A Thousand Blues

An entertaining quick read set in a futuristic 2035, Korea, with androids replacing the human workforce. C-27 jockey robot develops feelings towards its horse. Streen, a street robot chokes on litter. Betty takes over the store assistant job from a human. Betty evolved from Hubo, the first Korean bipedal humanoid robot developed in 2004 by K university. Darpa, a soft four legged robot deployed for disaster relief, was the first robot the protagonist encountered when she rode one home on a rainy day home from school.
Interspersed with Korean culture, places (the Makgyecheon stream), food (samgyetang, Melona ice cream bar, broccoli banchan, tteokbokki, aloe drink, gimbap, instant ramen, bellflower root, and kimchi) and (the Chuseok) show more festival; this novel explores the endeavour of a young inventor to improve life using robotics, also questioning the sentience of an android where the book begins and ends with the thoughts of C-27.
The story had one bibliographical reference to Ted Chaing's short story "The Lifetime of Software Objects" show less