Books with Robots or Futuristic Reads

 Hello, and welcome to this week's Top 5 Wednesday post! If you are new here, welcome. I hope you will enjoy the content of this blog. If you are a returning visitor to my blog, welcome back! This week is National Robotics Week. This is interesting as the world of robotics is getting ever better, and soon, the day may come when robots and robotics are taking over more generally. But this week's prompt is about books that either have robots in them or are futuristic/techy reads! This has actually been quite a difficult post to put together, but I have tried my best and taken the odd risk. Let's get straight into this week's post!

1. Mindbreaker by Kate Dylan

This first book shows both the advantages and disadvantages of the future, robots and technology. In this book, a girl becomes very ill to the point where she nearly dies. Just before this, she is saved by a technology company, which essentially turns her into a robot, but she still has her memories, thoughts and feelings. Importantly, the robot also looked a lot like the girl. However, there is a twist to the plot, which leaves the reader questioning whether we want this kind of thing in normal life and gets the reader questioning how ethical some of the parts of the book were. Ultimately, I think it sounds like a good, interesting idea to be able to help people continue to live their lives. However, how many people would want to become robots? I would argue that they would miss out so much that only humans can experience, and they can never really die, so would it be in someone's interest to just live and keep living for the rest of their life, or would there become a point where they have just had enough?

2. Shell by Paula Rawsthorne

This book is very similar to the first book, although this one is more a futuristic read than a robotic read; if I remember correctly, there were no robots in this book. Essentially, a girl, Lucy, again falls ill, I think from cancer, and so is at the end of her life. The doctors, therefore, performed a brand new procedure, which essentially meant putting Lucy in a different, healthier body. However, Lucy did not feel the same and to an extent, seemed to be living someone else's life. This again raises questions. It does seem like a very good idea, particularly for younger adults and children, but if this were to materialise in real life, where would they get the bodies from, and how ethical would it be to use someone else's body? It could be argued that this is simply playing with nature and that everything happens for a reason, so maybe we should not interfere with nature.

3. Online Courts And The Future Of Justice by Richard Susskind

This is the first and only non-fiction book on this week's Top 5 Wednesday list, and this is a somewhat futuristic world which I believe eventually will materialise into everyday life. People may not like the idea of the internet taking over our current ways of doing things, but sadly, that seems to be the reality. However, if used correctly, the criminal justice system could lead to a better justice system. This book looks at introducing online courts for civil courts in England and Wales, but I believe it could also be extended to some criminal cases. Not only would online courts greatly help the open justice principle by making courts more accessible to the public, but it could also help out with the court backlogs. I could discuss this area and write about my arguments in detail on this topic, but that is beyond the scope of this blog. I do hope that our courts will look at integrating some online resources in the very near future; this could be as simple as opening their cloud video platform to the public.

4. Switch by A. S. King

This is a very unusual book and hard to write about. Its about a teenage girl named Tru and both her home and school life. On the one hand, at home, there is a switch at the centre, and her father keeps building boxes around it despite not knowing what the switch controls. On the other hand, Tru discovers her talent for Javelin and how she can throw one further than any other human. Therefore, this is a dystopian novel, and it made a little sense to include it on this list. I think if you read it, you may understand if and how it's futuristic.

5. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

Finally, we conclude with Burgess' A Clockwork Orange, which is a dystopian novel, which means it is somewhat of a futuristic read, warning us. In my opinion, this book shows us exactly what governments, the criminal justice system and society as a whole should avoid because society, as it is portrayed in this book, can be said to be at an all-time low. It shows the dangers of power and psychology and does not tackle the underlying root cause of the problems. I should, therefore, hope that this just reminds us what we are hoping the future does not become, whereas when it was first released, it may have been seen as what the future may have held and likely still does hold for some countries around the world.

Thank you, as always, for reading this post; I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it in the company of Classic FM. Please leave a comment below with some of the books you have read that feature robots or are futuristic/techy, as I'm always looking for a new read. Please do also feel free to look around this blog and maybe read some of my book reviews. Who knows, you may find your next read on Book Portal! I hope you have a good rest of the week, and I look forward to next week's post!

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