Description:
The Silver Metal Lover is a classic tale of transforming love. It's a keeper, a book that gets reread 'til it falls apart. Fans petitioned to get it reprinted, and after 10 years of waiting, here it is. Oddly, the book is seldom mentioned when Tanith Lee's work is discussed, perhaps because Lee's usual milieu is horror, and The Silver Metal Lover is a poignant romance requiring at least two hankies before the end. Robots have replaced human labor on earth, causing massive unemployment in a world devastated by pollution and natural disasters. Then Electronic Metals releases a new line: performing artists and sexual companions designed to entertain human partners. Jane, a rich, lonely, and insecure 16-year-old, meets one, the minstrel Silver, and falls passionately in love, despite revulsion at the idea of preferring a mechanical man to a human. She gives up everything she has known for him, and discovers herself. Silver becomes more and more "human" in loving her--a clever illusion created by his programming. Or is it? This unstable society can't afford any evidence that some robots might be indistinguishable from humans. Tragedy is inevitable. Read it and weep--and don't forget to put it on the keeper shelf. --Nona Vero
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