Klara and the Sun

Kazuo Ishiguro

2021

Sweet but derivative "literary" SF

B recommended this and since I have a couple of weeks off (can you tell by how much I'm reading?), I thought I'd give it a go. I enjoyed it very much, as it was an easy read and a good length (i.e. not too long!) - a sweet book, with a conclusion full of pathos, although the ending came a bit suddenly. The plot was a little thin, but was disguised well by the way important facts are gradually revealed; it can be summarised as Asimov's Robot novels meet Toy Story.

After I finished the book, I had a look online to see if anyone had caught the obvious similarity with Asimov's work, and in particular The Bicentennial Man. I was struck by reviews of the book, which, since Ishiguro writes "literature", appeared to be written by people who had never read any real science fiction (as that's "not literature"). So they burbled on about how imaginative it was, and how it raised fascinating questions about the interaction between humans and robots. I guess they are fascinating if you haven't come across the ideas before - but I feel I should point out that real science fiction has been exploring this area for over sixty years ...