2,480
edits
Changes
Troofriend by Kirsty Applebaum (view source)
Revision as of 14:59, 1 March 2020
, 14:59, 1 March 2020no edit summary
Are you tired of your child's classmates constantly being horrible to them? Do you want your child to have some positive experiences with people? Introducing the new Jenson & Jenson Troofriend 560 Mark IV android! These state-of-the-art machines are capable of emulating the full range of human emotions without lying, stealing or bullying. They're the perfect companion for any child! Any mention that these androids are beginning to develop real human feelings are just unsubstantiated rumours and have absolutely no basis in reality…right?
The book is written in a very interesting way. Ivy's voice is very child-like, with lots of run-on sentences and simplistic grammar, which suggests that she is still a relatively young android, which is also combined with a very formal, literal way of speaking that seems to be common to most depictions of AIs and androids. Any new words that Ivy has learned are italicised and dropped into the sentences; reading through it almost reminds me of those automated messages that you get while waiting for a call. Her speech isn't marked by speech marks, but instead is in bold lettering, which is certainly a little odd, but interesting nonetheless. The chapter breaks occur when Ivy is either turned off or powers herself down. When she starts feeling human emotions, her speech starts stuttering and she has to send an error message to Jenson & Jenson. It's an interesting and unique way of depicting how a machine developing sentience may work.
The story is told from the point of view of Ivy, an android made by Jenson & Jenson. She was bought to keep Sarah, a regular primary school girl worried about regular primary school girl things, company. Sarah initially doesn't like Ivy, but over the course of the book she slowly warms up to her and almost comes to see her as a sister. This is in contrast to her Mum, Shirley, who seems quite highly strung and easily falls prey to the mass hysteria surrounding androids supposedly rebelling against their masters. It doesn't seem to affect her Dad, Rob, a rather grumpy man who seems to be feeling nostalgic for the 80s, before all this new-fangled technology came around.