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Machines Like Me

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Machines Like Me

By: Ian McEwan
Narrated by: Billy Howle
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About this listen

Random House presents the audiobook edition of Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan, read by Billy Howle.

Britain has lost the Falklands war, Margaret Thatcher battles Tony Benn for power and Alan Turing achieves a breakthrough in artificial intelligence. In a world not quite like this one, two lovers will be tested beyond their understanding.

Machines Like Me occurs in an alternative 1980s London. Charlie, drifting through life and dodging full-time employment, is in love with Miranda, a bright student who lives with a terrible secret. When Charlie comes into money, he buys Adam, one of the first batch of synthetic humans. With Miranda’s assistance, he co-designs Adam’s personality. This near-perfect human is beautiful, strong and clever – a love triangle soon forms. These three beings will confront a profound moral dilemma. Ian McEwan’s subversive and entertaining new novel poses fundamental questions: what makes us human? Our outward deeds or our inner lives? Could a machine understand the human heart? This provocative and thrilling tale warns of the power to invent things beyond our control.

©2019 Ian McEwan (P)2019 Penguin Audio Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Science Fiction Cyberpunk Computer Science Heartfelt Artificial Intelligence

Critic Reviews

Machines Like Me reminds us that McEwan is once-in-a-generation talent, offering readerly pleasure, cerebral incisiveness and an enticing imagination. (Lara Feigel)
[Machines Like Me] is right up there with his very best [novels]. Machines Like Me manages to combine the dark acidity of McEwan’s great early stories with the crowd-pleasing readability of his more recent work. A novel this smart oughtn’t to be such fun, but it is. (Alex Preston)
Ian McEwan’s Machines Like Me is a dazzling account of our interaction with technology… He marries a gripping plot, handled with rarefied skill and dexterity, to a deep excavation of the narrowing gap between the canny and the uncanny, leaving the reader pleasurably dizzied, and marvelling at human existence. (Philip Womack)
All stars
Most relevant  
The modern-day Frankenstein. Brilliant in every way. Thank you Ian McEwan. An excellent performance from Billy
Howle too.

Just incredible

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I found it unsettling that historical events and context are adjusted to what could have been, but the premise and narrative were enough to keep me engaged and keep me thinking about it for some time to come.

Interesting read

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Enjoyed this immensely. Ian McEwan is a master craftsman and Billy Howle's performance is absolutely spot-on. My favourite listen on audible so far. Intend to read it now and recommended also for Book Club.

Exceptional

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Great book about a robots love for a family and how AI can't quite cut the mustard. Beautifully written and intellectually stimulating as always.

An AI robots love and devotion

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...whose stories always leave me feeling slightly unsettled, but this is the point. Mr McEwan writes every sentence to the fullest relevance.
Machines Like Me deals with AI, a triangulated relationship, threatened by the installation of another, against the backdrop of a slightly altered post-war/late 20thC Britain. A sort of "what if humans had been able to run with advancing scientific ideas earlier...?"

a brilliant author

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Loved the idea and story setup which kept the reader guessing....but then it just seemed to loose momentum. Bit of a disappointment

Peters out

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What an excellent book. On of the most engaging and thought provoking novels I have read in a long time. A beautifully eloquent text that keeps you thinking. Amazing.

A compelling read

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I’m not a sci fan but really enjoyed this book.
Strange as it was it kept me listening all day as I didn’t all sorts of boring things. I was a bit miff d when it finished! Good entertainment!

Gets you in!!!

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I enjoyed every second of this book. Fantastic story. Well read. Kept at a good pace , no time filled mamby pamby.

Excellent, could not stop listening.

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I found that the various subplots did not gel well with each other, and at times I was fairly bored with the story.
The book rambled in parts.
I normally love this author, but I thought this book was a bit second rate.

This book did not go well with me

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