Customer Reviews

Virtual Girl (Ace science fiction)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a terrific book on what it is like to be a sentient being. The main character is flooded by information, like all of us and has to learn to survive. After the first 100 pages there is a detour in the book's strength, in that secondary characters are introduced who are sexual minorities. There may have been a reason for this, but it was a minor distraction. I would recomend this book to fans of basically sentient characters (like Robocop), fans of pursuit/suspense (like Dean Koontz and Jefferson Swycaffer novels), and to readers interested in artificial intelligence or just the mystery of being alive. Whenever I feel down I pick up this book or Shadows Fall by Simon Green.
P. S.: I did not understand why the plot included that path (meeting sexual minorities). I think I do now as some readers told me that the main character was one that some female readers thought should have advanced herself to represent women in society, as in breaking the glass ceiling.... Instead she took a Buddhist path of being a sentient being and listening to people and being compassionate. Her interaction with sexual minorities in the middle of the book shows that she is basically a non-sexual being and not bound to gender considerations, but to consideration of all humans and sentient beings.
Nothing wrong with fighting against the glass ceiling, it's just not THIS CHARACTER's main interest. I think. As shown above. Nopthing wrong with sexual minorities anywzy.

This book is the flipside of Terminator 3. This is a humane, simple yet exciting story of a female android built by an ambitious male scientist who rejects her and leaves her to fend for herself in the Real World. This book is sensitive to both women and robots, and is a very good jumping-off point for new readers of feminist sf, mostly because Amy Thomson doesn't hit you over the head with complex feminist issues; by sending Maggie out to live her own life, Thomson creates a believable character who uses her personal skills (physical, mental, and eventually emotional) to build her own independent individual life. Highly recommended.

I read this book for the first time when I was in 5th grade, and I immediately fell in love with it. The first review listed on this page though isn't enitrely sure, so I am assuming that the person didn't read it very well as ***PLOT POINT PLOT POINT*** Maggie wasn't rejected by her creator, they were attacked and she thought he was dead, so she left him .***END POINT END POINT*** As for the other person who stated that the book offered nothing new, maybe when compared to other books out today it isn't unique, but when it was first released in the early 90's, it was very unique. I think this book is very good, and highly recommend it to any one who likes stories about humanity.

Very happy to find this fairly rare book. Although largely unknown, amongst the congnoscenti of science fiction and cyborg/robot it is as important a work and canon as Asimov.



brendan

For a fembot novel, Virtual Girl tells an engaging story of the development of an Artificial Intelligence who gains her independence mostly by accident and has to make of it what she will. This future world contains a rare few other such intelligences such as her own and is portrayed very well as naïve Maggie grows into someone I'd like to meet in person. What keeps this story from its fifth star is that I found the ending a bit of a letdown in which Maggie never does quite reach a full understanding of all that she is, or possibly could be. Other readers may well find the ending just perfect for the story, so this is only one person's opinion here.

But unfortunately, there's nothing new in this book. The plot and characters are predictable and stereotypical. HOWEVER, the good news is that Amy Thomas published novels after "Virtual Girl" - so check out her other excellent works titled "The Color of Distance" and "Through Alien Eyes".