The Inevitable

Lidia Yuknavitch writes in the introduction to The Inevitable "The first time I read Kazuo Ishiguro's Klara and the Sun I bawled my face off. Daniel Hope serves up a similar creature, a humanoid robot named Tuck, and quite quickly in the story, Tuck began to remind me more of what matters about the human condition than I learn from most of the humans I know. Love stories are not what we've been told. A humanoid robot named Tuck reminds us how to build connections and be ever-giving in the face of death and loss." In both Klara and the Sun and The Inevitable technological advances have created AIs that form complex relationships with humans.In Hope's novel Tuck is a charismatic robot grappling with a very human conundrum, the meaning of life and death. He is the last bot in the universe after surviving the Bot Riots on Earth by escaping into space. He is grieving the loss of his family and forced to wander between planets looking for parts of himself that need replacement in order to stay functional, risking exposure even as collectors are hunting him. He alleviates his loneliness by adopting an abandoned AI integrated into a spaceship and naming it David after the boy he took care of on Earth. The two meet Maze, a genetically modified, escaped lab experiment who, like Tuck, has super-human speed and strength. Maze serves as first mate on a ship owned by a billionaire, who offers Tuck the parts he needs in exchange for assistance with her corporate raid against her main rival. Tuck finds renewed purpose in his life through Maze and quickly becomes devoted to her. Together they must survive in a world where they are at once misfits and precious commodities. The Inevitable examines the value of life in a technologically advanced society, the definition of humanity, and the complex relationships that arise in the gray area between AIs and humans.

About the Author :
Dan Hope likes writing and science fiction, so it should be no surprise that he combines them. By day, he works with user experience designers to make apps easier to understand. His muted pessimism has been generously characterized as the Voice of Reason by the design team. He lives in Colorado with his family. His nerdy interests have been generously characterized as Super Lame by his kids. Lidia Yuknavitch is the National Bestselling author of the novels The Book of Joan and The Small Backs of Children, winner of the 2016 Oregon Book Award's Ken Kesey Award for Fiction as well as the Reader's Choice Award, the novel Dora: A Headcase, and a critical book on war and narrative, Allegories Of Violence (Routledge). Her widely acclaimed memoir The Chronology of Water was a finalist for a PEN Center USA award for creative nonfiction and winner of a PNBA Award and the Oregon Book Award Reader's Choice. The Misfit's Manifesto, a book based on her recent TED Talk, was published by TED Books, and her new collection of fiction, Verge, was released in 2020. Lidia's newest novel is Thrust. She has also had writing appear in publications including Guernica Magazine, Ms., The Iowa Review, Zyzzyva, Another Chicago Magazine, The Sun, Exquisite Corpse, TANK, and in the anthologies Life As We Show It (City Lights), Wreckage of Reason (Spuytin Duyvil), Forms at War (FC2), Feminaissance (Les Figues Press), and Representing Bisexualities (SUNY), as well as online at The Rumpus. She founded the workshop series Corporeal Writing in Portland Oregon, where she teaches both in person and online. She received her doctorate in Literature from the University of Oregon. She lives in Oregon with her husband Andy Mingo and their renaissance man son, Miles. She is a very good swimmer.

Review :
Hope shows off his worldbuilding chops in this action-packed space romp that grapples with the conundrum of mortality. But between scrappy spaceships, concealed ray guns, and fledgling AI's, Hope doesn't lose sight of what really makes a grand story: character. - Jonah Barnett, author of Moss-Covered Claws and filmmaker It's not every day a robot moves me to tears. But that's what Daniel Hope has done in The Inevitable. This is a miraculous novel, part sci fi, part thriller, and all heart and soul. The Inevitable is destined to be a classic, the kind of gem that readers will talk about for years to come. Rene Denfeld, Bestselling author of The Child Finder The first time I read Kazuo Ishiguro's Klara and the Sun I bawled my face off. Daniel Hope serves up a similar creature, a humanoid robot named Tuck, and quite quickly in the story, Tuck began to remind me more of what matters about the human condition than I learn from most of the humans I know. Love stories are not what we've been told. A humanoid robot named Tuck reminds us how to build connections and be ever-giving in the face of death and loss. Lidia Yuknavitch, Author of Thrust