The Silver Metal Lover

so-so

I liked this and didn't like this, each for different reasons than I thought I would. Apologies for the lack of further unhinged updates but it ended up going in a less goofy direction than I expected. This is a long ass review, so for those looking for the TL:DR, I don't recommend you read the book.
1/?

Robotswithpersonality 2/? How to start?
Okay, preconceptions:
1) Torrid romance with handsome robot standing in for hunky dude; if laughably bad in execution, all the better
2) If I'm lucky some interesting questions raised about robot existence

The reality: Yes and No on both points. 1mo

Robotswithpersonality 3/? 1) Re: Torrid Romance
There is much that is overwrought about our heroine and her growing awareness of what seems at first an impossible love, but she's sixteen, an age I dimly remember leant itself to becoming overwrought, even before you factor in a societally unacceptable love interest. He's an artificial being in a form of slavery. Any relationship between them is purpose built to be “emotionally-charged“.
1mo

Robotswithpersonality 4/? So yeah, further on that first bit, the narrator/protagonist is 16. And yes, despite that, this still ended up being a romance with slightly more than fade-to-black (am I using that term correctly?) love scenes. Nothing descriptive, more about the emotions involved and the sensations when that added (and I know this will sound bizarre) to the character's growth. I fully understand if even 'alternate world where sophisticated wealthy minors get 1mo

See All 34 Comments

Robotswithpersonality 5/? to act like adults' and 'this particular teen strikes out on her own, earning a living and maintaining an apartment having determined to break with her family and save the robot' don't change the fact that this is a 'three year old robot whose image is supposed to be somewhere between 20 to 23' gives you too much ick to even engage with the concept of their sexual relationship in fiction. ( We'll call that problematic element number 1. 1mo

Robotswithpersonality 6/? See below for more.🚩 ) Didn't see it coming and dearly wish the author could have figured out another way to make the main character's actions restricted than the presence of her legal guardian looming over her.

Laughably bad in execution?
Tricky. I don't have a lot of patience for romances these days, so I'm less qualified to fairly judge, but just the fact that the author chose to go for something more heart-rending than an HEA kind of 1mo

Robotswithpersonality 7/? makes me respect the material more, even if it is both stretching credulity and edging on maudlin at once. If I think about the sci fi and fantasy tags beside the romance tag in the Storygraph listing, the writing decisions make more sense.
Tabitha Lee is obviously a fan of descriptive writing using the full range of words for colours, inventive analogies and unusual adjectives. I think there are those who would call it people prose, but I 1mo

Robotswithpersonality 8/? don't think it overshadowed the text, I think it leant itself to the mood of the story. In other words, maybe it WAS purple, but I LIKED it. 🤷🏼‍♂️ I'll immediately caveat that by adding that I liked the way Lee set the scene, (that apartment makeover sounds amazing and so does watching storms from her mother's house in the sky), I'm less enamoured of her dialogue, and her descriptions of people's lewks could get a little much when they 1mo

Robotswithpersonality 9/? preface more tense interactions.

2) What takes up the greatest part of the story IS a discussion of free will, autonomy, whether you can overcome programming, but it's much more focused on an emancipated teenager than a robot.
1mo

Robotswithpersonality 10/? What appears at the outset ostensibly as a poor little rich girl prone to weeping fits and shrinking violet behaviour is skillfully if agonizingly rendered as the story unfolds as someone who's dealt with profound emotional abuse her entire life, such that she has no confidence in herself or her abilities and cannot at first trace the source of such feelings. She is certain that she needs to please her mother and certain that she cannot, 1mo

Robotswithpersonality 11/? certain that she has no worth and cannot stand up to the cruel circumstantial circle of 'friends' she doesn't actually like, certain that she could not physically measure up to her mother but must retain the appearance her mother has programmed. There's some sci fi in here that means mommy dearest selected and maintains through pills and treatments: body type, hair/eye colour, and purportedly libido, ick. 1mo

Robotswithpersonality 12/? She's certain everyone else is more capable, more clever, more confident, and acts accordingly.

There are aspects here that reflect the standard romance format, the shy nerd takes off her glasses, let's her hair down, voila bombshell, or in less disparaging yet still trope-y tems, whatever she considers flaws, her lover is crazy about and she learns to love about herself, likewise the 'love of a good man' brings out her confidence and she's 1mo

Robotswithpersonality 13/? able to share her talents.

What I don't usually see in romance is the distressly detailed deconstruction of why she was made to feel that way about herself. And the fact that it's not a makeover or body positivity that make her love her looks, it's abandoning her mother's plans for her appearance, and all of a sudden she's a platinum blonde supermodel (see below to add this particular caterpillar to butterfly transformation and its beauty st 1mo

Robotswithpersonality 14/? andards to the list of problematic aspects to the text 🚩).

Also on the problematic side, her lashing out at this good 'man' who loves her as she attempts to process an ocean of self-esteem issues that continually prevent her from seeing herself as worthy of love or attention. She can't believe Silver could love her or want to help her because she's not worth it, which is further complicated by accusing him of being incapable of doing any 1mo

Robotswithpersonality 15/? thing of his own initiative, and then denigrating him for lacking that capability.

Oh, and if the emotional blackmail/abuse of being certain she needed to not bother, but always please, her mother were not enough, she's also held financially hostage. Yes, in most sane households, a 16 year old is provided for by their parents, and any 16 year old who cannot stand to live with their family loses that financial support. 1mo

Robotswithpersonality 16/? A couple of story points make the normal sense-making of our world less applicable in the narrative: Jane lives in a world where her spoiled compatriots have separate dwellings and unlimited funds, while she's held to a limited allowance and has her own suite in her mother's house where she's expected to record messages to her mother if anything's bothering her so they can discuss it on her mother's schedule. 1mo

Robotswithpersonality 17/? When Jane breaks free of her mother's grip by selling everything in her suite to get some starting capital, as her mother refuses to authorize an apartment or a job, her mother cuts off her allowance, and will only put it back if she comes home. She can go into any bank and get just enough for a cab fare to return. Her personal security system that would automatically alert police is also cancelled. 1mo

Robotswithpersonality 18/? It becomes very obvious her mother wants her only when she exists in a certain place and behaves in a certain way. That reads as the kind of strategy an abusive husband in the early-mid 20th century would employ to make sure a wife who was less likely to have the training or opportunity to get a job on her own, could never leave his household. I apologize if reading this review or this book is triggering for anyone who may have had real-life 1mo

Robotswithpersonality 19/? experiences of a similar kind. For my own perspective, I can only say imagining having a mother/family member/SO like this is nightmarish.

Regarding robotic free will:
I did love when we got hints that Silver, the human-like special format robot, was particularly special because he did have more physical expression and sensation, more emotional range, than others of his line, it's a slightly different angle on the speculation around the 1mo

Robotswithpersonality 20/? singularity. This is meant to be a love story, so the focus was on artificial intelligence having emotional intelligence akin to humans, which made the average stumbles of a new relationship that much more painful to witness.

Silver is designed to entertain by song with voice and guitar. 1mo

Robotswithpersonality 21/? [Side tangent: and his skill at such leads to his undoing by one human who represents the masses who understandably fear for their own fame and economic prospects if robots are better than them at everything. We really need universal basic income, better social support structures and more fulfilling hobbies that don't centre around becoming famous and worshipped so people can stop freaking out about capitalism and social media telling them 1mo

Robotswithpersonality 22/? the only ways they can be safe, happy, housed and successful and simultaneously suggesting robots and AI are about to destroy their futures. END side tangent]
Outside his musical entertainment it's explicitly discussed that he'll also have sex, be an attentive lover, with whomever hired/rented him or later owns him. The contract stuff is a little messy to get into here, but Jane technically pays back the money and begs for him but doesn't own 1mo

Robotswithpersonality 23/? Silver, which still makes for a detestable power imbalance. Silver makes clear, repeatedly, that making people happy makes him happy, which just makes every interaction where he's solicitous that much more gray in tone. Jane is torn about it, but she sought him out because she'd fallen in love and half-hated him at first sight, again, the being 16 thing is coming to mind, 1mo

Robotswithpersonality 24/? and she basically challenges him repeatedly to prove in some way that he actually loves her, and everytime he equably acknowledges that there really isn't a way for him to show it, she heaps abuse on him, basically being mean about the fact that he's 'only a robot'. You know, the one she professes to love. She then feels horrible and apologizes, and eventually the more unique aspects of this particular robot seem to convince them both that he 1mo

Robotswithpersonality 25/? truly loves her. And if that isn't enough, there's his sacrifice at the end, and his communication beyond the grave! It feels like Silver gave a lot more than he got, was more often used than cared for. 1mo

Robotswithpersonality 26/? While multiple books have proven how hard it is to write convincingly from the robot's perspective, especially as main character/narrator, I do think this could be a different book if the lovesick teen were not the reader's perspective. 1mo

Robotswithpersonality 27/? Sad robot who never really had a chance or tragic hero who did it all for love, neither reading makes me feel better about his end. 1mo

Robotswithpersonality 28/? Now onto the less-nuanced problematicals 🚩🚩🚩:

The pressure to look a certain way, beauty standards which haunt Jane as she always feels inadequate next to her mother and her circle of friends, none of whom do anything to make her feel better.
She's overjoyed when shedding her mother's physical programming means her 'true' genetics emerge (edited) 1mo

Robotswithpersonality 29/? (oh, yeah, both eugenics and colourism definitely feel like they're lurking in the background of any physical description of the wealthy people and the special format robot lines), and she is of course, naturally thin and pale blonde, at which point all her friends are jealous and in awe of her.
It might be pure escapist fantasy but it's also inescapably harmful IRL. 1mo

Robotswithpersonality 30/? The casual reference to these teenagers needing to be understood as sexually mature/'sophisticated', aka probably have sex even before you feel ready, and not read any greater sense of connection into the act, not because you're emotionally mature enough to determine with your chosen partner that this is just going to be a fun night rather than a relationship, but because it wouldn't be cool to be invested. 1mo

Robotswithpersonality 31/? It's more of a few thrown away lines than anything the text addresses in detail, but I'm just so tired of seeing something which pushes so many people into uncomfortable, even traumatizing situations, in an effort to be accepted by their peer group, referred to so casually.
Jane is embarrassed that she hasn't wanted to have sex with any of the men she's previously encountered, and occasionally refers to her 'maladjustment' for being 1mo

Robotswithpersonality 32/? for being attracted to Silver.
On a more positive note it could be argued it's the love and attention, the sharing of company and creativity and the more platonic physical affection between Jane and Silver that helps Jane gain a sense of self-worth. There's a lot more focus on Jane's insecurity about whether Silver can truly love her which is often specifically separated from his ability to make love to her, 1mo

Robotswithpersonality 33/? but she does get bogged down in whether he could truly find her attractive, jealousy of others who want him sexually, a certain obsession with marking out those who want him and can't have him. I really can't tell what's bad societal messaging about sex, and what's typical of a romance novel, especially from the 80s.
1mo

Robotswithpersonality 34/? I saved the worst for last. It took me a moment to figure out that M-B stood for Mirror-Biased and a little longer to realize that meant someone attracted to the same gender in the world of the book. Based on the characters and interactions that include the term, it's really hard to believe Lee isn't purposefully casting a harmful-stereotype-filled, negative light on queer people... 1mo

Robotswithpersonality 35/35 in the robot-fucking book. There's really only so far 'blame the 80s' can stretch as an excuse. 😑

⚠️ emotional/psychological abuse, homophobia, suicide attempt 1mo

8 likes34 comments

Welcome to Litsy!

Trending Hashtags

Trending Books