Mockingbird

A simply amazing story. How have I never heard of this book before? It is a stunningly rendered character study set in the years 2466 and 2467. The last generation of humans is living out their final days in a drug-induced stupor while the robot-controlled world crumbles around them. Tevis imbues all three of his first-person narrators with wonderful depth. He even manages to flip things around at times to show Robert Spofforth, the last robot of his kind - and the individual basically running the world - as having more human qualities than the remaining humans around him.

The character we spend the most time with, and that therefore exhibits the most growth, is Paul Bentley. Bentley is a male human who has somehow, against all odds, taught himself to read. And that is the linchpin upon which the fate of humanity rests. It's a cool riff on the power of reading or, "the touching of other men's minds", as it is put in the book.

The third narrator is Mary Lou Boren, a human female who is a highly intelligent rebel living on the fringes of a dying society. When Paul and she meet, it is her smarts and insights that propel Paul's growing awareness in directions he had never considered. I do wish that Mary Lou had not then been relegated to a more subordinate role but, considering the other strengths of the book and that we spend the least amount of time in her head, that is a relatively small complaint.

This is the last book I will be able to fit into my 2015 reading and it turns out to be one of the best of the year.

Highly recommended.