In the Lives of Puppets

Starred review from January 1, 2023

Victor Lawson is a "real boy" in this charming reinterpretation of The Adventures of Pinocchio, while his dad, Gio, is the puppet. Or rather, the android, who, along with a gaggle of misfit, repurposed androids, live together in a forest clearing, separate from the society that spawned them. It's a society of androids that killed all the humans--except for Victor. Their lovely idyll is broken when Victor learns that Gio was once a hunter of humans and that he might be reprogrammed into doing it again--unless Victor and his friends can save him. Combining the cuteness of Wall-E with the history of the deadly android rampage of Day Zero, this quietly draws the reader into its safe and peaceful idyll only to send everyone on an epic quest of rescue and discovery. VERDICT Readers who loved Klune's (Under the Whispering Door) previous works will find plenty of the author's trademark charm, heart, and bittersweetness, while those looking for more hopeful robot stories, like A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers, will find this interpretation of a robot-future different but just as compelling.--Marlene Harris

Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 30, 2023
Bestseller Klune (Under the Whispering Door) draws from Pinocchio to create a gripping and heartfelt queer dystopian tale set in a world where humanity has been eliminated by robots. Victor Lawson, 21, was raised by his robot father, Giovanni, in a secluded forest in far-future Oregon. Together with two friends—antisocial Nurse Ratched (short for “Nurse Registered Automaton to Care, Heal, Educate, and Drill”) and neurotic vacuum Rambo—Victor discovers an angry, powerful android in the nearby scrapyard. 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. When Giovanni is seized by the law and taken to the City of Electric Dreams, a recorded message from Giovanni reveals that Victor is the last surviving human—and that Hap is a model HARP (Human Annihilation Response Protocol) created by Giovanni to hunt and kill humans before he learned regret. Hap, who doesn’t remember this violent past, promises not to hurt Victor as they concoct a plan to rescue Giovanni. Klune makes the central question of what it means to be human feel direct, urgent, and fresh. Both very funny and deeply touching, this evocative retelling will delight Klune’s fans and newcomers alike.

March 15, 2023
In a tale that riffs on the beats of Pinocchio with a futuristic bent, Klune (The House in the Cerulean Sea, 2020) tells the story of a boy named Victor, who finds a broken android and sets off a series of events leading to terrible truth about the world he lives in, a dangerous journey, and characters both charming and threatening. Victor is human, but his family--his father, Giovanni, an inventor; an old medical robot, Nurse Ratched; and a vacuum named Rambo--are robots. Gio's terrible secrets are well hidden, until Victor accidentally sets off an alarm in the process of unearthing a mostly complete android called Hap. In one fell swoop, everything Victor thought he knew is turned upside down, and Gio is taken prisoner by strange, faceless beings in a flying whale. The journey to the City of Electric Dreams, where Gio's original lab is, will be difficult, and Victor will have to contend with how new knowledge of the past may change his relationship with his family. Like Klune's prior work, themes of found family and the hard work of hope prevail.

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