Interview with the Robot by Lee Bacon

Interview with the Robot by Lee Bacon

REVIEW: 4 / 5 stars

Interview with the Robot is an audio performance of a science fiction young adult story. The narrative structure has this advanced artificial intelligence housed in a biomechanical robot named Eve speaking to a social worker (because Eve appears to be a 12 year old girl) in a police station after being caught shop lifting. The story is told through the framework of the social worker asking Eve questions, and Eve giving us her backstory bit by bit to fill in the gaps.

Some things that I really look for in YA sci-fi are:

(1) is the futuristic technology believable based on the way the world is set up, and

(2) does the narrator properly explain how things are supposed to work in the world.

Futuristic “magic” instead of tech and the author being vague about what the heck is going on is lazy and just bad writing. I want to be trusted as a reader to be able to enter, understand, and enjoy the author’s world. Lee Bacon does this really well in Interview with the Robot, even with less than 4 hours run-time. It was hard to stop listening!

Bacon crafts the balance between exposition, action, and dialogue quite well. I loved how this really took the time to show how long and complicated creating a robot that could pass as a human would really take. Developing the core technology is key to the story: educating the AI, building the skeleton, developing the synthetic skin and muscles, and even coding the artificial pupils to dilate based on changes in light! I think the shocking reveal, climax, and resolution were all surprising yet believable, and therefore enjoyable to experience.

As much as I liked this in the moment, however, I only rate this 4 stars for a few reasons. I thought there were a few moments, especially in the first third of the story, where the dialogue is unbelievable in order to explicitly explain what is going on in the environment. For example, something like:

“Oh no, the robot arm is touching me! These things are all over the place, and they’re really grabby!”

This problem is much worse in William Gibson’s Alien III audio performance, but I still found it annoying here. Emory’s character does get better later on, but he is really annoying at the beginning. And finally, while David’s lab is impressive, he seems to be able to pursue whatever questions he wants with unlimited funding and no oversight, which is pure FANTASY haha. It would have made more sense if he was making other robots for a university or to sell commercially in addition to his top secret side projects. What do his employees work on after Eve gets her body? No one seems to be recording her progress or taking data when she is running down the hallways bumping into people testing her motor skills.

Overall, I really liked this and have already recommended it to people. This is the best written YA sci-fi story I have read in a while. Definitely a good read for those who like AI and robot stories, even those who might not usually like YA books. I loved the messages about family, too. ❤ ❤ ❤