This series ended as a disappointment. The grace I was willing to give it with the last volume is gone after it finishing in a pile of anticlimaxes and overused science fiction tropes. Meh.

Okay, once I got over the ways that generative AI have ruined the premise, it’s not a terrible story. It’s not deep or particularly original, but I enjoyed it enough to be more generous this time around.

I read this series ages ago; when I got it through an Image Humble Bundle, I decided it was worth a reread.

The art isn’t bad, and the basic ideas of the series are interesting, but it’s remarkable how much generative AI has kind of ruined what the series could be.

So much of this reads differently now: the premise of people seeking companionship in sycophantic robots, the secondary premise of people being convinced that there’s true intelligence behind the scenes just waiting to be unlocked, the idea of “robots rights” in a society that’s skeptical of artificial intelligence. What would have been pretty standard scifi 4 years ago now hits differently, feeling like an allegory for the most delusional parts of pro-AI advocacy.