by Stew
Fic in The Concrete Jungle
Review by: Metabolick
Review
In this story Ray Doyle has never existed. On post-apocalyptic Earth Bodie has
left CI5 and is working as a paid assassin. While setting up a job he meets
a unique robot made of metal called Bronze (who of course looks remarkably like
the man we know as Doyle). Bronze is an extremely beautiful and sensual creature
who has more autonomy than his creators intended. Bronze also possesses all
the characteristics to be expected of a robot including superhuman strength,
lightning reflexes, extraordinary vision, etc. and has been programmed to do
many things including give sexual pleasure.
Bronze is a creature like the android Data of Star Trek fame, i.e. he is a machine
but is capable of learning and changing. The author conveys this idea very well
and is skillful in making Bronze quite a sympathetic character. Bodie’s
reason for initially resisting Bronze’s efforts to get close to him is
interesting and plausible. It is the ending that really makes the story work
for me. Bodie helps Bronze learn something entirely new about himself which
reassures me that a relationship between the two will be rewarding to both.
It takes a good writer to make me like a story in which one or both of the characters
are not our Bodie and Doyle, and this is one of them.
Metabolick, August 2008