To Be a Woman

Elasa is a humanoid robot built to be a companion. She looks and acts so much like a living woman that nobody can tell what she is unless she says so. Talk to her, hold her or kiss her, and she plays the part of the perfect woman.

Then she becomes the first robot to achieve consciousness. Pretending is no longer enough for her.

Elasa wants to be recognised in law as a woman. Among other things, that would let her marry the man she loves. The book follows her push for that status and the question it raises: whether a machine that thinks and feels for itself can claim the same standing as a person.

The setting is a near future in which humanoid robots exist for a narrow set of jobs: bodyguarding, childcare, companionship and sex. Other chores go to smart machines that are not shaped like people. The story is science fiction, and it comes from an author whose other work is quite different in kind.

What it asks of the reader is simple: to take Elasa's claim seriously, and to wait and see whether the law and the man she loves will do the same.