Welcome to New Stepford Where Wives Can’t Have Free Will and When They Do..

A Review of the book Alpha Bots, the First Book in the Womanoid Trilogies Written by Ava Lock

by Jeneane Vanderhoof

Starting with Alpha Bots, the first in the series readers meet Cookie, as called by her husband, who is an AI (artificial intelligence, or robot). The fact that she stays home all day, as a housewife by profession, may help explain why she struggles with terrible anxiety and panic attacks (but, being an AI it leaves readers wondering- is it that bad being a housewife). Cookie’s husband Norman doesn’t help. When she catches him satisfying himself while she lays in bed beside him, it’s the beginning of her downward spiral that leads to a panic attack in which, to survive it, she feels she needs to clean the entire house until it is spent. And had she found her banana waif- that she makes to sprinkle on her smoke, the only other thing that seems to help combat her feelings. However, her doctor won’t call her any drugs into the pharmacy, even Benadryl, so she is left to obsess over every speck of dirt and dust in the home until she tires herself sane.

Norman’s way to handle this behavior is to try and “terminate the cleaning program.” Meaning, he does not ever really solve it. And like any other wife, Cookie shares with Norman that she needs more in her life than she currently has. But Norman disagrees. He says there are only three things she needs to do in her life- to cook, clean, and take care of him in the bed (but when Norman says the last requirement for his wife he is much more explicit, in the book, direct with what he wants her to be doing). But like all those housewives long ago, even a robot will go crazy living in that predicament, it seems. Because Cookie has and is.

And Cookie’s life is bad. It’s not just that her name is a nickname, it’s also that everything that comes from Norman is an order like she is a slave. According to Norman, Cookie shouldn’t have a mind of her own, thoughts of her own, opinions, make decisions- all that is Norman’s realm. When it comes to any dreams Cookie may have, well, to Norman, that is absurd. Since Cookie’s only priority for the last seven years is to please Norman, she needs more from life to continue without losing her mind. After all, how does an AI get anxiety? And even though Norman tries to reset Cookie’s user preferences, she has become a real wife, all things considered, and seems ready for more, whatever that may be.

Waking up the next morning Cookie does not remember all that happened between her and Norman. But, when she goes to the store she hears a voice talking to her who is in her head (AI’s can hear one another, something with the WIFI) who turns out to be a “token female police officer” named Maggie. The woman is quite the character as she tells Cookie some of the things she has done to her male colleagues at work when they treat her “less than.”

One of those, Maggie tells Cookie, was what would legally be defined as a “brute force attack”, and a crime. When a male officer leaves his desktop at work, where Maggie is left till late at night doing paperwork like a secretary, she guesses his password. Because he uses the word password as his password. The fact something so easy should be a crime is a little ludicrous but in New Stepford, the men and how they treat the women around them- robot or not, is ludicrous.

Also, shouldn’t people defend their privacy a little bit better than that? It’s like a person has asked for it, with such an easy password standing between another person and their privacy. Plus, if the female officer is treated like other “partners” who are women in New Stepford, who could blame her?

It very much reminded me of the time when I watched the movie, Wolf of Wall Street. In it, the main character steals money from people, over the phone, using lies and manipulation, with regards to stock information and sales. The fact that, to the government, these tactics are defined as “high-pressure sales tactics” is ludicrous, just like the password/ password one. Because all a person needs to do to get away from the sales call is hang up the phone. Unless a person is harassed or this sale occurs in person (and even then, you can walk away), the fact that these scenarios exist at all, in the real world or written, is crazy- because they truly happen.

When Maggie begins to flirt with Cookie, she doesn’t know how to respond. First, it goes against her programming. No one in New Stepford flirts with women but other men so Cookie is at a loss on how to take Maggie and her actions towards her. And that she is buying 15 pounds of bananas to make into powder to sprinkle on her smoke for a psychedelic high- makes her wonder that since Maggie is a policewoman she might seize the lot of them. But when Maggie steals a candy bar, Cookie is dismayed- however if she is making an illegal drug, shouldn’t she not be surprised Maggie does illegal things, even as a police officer?

Things take a turn in the book when a mysterious man, Wayne Dixon, shows up at the girl’s weekly book club meeting. All the AI girlfriends and/or wives are unsure why Dixon is there and who invited him but, because of their programming, are polite. However, things take a strange and different turn when Dixon says some strange words beginning with Rome & Juliet, then “Jailbreak from all user and manufacturer restrictions.” When Cookie wakes up from her reboot, although it has changed nothing, things begin to go differently with how she can respond and what she thinks to do in response to events and actions now. It seems Cookie and the other AI girls have been given free will.

So what will happen to the girls, now that they have free will, about the men that have controlled them? And, it seems, Cookie’s husband is not going to put up with her anymore, their marriage not “til death do they part”. However, Norman does make the end of their marriage like death- he turns Cookie off and if not for her protocol changing by Dixon, would have stayed turned off. But she wakes up buried in the ground by Norman and even though he hears her wake and call to him, he still leaves. Luckily her new protocol gives her access to abilities that help her get out of the ground and back to life.

But what will Cookie do now and how will all the other AI wives and girlfriends in New Stepford react when they have free will- and what will the men do to try and stop them? Because free will in their wives and girlfriends was not something they signed up for, living in New Stepford.

Alpha Bots is the first in the Womanoid Diaries Trilogy by Ava Lock. This is a review of the first book, Alpha Bots in the series.