review 1: 4 Stars ~ This is a fun novella set in the future where every household has either a manbot or a fembot to perform the household tasks. Gray is a gay 33 year old english teacher who lives with his cat Humphry and his manbot, Kavan. When a friend tells him that he's had sex with his manbot, George, Gray finds this distressing. He own manbot is very attractive, and Gray has had a few of his own fantasties but never had he wondered if Kavan could perform sexual functions. With the idea now in his head, he asks Kavan if it's possible, and what he thinks about that. Kavan in his very analytical way, explains it is indeed possible, and that some of his robot peers do perform that function for their owners. He asks Gray if he'd like him to add sex to his functions, but Gr... moreay tells him that he wouldn't want Kavan to perform sexually if he didn't want to. Having no previous experience with a sex act, Kavan is indifferent, but he can clearly see that Gray is conflicted. When Kavan offers to give him a blow job, Gray can't refuse, but what startles them both is that Kavan finds pleasure in performing the act. As they experiment with passionate kisses, Kavan actually short circuits briefly, and when Kavan takes this up with his programmer, he learns that he had had his first experience of pleasure. With every encounter, Kavan seems to experience real feelings, and there is no doubt that he enjoys the sex, in fact, he's often the one to initiate it.This was a fun novella about a unique couple with some serious questions of morality and what may constitute abuse. There are some really hilarious scenes as Kavan strives to be more human. Kavan and Gray's mutual sexual explorations are hot and explicit. The short format works well for this HFN story. review 2: Another hard one from Mrs Blackwell.For me this is two novels in one. It seems written by two different people. And being such a short story it confuses you a bit.Or a lot.The first half of the story is really light and doesn’t really expect much from you while the second half gets into much difficult problems without actually backing them up.In my opinion, she should have gone with just one of these options. I would have been ok with the light, fluffy, porny approach. But she doesn’t do this. Instead she gets into a whole new world without developing it at all and presents some really big ethical claims that are brushed off. I like the idea of this novel but you cannot write something good in 100 pages. I wasn’t bothered by the HFN, but the sudden decision Gray takes and open ending is annoying and not believable. I did like Kavan, our manbot and I would have loved to be in his mind a bit more and see from the beginning how this whole relationship affected him. I understood where Gray was coming from but he came out as a whiny little man at times.So, my advice, if you like what this author writes, this is an ok read for you.If you liked the idea behind the blurb and want to know how it’s being portrayed, you should probably skip this one. less
