Rating: 
Summary: melodramatic and kinda lame
Review: Premise is great - some images and ideas are great, actual story falls very short. Jane is whiny, and the story is repetitive to a fault. I found it to be tedious in the extreme.
Rating: 
Summary: Journey to self
Review: Jane is a rich young woman living on an Earth remade by natural disasters. She falls in love for the first time with a robot called Silver, and feels like her life has been thrown into disarray. One of her friends, Clovis (a gay man), helps her to be with Silver, and Jane runs away from home to live with Silver in one of the worse-off areas of the city. Silver and Jane live happily for some time, with each teaching the other what it means to be human, to be living, until the company which created Silver seeks to reclaim him due to his "flaws". Tanith Lee's fascinating novel is the story of growing up, of becoming one's own self apart from family and friends, of developing one's own beliefs and persona. This is the type of book which gets better the longer one digests it. It's a celebration of first love, even one that ends sadly.
Rating: 
Summary: I loved Silver!
Review: I first read this book when I was a teenager, and then stupidly lent it to someone, never to see it again. After many years of attempting to get a copy, I found that it had finally been re-released. READ THIS BOOK. It's a beautiful, beautiful story. It still makes me cry!
Rating:
Summary: Unique and enlightening
Review: Well, editors and critics who compare this book to Ms. Lee's Biting the Sun have not truly captured the essence of either book. Sure Biting the Sun and Silver Metal Lover are both based in the future, and both have robots to do most tasks and deeds humans used to do. But where Biting the Sun was about independence and exploring the human psyche, following the life of a particularly poignet individual, The Silver Metal Lover is about understanding yourself, and about love, as it is as individual as a finger print. This book explores love, be it between man and man, man and woman, human and human, or just between two souls. There are very few books out that are truly able to capture the feel of true love... Sirena by Donna Jo Napoli being one that I have found, and now The Silver Metal Lover. I noticed in both that to truly understand the love between the two beings, there has to be great loss as well. It makes you appreciate the love that is there. I truly fell in love with this book, though I don't know if I could read it over and over... I just can't stand to cry that much! This book is very emotional, and extremely beautiful in writing, language, and depth of characters. Definately read this book, it is moving and enlightening.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing to the last page
Review: At first all I can say is... well, I'm speechless. This is such a wonderful book; the best sci fi I've read since Shade's Children. I found The Silver Metal Lover in a local used bookstore recently, and I began to read it as soon as I could. I finished it the next day. The first few sentences caught me, and I couldn't put the book down. The content was truly something I had never read about before, and never really thought about (except while being forced to watch Bladerunner with my dad). This book is about a city in the future. Robots are employed with jobs that humans used to have, thus causing much unemployment among the humans. Then Electronic Metals Inc. comes out with a new Sophisticated type of robot, a type that can act, sing, or dance. These robots are designed purely to entertain and to give pleasure. But this only enrages the unemployed humans more, thinking that if robots can even be artistic and entertaining, what chance do humans have against them? A sixteen-year-old girl, Jane, meets one of these Silver robots one day, and she is for some reason horrified by him. She goes home, not knowing what to tell her mother. Then her friend Egyptia invites Jane to a party, and Jane goes, hoping to get her mind off the robot. But at the party, she discovers that the robot has been hired to sing. She is once again overcome with emotion, and she realizes that she is disturbingly and hopelessly in love with a machine. This story tells how Jane and Silver become friends, and fall in love... but robots are not programmed to REALLY fall in love, only to feel pleasure at the happiness of others. But Silver is showing more and more signs of becoming human, and Jane wonders if there is more to him than just a few nuts and bolts. I cried several times in the course of reading this book; it's such an emotional rollercoaster. I find that the best way to enjoy the book is to put yourself in Jane's place, and live everything right along with her. It will touch you that much more deeply. If you like romance or sci fi or both, I highly recommend The Silver Metal Lover. It is now one of my favorite books, to be placed on a special bookshelf designated for the books that touched me the most.
Rating:
Summary: The Silver Metal Lover
Review: So, I finally got around to reading a book I bought by an author I like. And, for the last thirty-three pages I could barely read for the tears in my eyes. In other words, this was an excellent, amazing book. We start with Jane, created without real love, who finds real love, only her lover, Silver, isn't real, he's a robot. I had, truth be told, a very hard time keeping that in mind while reading the book, especially the last thirty-three pages. I whole-heartedly recommend this book, but bring tissues.
Rating:
Summary: More than a love story
Review: Before I started reading this book, I expected it to be an amusing and maybe kinky sci-fi romance. The more I read, the more I was impressed not only with the well-written love story, but also with the heart-warmingly poetic writing, and most of all with the thought-provoking philosophical themes that lie just beneath the surface. This book raises ideas about what the personality of a perfect human might be like. Silver is programmed to act human, but he is not programmed for negative emotions such as pain, fear, or anger. His kindness and eternal patience help Jane, the highly sensitive and sometimes paranoid protagonist, to come to grips with her life and her attitudes. Tanith Lee blurs the line between humans and robots, giving insight by comparison on what makes humans tick and what potential we have to better ourselves. Though this book is not as well-known as many fantasy classics, I consider it right up there with the best. If you enjoy fantasy or science fiction that has an interesting storyline *and* some deep meaning, do yourself a favor and read this book.
Rating:
Summary: silver
Review: This is one of the most unique fantasy/science fiction novels I've ever read. It's also the only book that's actually made me almost cry at the end. I also think this would be better than most romance novels because since the guy is a robot, it's pretty interesting to say the least.
Rating:
Summary: My life's dearest literary treasure
Review: I read it at least once yearly. So much of it resonates with who I am. Such a poignant, lovely, beautifully-written book. I always feel hurt, somehow, when I am unable to interest friends in reading it. I have worn out two hardcover copies. I am THRILLED to see it in print in paperback. If there is an ounce of romance in your body, you will not find this book a disappointment. If my review doesn't convice you, read a few of those above.
Rating:
Summary: Touching Characters, Breathtaking Scenery
Review: I've loved this book since it first came out, and am glad to see it back in print. In the not-too-near, not-that-far future, a spoiled, naive, sheltered 16-year old daughter of a fabulously wealthy flamboyant single mother ponders and pines away in her ultra-rich castle in the sky, above the clouds. Her friends are equally rich and eccentric, yet they seem to intimidate poor Jane at times, Jane being somewhat shy. Jane meets a life-size, anatomically correct robot, and at first if horrified her... but it more intrigued her (when she was not sober) when she runs into him again at a friend's party. They form a strange, close, intimate bond, this causes Jane (now Jain) to grow up and become an independent adult. Problems arise when the humans, tired of robots taking over "everything," rebel against the manufacturers of these high-tech companions. The whole story aside, I found Tanith Lee's world to be astounding. The landscapes of the post-catastrophe planet, the architecture of the future buildings, the "simple gadgets" ranging from an automated tea dispenser to the monorail-like public transports. The playgrounds of the shamelessly rich ("The Hanging Gardens of Babylon" center frequented by those with deep pockets). The entire tale is written from Jane's perspective, and it is very calm, cool, introspective and quite real. Jane's colorful friends are just as memorable, and unique, and makes it easy to understand why "Quiet Little Jane" is sometimes embarrassed by them. This was my first Tanith Lee book. A bookbud had long been a fan of her fantasy works, which I know to be prolific, and I've read a few but SML sticks in my mind, reverently.
|
