Nonfiction

  • Super Girls and haloes

Tuesday, February 25, 2020

The Last Humanby Lee Bacon





The Last Human by Lee Bacon

Science Fiction, Adventure
ages - 9-12
grade 4-7
269 pages, hardcover
c. 2019

       The Last Human is about a robot civilization thirty years after the last humans have been exterminated. Therefore, robot XR_935 is so surprised when he encounters 12-year-old Emma, a human. The story is told from his point of view. He has been programmed to believe that all humans were dangerous, wasteful and the cause of many of the problems on earth due to their greed and violence. However, Emma is not at all like that. This causes XR_935 and his two coworkers, SkD_988 and Ceeron_902, to consider helping Emma reach the red dot on her map. Doing so goes against all that they know to be true and puts them in danger as well.

            This is an engaging, often humorous story, as the robots and Emma seek to understand each other. XR_935 has been designed with a complete data base of history and the information to do his job, which is solar installation. Ceeron_902 also works on solar installation but was designed to be super strong and do heavy lifting. SkD_988 works on solar installation as well but is a small robot who can move very quickly and communicates through emojis.

Besides being an adventure story, The Last Human is ultimately a story about friendship, technology, and the need to sometimes challenge the status quo, no matter the consequences. It raises many thought provoking questions about the nature of humanity, the danger of partial truths and the control of information in society, and what happens when one generalizes about a group of people. This is all done in a delightful, humorous way. Ceeron_902 has a great interest in human jokes and idioms which drives literal minded XR_935 crazy. In the beginning when Emma asks XR_935 if the other robots are his friends, he finds the concept incomprehensible, they are coworkers. By the end of the story there is no questions they are all, including Emma, real friends.

No comments:

Post a Comment