Ponder: In the Lives of Puppets

The Lives of Puppets ©2023 by TJ Klune is the topsy-turvy story of a human boy, Victor, raised by an android, GIO. Victor has two key "family" members, a medical assistant robot called Nurse Ratched (Registered Automaton To Care, Heal, Educate and Drill) who is somewhat of a sociopath, and a small vacuum named Rambo who is somewhat of a paranoid. The interactions among the human and robots and between logical Nurse Ratched and scattered brained Rambo are amusing. The humor is quirky and non-stop. 

One day, on an adventure to the Scrap Yards, Victor finds a discarded robot that was meant for either destruction or decommissioning. He repairs and modifies him, bringing him back to "life" and adding him as a fourth member in the intrepid band of companions. This new robot is called HAP for Hysterically Angry Puppet. GIO and HAP both know each other from the past. They co-existed in a life ruled by robots, wiping out humans as having too many failure modes and therefore unfit to rule the world. GIO and HAP both now have manufactured wooden hearts which lend humanity to their actions and to their emotions. Maybe machinery domination is not the answer to perfection.

Rather than the father rescuing the son as in the Pinocchio fairy tale, this plot focuses on the son rescuing the father. The Lives of Puppets "parallels" — or more accurately stated "runs perpendicular to" — the story of puppet Pinocchio with his human father figure Geppetto. Gio is to Victor as Geppetto is to Pinocchio. In an audible.com blog interview with the author, the story is referred to as "a futuristic take on Pinocchio". There are references to a Blue Fairy and Blue Pixie, but are they bad or altruistic? There is a City of Electric Dreams which can conjure up Las Vegas for the reader or perhaps evokes Pleasure Island where Pinocchio goes with the bad boys. There is even a character called the Coachman, who like the Coachman in Pinocchio plays a key role in getting Victor and his android friends to the City of Electric Dreams in a traveling house. GIO is being held against his "will" in the City of Electric Dreams having been forcible taken there from his tranquil idyllic home in the Forest with human Victor and his three robot family members. Can it be against GIO's "will" if he has been re-programmed for his newly assigned tasks and location to be his "choice"? Victor, Nurse Ratched, Rambo and HAP strive to rescue GIO and bring him home.

This the third book I have read by this author, the other two being The House in the Cerulean Sea (12/27/2021) ©2020 and Under the Whispering Door (12/7/2021)  ©2021 which I gave 5 and 4 stars respectively. The characters are all so well developed, creative, unique, and inspire such an attachment by the reader. Each storyline is very imaginative and fantastical. I rate In the Lives of Puppets four stars, subtracting one star only because the theme may not appeal to some readers. But those who are adventurous enough give this book a try will enjoy this novel, especially the repartee among the characters. 

★★★★☆ Really good; maybe only one weak aspect or limited audience

In an interview on an audible.com blog , TJ Klune reveals his inspiration for this story that I found bemusing.

And I'm sorry to say this, but the reason this entire book exists was because I bought a Roomba vacuum. And I bought this Roomba vacuum for my house because I was like, "Oh, I hate sweeping, I hate vacuuming, so why not get a little machine that does it?"

And of course, being me, I put googly eyes on it before I turned it on. And then I turned it on. And when you first get one of these vacuums, what they do is they go around your house mapping out the house so they know where to go. My little vacuum—his name is Hank, by the way. He's very much a Hank—one of the very first things he did was got himself stuck in a corner. And he made this really weird, sad beeping sound. Like, it was sad that he was stuck in a corner—and this has never happened to me before and I don't know if it'll ever happen again—but when I heard that beep, seeing those little googly eyes shaking on top, this little thing stuck in the corner not able to get out, not understanding that all it needed to do was turn around and it'll be free and everything is wonderful, for some reason, that moment exploded into this entire story. This book exists because my Roomba vacuum got caught in a corner and made a sad beeping sound.

From that, I knew Rambo. And I knew Rambo would be this socially anxious vacuum cleaner who basically was a sentient version of a golden retriever.

The famous admonition that you can't judge a book by its cover may indeed be true but, as a bonus, I also truly love the artwork on all these book covers. The artwork is by Red Nose Studio.

Based on the artwork of these three books I have even bought a book for my five-year-old grandson who is deeply interested in construction. The book is by Red Nose Studio. See more images from within the book and detailed descriptions on Amazon. I recommend BUiLD!  for young children and parents (or grandparents) who can groove on the artwork. As added value, the inside of the jacket—which pictures each vehicle and a simple description of what it does—can be hung in a child’s room as a poster.