Rating: WARTY!
This was nothing more than a thirty page teaser for a series which I have not read and have no intention of doing so after reading this. The story is not a stand-alone because there is far too much in it that is tied to other stories in this series, and which made no sense without knowing those other stories, so it was largely unintelligible to me, and what was understandable was not at all entertaining.
Evidently this is a world wherein robotic companions have been designed for humans, and humans are not allowed to have intimate relationships with other humans, but must have one with a robot? Robots of course cannot reproduce, so the children have to be born by usual means, but then only one of the parents gets to raise the child? It's ridiculous. How would a system like that ever develop?
The story devolved into rambling on about how the robots were slowly growing more independent and pursuing their own lives, and contemplating maybe taking over or maybe living alongside humans, but as a separate society. None of this made any sense whatsoever. I can't recommend this based on this teaser. If the author is trying to win more readers with this kind of thing, which isn't a bad idea, I suggest she make the lure more appealing and a lot more intelligible. The author is an ex Navy officer. It seems to me a woman from the Navy ought to have far more interesting and more realistic stories to tell than this one.
