Review: Sunny, by Colin O’Sullivan

Blurb

SOON TO BE A MAJOR STREAMING SERIES

A riveting technological thriller following a woman whose life is upended when her husband and son disappear in a mysterious plane crash and she is left alone with an unnerving home robot, only to get caught up in an AI-related conspiracy.

In near-future Japan, Susie Sakamoto is mourning the loss of her husband and son to a plane crash. Alone in her big modern house, which feels like more of a prison, Susie spends her days drinking heavily and taking her anger out at the only “sentient” thing left in her life: Sunny, the annoying home robot her husband designed. Susie despises Sunny, and sometimes even gets a sinking feeling that Sunny is out to hurt her.

To escape her paranoia and depression, Susie frequents the seedy, drug-fuelled bars of the city, where she hears rumours of The Dark Manual, a set of guidelines that allow you to reprogram your robot for nefarious purposes. In the hopes of finding a way to turn off Sunny for good, Susie begins to search for the manual, only to learn it’s too late: the machines are becoming more sentient and dangerous. Thrust into the centre of a dark, corporate war, Susie realizes there’s someone behind the code, pulling the strings. And they want her dead.

With a darkly humorous yet propulsive voice, O’Sullivan presents us with an unsettling look at a future that feels all too real. Gripping and thought-provoking, Sunny is a haunting character study of an anxious woman teetering in an anxious time.

My Review

Thanks to Anne at Random Things Tours for organising this tour and to Harper360 for sending me a copy of this book.

Susie Sakamoto, Irishwoman in Japan, has lost her husband and son in an air accident.

A North Korean missile gets too close to a civilian aeroplane.

Susie Sakamoto is going mad.

Little by little her brain is falling away, her life drowning in despair and alcohol. She finds little solace in her home.

And Sunny, the home help robot her husband Masa made.

Instead she frequents a sports bar, Masa’s favourite place to drink, watch games and bet. Here she finds Mixxy the former hostess, and Heruto the barman.

They drink, they sing, Susie has a breakdown.

Mixxy helps Susie through it, and their friendship is cemented with sake.

The owls and ravens gather.

A miracle occurs. Secrets come forth.

The owls and ravens take revenge.

Sorry, the lyrically haunting writing of this novel influenced me a bit there.

This is a near-future Japan, where technology is even more common and progress paramount. Here, home robots are beginning to become normal. They cook, they clean, they run your bath and check your stool samples for health markers. The Sunny of the title is one of the first home robots, the engineer’s own creation, and his downfall.

The tension creeps up as the birds gather, and Susie loses her grip on reality. Sunny is the focus of Susie’s pain, she blames the robot without reason. It’s becoming obvious, at least to Susie that something is not quite right about the homebot, but questions her interpretation, because grief, loneliness, and alcohol mess with your mind. When she discovers the ‘Dark Manual’ she finds a new focus, and asks her new friend Mixxy for help decoding the notebook Masa filled with code. She needs someone fluent in Japanese and English.

A miracle, in the form of Zen, 8, returning from apparent watery death, trips everything into a new reality for Susie. She can’t quite believe it’s real. This is hinted at in the first half of the book, when we read about a backpack in a grove above a beach. We’re never told it’s the same beach where they’re fishing out the bodies of aircraft accident victims. Nice bit of misdirection there O’Sullivan.

The developing relationship between Mixxy and Susie is subtle, and saves them both. Mixxy is self-destructive, although she won’t admit it. Susie admits to wanting to die. Between them, they manage to survive. The project of understanding the manual Masa left behind, and died to protect, gives them the focus. Mixxy has something other than getting high to think about, and it’s her knowledge of the seedier side of their city that helps solve the case.

The plot is fairly simple, but so well written and that ending was magnificent. The birds, the baseball bat, the rage and relief as the tension is broken! Fabulous.

O’Sullivan’s portrayal of grief is devastatingly lyrical. I couldn’t stop reading, even when I was crying my eyes out. It’s the sort of writing that makes you keep turning the page. You pick up the book to read a chapter or two and end up reading half the book. But then you need a couple of days to get over the emotions. Before doing the same thing all over again. I just adore the writing.

Highly recommended. Clever, lyrical near future spec-fic.

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Colin O’Sullivan lives in the north of Japan with his family. He is the author of six novels, the first of which won the prestigious “Prix Mystère de la critique” in France.