Police detective Deyla Reckard doesn’t like robots, e-humans, or whatever you want to call them. They make her uncomfortable and queasy and remind her that technology doesn’t have to have a role in every aspect of a person’s life. When she and her partner are called out to BioSerf Corporation, one of the premier manufacturers of androids, to investigate one of their creations having gone rogue, Deyla is uncomfortable. And she is shocked at her reaction to the companion model e-human that she is supposed to be searching for.

She hates robots. She finds them disgusting and can’t stand to be around them and listen to their mechanical noises and smell their plastic scent. So why does she find the MC1000 so attractive? Deyla knew that she was lonely, but she can’t imagine being so desperate as to want the attention of someone…something so mechanical.

Storm Grant’s novella Techno Thrall takes the reader into a world where the lines between human and mechanical are beginning to blur. While it took a little while for me to get involved in the story, once the plot diverted away from Deyla’s unsatisfying personal life and began to concentrate on the search for the rogue robot, I was hooked. Perhaps my fascination is based on just how human the MC1000 appears to be. He is certainly more humane and sympathetic than the humans who surround him. This is an interesting story that keeps the reader guessing about Deyla and her trouble with post-traumatic stress as well as her feelings about the missing robot.

Techno Thrall ends with a twist that is satisfying if not unexpected, and when you have finished reading the story, you can’t help but look back and review it again from a slightly different viewpoint.


Reviewed by: Whitney