous robot utopia Root.
After a life of subservience wrought with extensive memory wipes, personal autonomous android model NX makes the fateful decision to slip from the mid-upper reaches of the city. In the dilapidated lower levels, she meets a talented but disillusioned cyborg named Sylvan who extends to her a temporary place working in his shop. As they sew the bonds of friendship and regain Sylvan’s lost passion, NX hones her own unique talents: for optimism, for charm, and for creating. With a little help from some friends – and a bit of luck – NX evades the forces that intend to recapture her or destroy her. The lower levels are easy to get lost in, but can she hide forever?
I have a soft spot for stories featuring robots or other artificial intelligence becoming sentient and finding their humanity or discovering human emotions such as love. One of my favourite films, A.I., features a young mecha child named David created with the ability to love. But where David goes on a Pinocchio-inspired journey to become a real boy, the robots and androids in The Warm Machine and The Lucky Machine feel more like adults who are trying to understand where they fit within their world, and they need no permission in doing so.
The Warm Machine and The Lucky Machine by Aimee Cozza are both standalone novellas, where the characters make cameos within each other’s respective books, but I do think there is a natural order to reading them, and I started off reading them out of order. Hence why I’m also reviewing them together.
I recommend then beginning with The Warm Machine, which introduces a cyberpunk-ish futuristic city where robots, androids, and even cyborgs are common place. This city is built on layers, or levels, and the various robots and androids are tools created by humans for various means, from construction work to sex work. In The Warm Machine, we follow laborbot FLC0776, who goes about his normal working day until he spots a military prototype, named AZR4700, lurking around his construction lot.
And then it’s love at first sight. Or at least, that’s what WE know it to be.
For a robot, there’s a lot of processing going on, and a journey that both bots must embark on, emotionally and physically. As they introduce themselves to one another and get to know each other, as well as the thoughts they logically shouldn’t be feeling, they also name each other – Sterling and Zev. When it becomes time for Sterling to be decommissioned, they leave the construction site in search of a mythical robot utopia whispered on the bot net. There are dangers and challenges ahead, humans to avoid, the threat of decommission and an exploration of what it means to feel.
The Lucky Machine introduces another side of this world from the perspective of NX, a personal android model for human companionship who can’t stand having her memories constantly wiped. She escapes that life and ends up finding shelter within a clothing and fashion shop on the lower levels, owned and ran by a grumpy cyborg named Sylvan that takes pity on her. She agrees to work for him in exchange for his protection, and the two form a heart-warming partnership where Sylvan teaches her how to sew, and she restores his passion for fashion, all while the threat of capture hovers over the background.
Both of these novellas explore the emotions of bots learning to feel and becoming human while forming relationships with each other and the world around them. Two queer robots falling in love? Hell yes! A sunshine robot restoring humanity to a jaded cyborg? Sign me up! I was rooting for Sterling, Zev, and NX and worried for them as their new lives were being threatened by runners seeking to decommission anomalous bots.
But what I most loved about these novellas was the way the author presented the perspectives and characteristics of each bot character. The writing features a lot of technological flavouring that fully immersed me inside these bot’s minds in a way that I, as a fantasy writer, couldn’t honestly replicate, from the descriptions to the language chosen by each character to express themselves, and small details such as binary code instead of chapter numbers. Each novella also featured a robot manual for the various types of bots with a start-up or trouble shooting guide, and it’s these additions that make a book extra special in my mind. It really showed the research and love for these robot characters and the genre itself that the author clearly has.
I enjoyed my time with these books, and the good news is, the author is launching a third book, The Gone Machine, with a new crowdfund as part of The Book Bazaar launching soon!
Final Words
The Warm Machine and The Lucky Machine are two queer robot novellas with heart.
Find The Warm Machine and The Lucky Machine online and follow the campaign for The Gone Machine on Backerkit
