In the Lives of Puppets by T.J. Klune ( The House in the Cerulean Sea) is a retelling of Carlo Collodi’s The Adventures of Pinocchio set in a vague, post-apocalyptic future where the puppets are robots, the whale is a giant airship, and the Blue Fairy is…best experienced on your own. While Klune may have used Pinocchio as a starting point, you can see bits of other works in here as well. There are elements of Swiss Family Robinson, Wall-E,and The Wizard of Oz, among others. It’s a nice mish-mash of familiar tropes. A central theme of In the Lives of Puppets is freewill, the essence of humanity. Vic may very well be the last human left alive, and the robot he finds (HAP – aka Hysterically Angry Puppet) was specifically designed to eradicate the human race. We are treated to a textbook version of the events leading up to the robot apocalypse and the annihilation of humanity. And we are also shown that some of the robots have been able to break free of their programming and make their own decisions.

But on Sunday night Milei showed little sign of diluting his vision for South America’s second largest economy. “The changes this country needs are drastic,” he declared, announcing Trumpian plans to make Argentina great again. Some of the details are deliberately counter-realistic to illustrate some unspecified point about the need for organic relations between sentient beings. Most notably, the family repair Hap with wood so that he looks more like a puppet, while both Hap and Gio have had their batteries replaced by a complex wooden gear system finished off with a drop of Victor’s blood. And blood also stands for some ineluctable humanity that some in the book prize and others, dangerously, hate. He’s adorable,” Lemoine claimed in a pre-election interview, calling the far-right libertarian “the most wanted man in Argentina right now”.

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The rest of the unconventional family must travel across an unforgiving and otherworldly country to rescue Gio from decommissioning. Or worse, reprogramming. Along the way, Vic must decide if he can handle his feelings for Hap – even if they come with strings attached. In a machine-controlled dystopian future, Victor Lawson lives in a treehouse in an Oregon forest with his dad Giovanni. Vic is human, and Gio is an android inventor who raised Vic from infancy.

New York Times bestselling author TJ Klune invites you deep into the heart of a peculiar forest and on the extraordinary journey of a family assembled from spare parts. Victor, a notably “real” boy, is starkly out of place in a land of robots and machines. Raised by Giovanni Lawson, his android father and inventor, Victor spends his days scavenging the scrap yards of another civilization for spare parts and hiding away from the detection of machines much larger than themselves. With his robot companions—an anxiety-ridden cleaning vacuum and a sarcastic and self-professed sadist nurse robot—they live happily in their wilderness workshop as a family. One day, Victor and the robots salvage a defunct and amnesiac android thrown out in the graveyards. Without telling his father, Victor repairs the android—offering him a new name (Hysterically Angry Puppet, or Hap for short), a new functioning heart, and a new life with his makeshift family in the forest. When Giovanni learns of Hap’s existence, it brings chaos that reveals secrets his father has hidden for years and a dark shared past that threatens their family’s safety. That chaos spurs Victor, Hap, and his companions on a life-altering journey from their idyllic treehouse in the forest to rescue his father from the City of Electric Dreams—a futuristic, robotic-run city void of humanity, free will, and the near-omnipotent power of The Authority. Along the way to save Gio, amid conflicted feelings of betrayal and affection for Hap, Vic must decide for himself: can he accept love with strings attached?

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With all the recent discussions about Artificial Intelligence, the idea of robots developing emotions is one that should be considered. (And often is, let’s be real here.) The robots that make up Victor’s family experience sadness, loyalty, bravery, determination. They are every bit as human as the human they protect. It very much reminded me of Humans, in that it explores love and friendship between humans and androids and delves into how much humanity can be in a machine. Like Klune’s other works, it features a queer romance, and a very non-traditional one. After all, Vic is human, and Hap is decidedly not. I like the idea of this more than the execution, primarily because I had trouble feeling the connection between the two characters. I suppose it’s because Vic has lived an extremely isolated life, and Hap’s memory was wiped so this is the only existence he knows. It’s a desert island romance; are the feelings genuine, or because they’re the only people they know? Living together in the forest, in a repurposed cabin and a tree house built by Gio, the odd group form a family. In the Lives of Puppets opens with them completely isolated and, though it is not initially clear what Gio knows of the wider world, the other three start by knowing nothing beyond their homestead. https://bookandfilmglobe.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Puppets-BFGlobe-5423-4.40-PM.mp3 Even before Milei’s victory was complete, Lemoine said she was certain her friend – and his sideburns – would prevail. Many experts believe Milei will be forced to moderate after taking power next month and will struggle to implement his more controversial proposals. Milei’s party controls just 38 of 257 seats in Argentina’s lower house and eight of 72 in the senate.

An epic quest of rescue and discovery [with] the author’s trademark charm, heart, and bittersweetness.” — Library Journal, starred review The day Vic salvages and repairs an unfamiliar android labelled 'HAP', he learns of a shared dark past between Hap and Gio - a past spent hunting humans. In a small home, built into the branches of a tree, live a human named Victor and three robots. These are a pleasantly sadistic nurse machine, a small vacuum desperate for love and attention, and a fatherly inventor-android named Giovanni Lawson. Together they’re a family, hidden and safe. A music-lover, Milei was the lead singer of a Rolling Stones cover band called Everest and, according to Lemoine, also enjoys Bob Marley and Verdi. “He loves opera. He sings opera. He’s not very good – but don’t say I said that,” she confided.As with many excellent dramas, everything changes when a stranger enters their lives and how we view the outcome depends on whether Victor is named for optimism or irony. The adventures of the book hinge upon the family’s discovery of an extremely handsome android almost dead in the Scrap Yards. They save his life and his presence heralds the end of a temporary idyll. Whether it is the arrival of the android, Hap, or the drop of Victor’s blood on the Scrap Yard floor, something in that discovery attracts the outside world, and the gears of plot begin to turn. This fantasy/sci-fi mashup novel contains plenty of humor and heart. It asks interesting philosophical questions about humanity, many of which we glean through the eyes of robots. It’s a story of forgiveness, found family, and what it means to love unconditionally. It has accurate, positive queer representation, which is something the author, TJ Klune, always strives to provide. Rambo is an anxiety-ridden Roomba vacuum who loves to clean and ask questions. Nurse Ratched is a hilarious, sociopathic medical robot who finds joy in taking care of Vic and terrorizing Rambo…in a loving way. From New York Times bestselling author TJ Klune, In the Lives of Puppets is a queer retelling of the Pinocchio tale, inviting you deep into the heart of a peculiar forest and on the extraordinary journey of a family assembled from spare parts. Along the way to save Gio, amid conflicted feelings of betrayal and affection for Hap, Vic must decide for himself: Can he accept love with strings attached?

In the Lives of Puppets by T.J. Klune is published by Tor Books and will be available April 25 wherever books are sold. Milei’s biography suggests some of those ideas may have come from his five cloned mastiff dogs who are named after economists including Murray Rothbard and Robert Lucas. “They are like two metres tall, they weigh like 100kg … He calls them his four-legged children,” said Lemoine, laughing off claims that Argentina’s future leader takes political advice from those animals. Victor Lawson lives with his father, Giovanni, in a spectacular treehouse complex in the middle of a giant forest. His life for the past 22 years has been solitary, but not lonely, thanks to his robot friends – Nurse Ratched (think Baymax, only sociopathic) and Rambo (if Dug from Up was a roomba). One day, while scavenging in the massive scrap yard near their home, they find a robot unlike any Victor has ever found. Unfortunately, this discovery starts off a chain of events that culminates in Giovanni being captured, with Victor determined to rescue him. Welcome to In the Lives of Puppets.Nonetheless, Vic and Hap’s tentative exploration of something that is brand-new for the both of them is very charming.I will still count this as a win for ace representation because Vic is at least portrayed as having emotions, which a lot of ace characters are not. I didn’t expect to emotionally identify with robots, but I found myself weeping as I read the last few chapters. (Although, really, are you surprised?) The ending is bittersweet, but hopeful enough to be somewhat satisfying. I will admit that this isn’t my favorite book of Klune’s. But I do think it’s an enjoyable read. Similarly, while I appreciate that Vic identifies as asexual – as asexual protagonists are not very common – it seems disingenuous that he lives set apart from the rest of society. He may be the only human left in existence. How could he possibly know that he doesn’t experience sexual attraction if he’s never been around anyone else? The book has an explanation, but the situation bothered me. Inspired by Carlo Collodi's The Adventures of Pinocchio, and like Swiss Family Robinson meets Wall-E, In the Lives of Puppets is a masterful stand-alone fantasy adventure from the beloved author who brought you The House in the Cerulean Sea and Under the Whispering Door.