It’s a novel steeped in the style of David Mitchell’s Japanese novel Number9 Dream or Nick Bradley’s The Cat and the City—mystical novels that dovetail contemporary Japanese culture with older traditions whilst adding a dash of fantasy or science fiction elements. to the dog Inu to that developing, tender relationship between Neotnia and John (and its inevitable strains and collapses). His writing has appeared in the Guardian, Litro Magazine, Fast Company, VICE, the Irish Times, Screen, Quartz, and others. Her second and third ones… well, I’ve hidden those (and aspects of my review relating to them) from immediate view, to avoid spoiling the story! Time enough to get his ears waxed (yes, really), meet a girl, arouse the suspicions of a Sumo wrestler, get drunk, fall in love, discover his girlfriend’s not exactly what she seems and head off into the hills for answers.

Following the trail back to her "father", Neotnia learns that she was originally designed to address the shortage of young workers available to care for an ageing population, as well as the lack of intuition, flexibility, and compassion in existing bots that makes them unable to effectively assist frail, lonely elderly people. John has a very personal secret, but nothing compared to what Neotnia is keeping from him, and as their friendship develops, they find themselves getting under each others’ skins. He decides on a whim to pop into a café that offers ear cleaning for only 4900 yen and he decides it might ease his jet lag. This is my first time reading a book written by Michael Grothaus and most definitely will not be my last. It is readable too, though its plot holes and some the character’s scarcely credible reactions can be occasionally infuriating.

Therefore, we readers could easily take the extra leap to where all cars are being self-driven, info bots, artificial intelligence, robots with hamburger heads, a world which now fights wars on the internet with fake information and more scaringly deep fakes. Thoroughly enjoyed this speculative, sci-fi but not too sci-fi story set in a futuristic Tokyo, all about the possibilities of technology but equally about what it is to be a human. Our two protagonists are struggling to understand the big ‘why’ questions and as the author leads us in their journeys it makes for a beautiful and thought-provoking read. It also prevents John from going all the way with Neotnia before finding out she's an android, which would have generated a whole load of extra issues for him in terms of ethics and informed consent.

The descriptions of this futuristic Japan are simply heavenly, and they truly brought this new-but-old world come alive for me. Some little establishments here keep irregular hours – staying open late some nights, while randomly shutting early on others. His debut novel, EPIPHANY JONES, a story about sex trafficking among the Hollywood elite, was longlisted for the CWA New Blood Dagger Award and named one of the 25 “Most Irresistible Hollywood Novels” by Entertainment Weekly. As much as I loved John and Neotnia the character I adored was Guido as there was so much to his past that influenced his present.Whilst there is no doubt that there is an element of physical attraction from John towards Neotnia, there is a bond there that you can see forming from the very beginning, a kinship which will take an inevitable, but also wholly unexpected turn. For me, this novel poses some of those questions, but beyond the technology there is also a mysticism to the book that takes it into the different realm of being at its core an age-old love story, a Romeo and Juliet for a future age.