Eliot Lazar has fallen in love with an android. His father and younger sister died long ago, his mother moved to a communal island offshore and now his 'droid lover, Iris, has been abducted, dismembered and sold for parts. To get her back, he must find every single piece (arms, legs, fingers, torso, eyeballs...) or she will not be the same after reassembly.
Eliot journeys through a dystopian future Los Angeles, an Orpheus in search of his Eurydice. Iris was a free-roaming android who chose to become a toymaker. She expressed her imperfections when making toys, which eventually got her fired and desperate for electrical power to stay alive--a perfect mark for exploitation by 'bot hunters.
Her boyfriend must travel to brothels, android cities and even into the den of the famed android revolutionary, Lorca. His initial steps bring him into contact with DJ Pink, a sociopathic celebrity who films his grisly dismemberment of androids. Eliot stops the brutal death of another young android woman while looking for Iris's parts and ends up killing Pink, a crime that puts Eliot in the sights of an old-school detective who's not long for the world but still believes in justice.
Judd Trichter's debut, Love in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, is about love, certainly, but it also addresses humanity's propensity for selfishness and prejudice, traits it has passed along to its mechanical children. This lyrical, musing novel is an engaging blend of romance, suspense, science fiction, action and the meaning of life. --Rob LeFebvre, freelance writer and editor