Like Geppetto who dreams of a son when he makes Pinocchio, Charlie soon discovers that he has little control over what Adam thinks, feels or does. This is one of the many aspects of human life that McEwen is able to explore through his story. Charlie wants to form a new being, much as he and Miranda might have done had they had a child. To this end he seeks the help of his attractive neighbour, Miranda, to whom he gives the responsibility of setting one half of Adam’s personality parameters. Charlie’s purchase of Adam is, arguably, an attempt to complete himself.Īt the same time, Charlie is cautious not to merely replicate himself in Adam. In a sense, Charlie is very much like Adam who, unlike the replicants of Blade Runner, was never given a past by his makers. He grew up without bedtime stories, having never seen a play, listened to music, without poetry, myths or family jokes. He is aware there is a hollowness in his life: he lives in a state of mood neutrality in a neutral zone. Charlie tries to understand his own risky decision.

Charlie Friend, a former lawyer, now disbarred and playing the stock market to make a living, decides to use the inheritance left to him by his mother to buy one of these new machines.

Machines Like Me does all these things and more.Īdam, one of twenty-five new artificial humans (twelve male and thirteen female) have been made available for purchase at an exorbitant sum. Blade Runner teased at what it means to be human, I,Robot considered the relationship of humanity with robots, and 2312 considered the moral implications of robots’ decision-making with the introduction of quantum computers. Most interesting, for me, the novel extends the possibilities of the common Science Fiction trope of the artificial human. But McEwen’s past reads more like a contemporary history than Science Fiction, with allusions to Brexit (a common subject in contemporary novels, including Ben Elton’s Identity Crisis, Ali Smith’s Seasonal Quartet and Sam Byers’s Perfidious Albion to name only three) and the current problems Western countries now face concerning identity. Now, society faces its next step into futurity: artificial humans and all their attendant promise and dread. McEwen’s alternate past is technically more advanced than our present: not only are there mobile phones, but self-driving cars have become the norm. McEwen offers an alternate history of the 1980s, centred around London during a period of social and political upheaval. Yet, unlike many Science Fiction books and films that deal with this subject – Blade Runner, 2312 and I, Robot for instance - Machines Like Me is set in the past rather than the future. One aspect of the novel deals with the implications of artificial humans and artificial intelligence, placing it firmly within the Science Fiction genre. Machines Like Me is something of a change from other Ian McEwen novels I have read.

Machines like me by ian mcewan