Read this on a lark because I am halfway through writing my own human/robot love story and wanted to see how this classic work tackled it. Normally reading fiction similar to what you're writing is a terrible idea, but my story is well enough established that I decided to indulge my curiosity.

I enjoyed the B-plot of this novel, in which one of the characters retells the story of the Golem of Prague. The main narrative lost my interest about halfway through.

Before I picked up the title, I came across controversy about whether literary writers like Piercy, Atwood, etc. write "real" SF/F. I wrestled with this question for a while before setting it aside as irrelevant. There's plenty of successful genre fiction written for a general or literary audience. Piercy's cyberpumk-inspired world isn't very original, but I don't think original worldbuilding makes or breaks a story. She infodumps on every other page, but some genre writers do that all the time (especially in cyberpunk!)

So the reason I didn't care for this book isn't because it's bad science fiction (it might be, but whatever). It's because the characters stopped surprising me and the central ideas of the book didn't take me anywhere I hadn't been before. ( )

As usual, Marge Piercy is full of interesting ideas. In this book she explores our relationship to technology, as individuals, as.communities and as a society. Her primary question concerns the notion of humanity. What does it mean to be human? What are the essential attributes? What does it mean when acknowledged human beings don't have those qualities, vut cyborgs do? What are the benefits and risks of merging the biological with the technological? Great questions for our current moment. Unfortunately Piercy ' s writing falls far short of the expectations set by her framing of her subject. It's sentimental, trite, even juvenile at many times, making it hard to get through and distracting the reader from the interesting problems Piercy ' s presented us. ( )

A bit too long. Some repetition that didn't seem necessary. Lots of detail of plot action early that's missing at the 2nd climax. ( )

Piercy is a masterful writer. ( )

Beautiful. I won't say much here, as I'm teaching this book in the fall. But this is a beautiful, challenging, and memorable read.

So many aspects of this book fascinate me, it would have been hard for me not to like it. There was religion, science fiction, apocalyptic fiction and themes of starting over, golems; just an endless array. There is no small irony (or pun?) in saying that what struck me as most moving was the humanity at the center of this book.

I really don't want to go on about this one, in part because I want to savor my feelings about this book for a while, but mainly because I've been taking expansive notes on this text as I read, and to start would be to not stop any time soon. So, I'll pick up the next book and head to bed, but I won't soon forget this one. Highly, highly recommended. ( )