Machines Like Me

A Novel

De: Ian McEwan

Narrado por: Steven Crossley

New from Ian McEwan, Booker Prize-winner and international best-selling author of Atonement and The Children Act

Machines Like Me occurs in an alternative 1980s London. Britain has lost the Falklands War, Margaret Thatcher battles Tony Benn for power, and Alan Turing achieves a breakthrough in artificial intelligence.

In a world not quite like this one, two lovers will be tested beyond their understanding. Charlie, drifting through life and dodging full-time employment, is in love with Miranda, a bright student who lives with a terrible secret. When Charlie comes into money, he buys Adam, one of the first batch of synthetic humans. With Miranda's assistance, he co-designs Adam's personality. This near-perfect human is beautiful, strong, and clever - a love triangle soon forms. These three beings will confront a profound moral dilemma.

Ian McEwan's subversive and entertaining new novel poses fundamental questions: What makes us human? Our outward deeds or our inner lives? Could a machine understand the human heart? This provocative and thrilling tale warns against the power to invent things beyond our control.

©2019 Ian McEwan (P)2019 Recorded Books

Really? I thought Lon Chaney was dead!

Great story ruined by totally inappropriate narrator. This guy sounds like Lon Chaney. I keep waiting for him to start singing The Monster Mash. No way is this guy a believable 30 something. He sounds like melodramatic grandpa. Totally ruined the experience for me.

AI Thought Problem

Robotic (pun intended) / dry British humor that was tough to get into occasionally, but very fitting and well done.

Great writing, average listen.

I loved the way the storyline captured the themes set out by the author. If I were reading this book I would've had such a great time, but the voice of the narrator, in particular, his voice for the human machine was very whiney and monotonous, it definitely gave the whole story a different feel and made it hard for me to enjoy that character.

Another winner by McEwan, and the narrator is good

Don't be put off by some of the reviews which say the narrator is not age appropriate. He is just fine, and I love his English accent. I loved the moral questions which McEwan explores about a machine which seems to be human. I think the ending was a little weak, but overall the book was great.
McEwan does a great job of incidentally commenting on a lot of interesting questions our society faces. I loved the ability of the robot being able to make more money by day trading than the human.
I felt he might have explored a bit more the question of the robots learning the huge amount of data on the internet, and what that might mean for us poor mortals.

Machines like me

Scary to hear what is ahead of us. I can see all of this in the future. People today’s ethics can’t handle this.