I did feel that the plot was overstuffed and verging on the messy but everything got tied up. There’s a lot to think about and his vision of Britain is interesting, at times the book doles out some crumbs of dry humor and I liked that. Machines Like Me is definitely one of McEwan’s better books. Charlie commits one final act which leads to a meeting with Alan Turing and the book concludes with a discussion about the human qualities of machines. Since Adam has morals he wants Miranda and Charlie to do the right thing, which means that the couple will lose their rights to have a child. To further complicate the plot, Charlie happens upon a child and Miranda wants to adopt it, yet due to her secret she may not be able to. here McEwan is questioning whether someone should put the law in their hands in order for justice to be served. Eventually Miranda has to confront this secret and sort it out before things worsen. Since these are things we humans do, I guess Adam may be capable of loving.Īs for Miranda’s secret, without giving too much away it is about an incident which happens to a friend of hers and she gets her revenge on that person in an unethical way.

He also finds out that slowly other androids are doubting their existence and are shutting themselves down to a childlike state. Yet he questions his existence, is able to understand that he has a kill switch, which he disables. Adam is cultural, sensitive and well mannered but then he’s programmed to be like that. The first is whether machines are capable of falling in love. These two acts provide the basis for the book’s plot for McEwan challenges the ethical implications of both these situations. One is falling in love with Miranda and the second is telling Charlie that Miranda has a secret. Once Adam’s personality is programmed and is fully charged, he commits two acts. As a sort of purchase to woo her he buys an android called Adam and lets Miranda program his personality traits. He is in love with his upstairs neighbor Miranda (Tempest anyone?) and is close to starting a relationship with her. He’s unemployed but has a tendency to fall into cash now and then, which is spends on extravagant items.

The book takes place in a re imagined future Britain has lost the Falklands war and is in the process of separating from the EU (ok you had your Brexit moment!), Alan Turing is still alive and is considered a war hero and a major force in AI, pollution is high, so is unemployment, yet despite all this crappiness machines are slowly taking over.Įnter Charlie Friend, the main protagonist of the book. I have not read Ian McEwan in ages, the last novel of his being The Children Act back in 2015 and, in a sense, Machines Like Me harks back to Children Act as it poses a number of ethical situations, albeit in a different setting.

Machines like me book review