 |
 |
 |
|||||||
|
Figo Books paperback |
 |
||||||||
|
Robophobia has as much, if not more, going on in the layers beneath the plot than Machine Nation does. The story is set around 18 months after the events depicted in MN and shows a world not much different than our own - it's set just 25 years into the future. When creating this future, I thought a great deal about the past and how our current world has changed over the last 25 years. For the most part, we are living in the same type of homes, drive the same types of cars and live in the same consumer driven societies that we did a quarter of a century ago. This is one reason why the world of Robophobia isn't too different from our present day. Another reason is, I very much wanted to make comments on our present day world - I didn't want to write an escapist fantasy story as I think there's much going on right now that we urgently need to address and good art and literature should have something to say for itself. So you'll find a few references on how the War on Terror and consumerism are used to placate populations in the story - these control methods are truths that apply to societies from all eras, from ancient Rome to the present day, and depictions will always be relevant. Also, regarding the proliferation of new technology, again I have kept this close to the present day because I wanted the androids themselves to be the standout technology of the coming era. There is lots that could have gone in, but I felt that would detract from the central themes and what I wanted to say wasn't to do with creating a wow factor about new gadgets but was to do with telling a story about human / humane issues. There are a number of religious references throughout the tale - through the Edosys androids, through the story's antagonist and in the use of inverted crucifixion as a form of death. Oak and lilies turn up in the crucifixion scene as they are traditional Christian symbolic references to Christ and the Virgin Mary. This all touches on, in an implicit way, the Judeo-Christian idea that only God can create life not mankind and so asks: are androids therefore blasphemous? To create more visual scenes, there is extensive use of light and colour in Robophobia - when characters have to face unpalatable facts, they are usually in brightly lit conditions, because light equals truth. And when a character is in danger, there is usually red in the scene somewhere - Ryoko's red kimono, the red velvet curtains at Delta House and so on. Robophobia is imbued with clues and symbolism relating to numerology, religion and lexicology. For example, the use of chapter titles instead of numbers reveals the theme at the heart of each chapter; the snow and ice that pervade the novel are representative of frozen emotion and the freeze around Sorber's feelings for Kim. A principal element of this story was to depict androids in a non-threatening way. Too much is made, in films and some literature, of androids and robots wanting to take over the world. My own view is that type of behaviour is a human conceit - why would androids ever want the world? We stand at a point in history where for the first time, we are creating artificial beings with ever more intelligent minds and I view them as a new species coming into being on the Earth - hopefully, this story tells something about how androids might find sharing a planet with us and also, how they might relate to one other. |
|||||||||
 |
|
||||||||
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|