A robot that can't commit suicide. Humans do not read nor can they write. ( Its against the law. AndThey are full of Pills and heavily rely smoking pot. There are no more children left in the world either. Looks bad and Sounds bad but wow it was a damn good book. I doubt I'll read anything like it again.

It's interesting how Tevis constructs the basis of human nature from a dying future where humans themselves have forgotten it. His world is desolate, thought-provoking and warrants a bigger scope than the novel's humble length. But Mockingbird fiercely focuses on the characters' testament that drive the human story within, instead of pursuing to establish a detailed backdrop I would have liked to explore. A great read.

One summer in college—‘85? ‘86?—I had a very random job that required me to go into the basement of the building where the computer lab was and back up the day’s data on these giant tapes. All I had to do was put the reels on the machines, start them rolling, and just sit there. Someone had left a cart of old science fiction paperbacks from the 60’s in the room, so I read them while I waited. Most of the stories were unremarkable, fun to read, but left me with an uncomfortable feeling because they had mostly wildly missed the mark about what the near future would hold. Like, none of them mentioned that someone would have to be paid $4 an hour to sit in a basement watching magnetic tape reels to support these technological advances.

I haven’t had the courage to read any random sci-if since then. While I love the genre, I have made sure that all the novels I read are well-reviewed and kind of transcend that tendency to get the future so wrong. Until now—I read The Queen’s Gambit, saw that Walter Tevis had also written this book and omg, it was in the free library at the deli of the resort we stayed at on a barrier island in South Carolina. That was the universe saying “Read this!”

People, this is the best terrible book I have read in years. It’s like discovering a really bad B movie that just thrills you because it’s so wrong but so earnest. In Mockingbird, our robot overlords are mostly morons who maintain a system of supplying Valium laced with birth control to a dying population of humans who have been taught that Privacy and individualism are most important. Humans have lost the ability to think for themselves and mostly go about in a drugged up stupor, occasionally immolating themselves in groups of three in spectacular suicidal events. There’s one super smart robot in charge of everything who has been programmed to survive until all humans are extinct. One guy—Paul—learns to read (that skill is illegal) and discovers all kinds of stuff when he stops taking his “sopors” after he meets Mary Lou, who is living in the python house at the New York Zoo. ( spoiler alert: the python IS A ROBOT.) Mary Lou and Paul realize that drug-free sex is awesome but then the head robot (Spofforth—these names!) sends Paul to prison for reading.
Paul learns valuable lessons from the other prisoners (friendship! How to make a fire! Cats are pets!) makes his escape and ends up finding a community that is living near a shelter that had been created for an apocalypse in the 22nd century. This is where the book fails so amazingly. The shelter includes a MALL with a preserved SEARS STORE. Hahahahahaha! And it’s a “sacred church” to the community.

I could go on about how Paul learns hot to make an omelette with real eggs and then loads up his PHONOGRAPH on the thought bus and finds Mary Lou and his baby in New York City and they push Spofforth off the Empire State Building so they can be free, but that would be giving this all away. Oh, and Paul of course reads “The Hollow Men” by T.S. Elliott and ruminates on those famous lines because, of course he would.

Lots of Tevis’s books have become movies and I’m just sad no one made this one into a film because it would have made a great episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Much deeper book than appears on first reading. Some very deep ideas are behind it.

I read [b:Mockingbird|323172|Mockingbird|Walter Tevis|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1328003672l/323172._SY75_.jpg|313880] for the first time over the summer before my senior year of high school. It was part of a course on intellectuals in literature. Reflecting on it, I can't remember who we considered the intellectual in this novel. Is it Spofforth, whose consciousness is modeled on an intelligent man's? Is it Bentley, the professor who discovers reading? Or is it Mary Lou, the high intelligent outcast? The novel focuses on Bentley's development much more than Mary Lou's. She's almost an accessory to Spofforth and Bentley; she doesn't have meaning or agency outside of her relationships to these two males. I would have appreciated following her experiences of the various breaks with the institutions of this advanced world. What enabled her to runaway from her dormitory? How did she meet Simon, her "father"? How did she get to New York? We never learn any of these things.

Mary Lou observes the Spofforth is one of the most human people she's known. He feels great melancholy and awareness unlike the humans around him (who he's had drugged into pleasurable, sometimes fiery oblivion). This begs the question: does suffering make us human? I think it's more the range of emotions, connecting to others, that makes us human. The societal dictum, "Don't ask. Relax." along with the various drugs humans consume, result in disconnected, incurious lives. Paul's defining feature, the reason for the whole novel, is curiosity. Mary Lou's is defiance, which is a step beyond curiosity - instead of asking "why" or "how" only, Mary Lou makes judgments and takes action. However, Mary Lou's defiance did not result in societal change, while Paul's curiosity may. Unfortunately, Mary Lou (and the other female characters we encounter) do not have the same agency as the men in this novel. All that being said, I do enjoy and return to the story, the projected future. It's more intriguing to me than other, similar options like [b:Brave New World|5129|Brave New World|Aldous Huxley|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1575509280l/5129._SY75_.jpg|3204877], [b:1984|61439040|1984|George Orwell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1657781256l/61439040._SX50_.jpg|153313], or [b: Fahrenheit 451|13079982|Fahrenheit 451|Ray Bradbury|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1383718290l/13079982._SY75_.jpg|1272463] .

(Spoilers in review are mild at best) This book has a very similar flavor to 1984. But instead of the world being run by the faceless "Big Brother," the world is essentially run by robots. The description provided on Amazon really didn't do it justice - this story is more than a love triangle. In many ways, it is likely one of the first books in the "hopeful" trend of dystopian novels (as opposed to books like 1984, which end on a more hopeless note). I love the way the author demonstrates that it truly only takes the influence of one "rogue" to start the domino effect that can change the future (for either good or bad).

4.5 y no sé qué decir. La trama, los personajes, el trasfondo... son tan únicos y extraños como los de cualquier otra novela de ciencia ficción y distópica, pero «Sinsonte» lo es de otra forma.

Me duele en cierto modo ese 0.5 para las 5 estrellas y es que lo tiene todo, todo salvo un pequeño detalle: los capítulos de Mary Lou y Spofforth. La novela como tal es un conjunto de tres experiencias, la de Spofforth, un androide con más humanidad que la humanidad misma, al menos tal y como es representada en esta época, la de Mary Lou, con rebeldía e inteligencia y que va desvelando datos interesantes que descubren cómo la humanidad y la robótica han llegado a este punto, la de Paul Bentley, la más extensa, contada en forma de diario por un personaje que está en desarrollo. Mary Lou y Spofforth son posiblemente los personajes que apenas necesitaban desarrollo, sin embargo, Paul Bentley sí, tal vez por ello los capítulos de Mary Lou y Spofforth son cortos, pero demasiado cortos para lo que podrían ser, tienen mucha miga y potencial; da la sensación de que se les ha relegado a un segundo plano.

Hacía tiempo que no leía ciencia ficción, esta novela ha sido un camino extraño, pero extraño y eso es lo que más me ha gustado. Desde el principio da la sensación de que sabes cómo va a acabar, pero a la vez no del todo. Algo que me encantaría destacar es la escritura del autor, tiene un balance perfecto entre descripciones, pensamientos y diálogos, a excepción del octavo capítulo, contado por Bentley, el cual ha sido algo pesado. «Sinsonte» es esa novela que quiero tener en mi estantería y releer más adelante, todas las veces necesarias.

Similar to, and as good as, 1984, Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World, and the like.