There are far too many feels now that I've finished this. Gobbled it up like a chocolate croissant.I feel sad sad sad. Just like she said,"You see, when I stop, I break my last link with him. With my love. Yes, he’ll always be with me, but not him. I’ll be alone. I’ll be alone."I feel alone. ...This is so good. And weird. It awesomely futuristic in a way only the 80s could have imagined.This book mentions sex in some lewd manners. But really this book is about love, and personal growth, and not about sex at all. I enjoyed seeing Jane's path to becoming an actual human from that vapid shell under her mother's thumb.I felt for her. I felt for her paranoia and insecurities. And her fear of being something other than her mothers approval. How she constantly questioned Silver and his feelings and actions in relation to her because how could he feel for her? How could he love her? Why the heck and and how the heck could she love him? After all he was just a machine right?I don't want to be clever or dismissive because maybe this book is aimed at teenage girls who fall in love, insta love or something dumb. Gosh that sounds dismissive.Well yeah she, 16 year old vapid rich girl Jane, did fall in love. At first sight. With a silver skinned humanoid robot. It sounds quite moronic when put like that. But it isn't. Jane only had to fall in love, sell her worldly goods and live in the slums to find out its not so bad outside the safe bubble of her mothers house. Jane writes from first person. Its interesting how she seems vague until she asserts herself, THEN finally I can envision her. Her image was unsure until she made decisions to leave. She also is no longer aesthetically programmed under her mothers regime, so she reverts to her natural body image, wherein she accepts herself. Silver was in some ways a passive character, more a reflected ideology through Jane's eyes, brilliantly talented, bringing out the good in Jane while wrestling with the idea he had human emotions. I liked Clovis and his ridiculous rudeness and his obviously masked concern for Jane. If Jane was a guy...hmmm lol. Egyptia..what a bloody name. Everyone's bloody names in fact. Except for simple Jane. I mainly just associated Egyptia with various shades of blue and mascara tears (well she cried a lot). Demeta I couldn't really envision except as really tall and regal. She reminded me of Rapunzel's "mother". The manipulative ones who always make their offspring feel like they're out of control. She kept Jane emotionally stunted.I don't know why I'm almost scared to write how I feel about this book because if I was someone else I would probably judge me. Shut up rhetorical hipster other self. Read the damn book at least before you judge. ^_^Anyhow, it was unputdownable, beautiful, tragic and at the same time made you think. Gotta love some of that. If I hadn't clicked on the read a random book option on my android book app Moon+Reader, this would probably have been forgotten forever because I have a terrible habit of abandoning books after I put them on my to read list.
BOOOO to me for not having read this young adult page turner during my teens.Well, falling in love with a robot isn't that odd. Considering..*ahem*.. that I had a serious crush on big eyed, wasp waisted comic character Cutter from Elfquest when I was eleven or so years old.. Considering that we fall in love over the Internet en masse, without having ever seen, smelled and touched the other. So lusting after a robot - especially when you're a sweet sixteen and the robot in question is Silver, a handsome fully equiped long haired brand new prototype, programmed to pleasure its buyer - seems pretty easy.So could we someday develop robots that are able to trick us into believing they are human? Could they replace us? And should we allow for that to happen? The Silver Metal Lover gives a peek into a time technologically far ahead of us, but doesn't answer these questions. It may leave you pondering a bit about what it means to be human, but mostly The Silver Metal Lover 'just' reads as an excellent young adult romance, focussing on the coming of age of rich kid and cry baby Jane. When she throws herself into the arms of Silver, she realizes that she probably shouldn't tell her controlling mom, who views her daughters upbringing as a pedagogically sound project. Thanks to Silver, she is able to burn her ships behind her (and had me whispering "you go girl!" and rooting for her while she did). I especially liked how I perceived Silver through Jane. Her infatuation must've blurred her vision to some extent, which left me wondering what was real and what wishful thinking. When she assigned human qualities to him, was her imagination running wild? OR was her piece of metal possibly more than a masterly designed illusion? Therefore the part in which Silver actually climaxes, felt oddly out of place due to its lack of subtlety. Same with the second ouija board session (won't mention the details because of spoilers), which somewhat ruined the semi-tragic ending for me. I guess what bugged me is that Lee started with a robot and a young girls' apparant 'perverse' relationship with it, only to weaken this interesting concept by suggesting that he was very human after all.
What do You think about The Silver Metal Lover (1999)?
It looked like a ridiculous 80's robot-romance when I picked the battered old paperback off the bookstore shelf (I had been looking for H.P. Lovecraft—thwarted). He (Silver, the robot) looked preposterous on the cover of this old edition, hunched over and holding a rose, creepy and chrome. But far from unknown and laughable, Tanith Lee was a name I knew and trusted. I bought the book, and I'm glad I did. I really enjoyed this. For me, the secondary characters and the language made it worth it as much as the main storyline and concepts. It was quite well plotted, especially in how it circled back to all the right things in a deft and satisfying manner, and the ending killed me. Remind me to read more books by Tanith Lee.
—Grace Makley
I started out really not liking the main character, Jane. She was docile, weepy, timid and a bit pompous. However, as I am a huge fan of character progression, I kept going.And I'm so glad I did! The transition was so naturally done that I honestly didn't even really notice that Jane was changing, until I realized that I actually liked her character, then remembered what she had been like at the beginning of the book, and it dawned on me that Tanith Lee had pulled off some masterful character growth.And as for silver, I had an idea in my head when I heard about this book of what he was going to be like. I imagined a quiet, broody, withdrawn character.As it turned out he was totally different, and a hundred times better than that. What an original love interest! Fun, charming, witty, exuberant, I seriously fell in love with his personality. And what an evenly matched couple! Both have their moments of vulnerability, they lean on each other.And as for Tanith Lee's evocative and extremely unique descriptions, they're long, yes, but don't go in expecting boring, technical paragraphs of trite adjectives and similes. I especially loved her descriptions of chez stratus. She manages to write science fiction in a fresh, beautiful way.I can't say I didn't see the ending coming, but I dreaded it. I was honestly in tears at the final chapter. I'm still upset about it.
—Soleil
This book is so beautiful and heartbreaking. I've never read anything like it. It chronicles the life of Jane, a vapid rich girl who lives in the future and doesn't really know what it is to feel anything, or how to experiance life. All that changes when she meets and falls in love with Silver, a robot programed to sing and play music. Eventually she leaves her rich lifestyle to run away with Silver to the slums to try and carve a new life for themselves. I loved this story for so many reasons. First of all, Janes transformation throughout the book is simply astounding. She goes from being very shallow, confused, and timid, to a girl who knows who she is and what she wants. She stands up for herself and what she believes in, and begins making her own decisions and living her own life. And love is the power that transforms her. Reading this really put some things in perspective for me, namely how love can really bring the best (and worst) out of a person. Secondly, from an aesthetic point of view, Tanith Lee's writing is gorgeous. The slums are beautiful, despite the destitude of the people living there, and every other backdrop in the book just drips with amazingly vivid descriptions. This is my first book by this author, but it certainly not the last I will be reading. Lastly, the idea of Jane and Silver's love enduring for all time is really just...beautiful. As corny as that sounds I literally spent a good part of the last few chapters crying my eyes out, because really it was just so emotional and heartrending. What a fantastic book! "I love you. I'll see you again. Don't ever be afraid."
—Branwen *Blaidd Drwg*
