Florida Book Review

Fiction

To Dream: Anatomy of a Humachine I by Louis K. Lowy
(IFWG Publishing, Paperback, 428 pp., $17.99)
Reviewed by Daniel Santos

On the surface, Louis K. Lowy’s To Dream: Anatomy of a Humachine I is a troubling tale of a future where corporations rule whole worlds and life is as cheap as dirt. However, hidden beneath the grime is a touching story that explores the transcendence of love between a mother and son and what it means to be alive.
To Dream follows its main characters back and forth across time. In 2030, Niyati Bopari, a scientist working for Ameri-Inc. deep within the Florida Everglades, is struggling with the loss of her son, Jay who died in a tragic car accident years earlier. In his image Niyati has created the most advanced robot in human history, a humachine named J-1, which is hailed as a revolutionary accomplishment, but no one knows Niyati has infused J-1 with her son’s DNA. When sent by Ameri-Inc. to pick up the machine, a rogue agent decides to take J-1 for himself, setting up Niyati to appear to have conspired in the theft. Niyati finds herself on the run from a corporation hell-bent on retrieving their asset.
Still early in the novel, in the year 2250, J-1 is responsible for receiving and transport in a warehouse on the distant planet of Truatta. During an attack on the warehouse by an uncanny group of native rebels, J-1 comes across a strange liquid spilling out of a mangled crate. Out of curiosity—which robots are not supposed to have—J-1 inspects the wreckage and even tastes the liquid, causing him to malfunction. Upon wakening, J-1 finds himself in the company of Truatta natives who are leading a rebellion against his corporation. He learns that everything he thought he knew about Ameri-Inc. was a lie. But J-1 has a bigger problem to deal with—he is beginning to feel. Memories that are not his fill his mind, and, though he knows that he is a machine and shouldn’t be experiencing emotions, he has little power to stop it. He is becoming human.
Some of Lowy’s best work comes in the J-1 chapters. His innocence and inexperience make for thought-provoking material. At one point while traveling with the rebels, J-1 makes an attempt to fit in with them by approaching their campfire and engaging in lighthearted conversation. He is shunned by the group, who still see him as a product of the enemy and hardly a living being. J-1 heads back to the far corner of the camp that holds equipment including Coco, a crane taken from the warehouse. Another rebel stands watch:
“Rough go, eh friend?” Teague quietly said to him after things had again settled down.
“How did I offend them?”
“By existing.” Teague kept his eyes on the surroundings. “Don’t take it personally.”
“How should I take it?”
“I was going to say like a man, but . . . well, you know.”
J-1 took a heavy breath and slumped against Coco.
Teague glanced down at him. “You really do feel bad, don’t you?”
“If you mean I’ve developed an emptiness inside of me that seems unfillable, then yes, I feel very bad.”
Teague grunted. “I’ve never heard it put like that before.”
Another strong focus in To Dream is the politics of Ameri-Inc. The corporation is run by Rebeka Takats, a power-driven tycoon who has no problem driving her adversaries into the ground as long as she profits from it. And by adversaries I mean every living person in the universe, including her fellow shareholders, family or not.
As a Floridian myself, I love how Lowy makes use of Florida in the novel. While Florida is only one of many settings shown in Lowy’s expansive tale, it’s refreshing when Lowy describes the peaceful nature of the Everglades as one of Niyati’s companions takes a moment to absorb his surroundings:
The wide expanse was a surprisingly pretty blue, not the nutmeg color he usually associated with Everglades’ water. Portions of it were covered in green lily pad clumps and others in clusters of tall, brown, razor-sharp sawgrass. The bass boat that J-1 had used to carry them here lay face down, half in the muck and half in the water. It had a hole the size of a bowling ball in the bottom and a long tear along the back and side of the hull. It was obvious that it would no longer float. Acevedo shoved it in the water and watched it sink.
While it may seem that Lowy has a lot to deal with handling the many overlapping threads of the novel, he does an exceptional job jumping between timelines as well as points of view and keeps his chapters short to ensure a fast pace.
To Dream is an action-packed thriller that rarely lets up. The characters are natural and robust. This is not just a story about a robot coming to life—it’s an exploration of the darkness that surrounds him, and the light that brightens his past.