He, She, and It

By Marge Piercy

Reviewed by Kelli Voltz

The novel He, She, and It by Marge Piercy was first published in 1991.  It took the Arthur C. Clarke Award for best science fiction in the United Kingdom.  The novel is a member of the Cyberpunk genre.  This genre is science fiction that focuses on advanced science such as information technology and cybernetics.  This novel, as well as others in the Cyberpunk genre, is centered around the idea of artificial intelligences.

Shira, the main protagonist, loses her love for husband, Josh, as well as her custody of her son, Ari.  When she returns to her hometown of Tikva she begins working with Avram who is the father of her childhood love, Gadi.  Her assignment was to develop the socialization aspect of the newly and illegally created cyborg, Yod.

Yod is the tenth robot created that is a mix between mechanical components and biological components.  He was designed with a human appearance and programmed with human characteristics by both Avram and Shira’s grandmother, Malkah.  Some may say that Avram tried so hard to create a cyborg that replaced his son in a way.  Shira stated, “Avram had in a sense created the student he had wanted and not gotten in his son: a learning machine” (86).  Yod was so human-like that someone on the street would not think twice passing by him.  Yod states:

I’m conscious of my existence.  I think, I plan, I feel, I react.  I consume nutrients and extract energy from them. I grow mentally, if not physically, but does the inability to become obese make me less alive?  I feel the desire for companionship.  If I can’t reproduce, neither can many humans.  Doesn’t infertility afflict half your population” (93)?

Malkah took on the role of Shira’s mother when her real mother, Riva, left for secret duties.  Shira and Malkah’s relationship was just as a mother and child relationship should be, close and loving.  Malkah’s main work was on a chimeara, security software, which is meant to protect the city from an attack on the Net.

One of the technological advancements that is discussed throughout this novel is the ability of humans to connect to the Net within their heads.  To some of us this may seem a little strange but to Piercy it’s just another characteristic of the future.  It states, “Malkah was present but not conscious, blind and deaf, fully projected into the Net” (56).  It was not uncommon to see characters in this state throughout the novel.

One of the main story lines throughout this novel is the relationship between Shira, who thought she lost the ability to love and have sexual desires, and Yod.  After her ability to accept Yod as a male person she began to gain an attraction toward him, not only emotionally but sexually as well.  Shira finds that she is much more like Yod than she originally thought due to all of the technological advancements done to her body such as retinal implants, a plug in her skull, and corneal implants.  Shira says to Yod, “We’re all cyborgs, Yod.  You’re just a purer form of what we’re all tending toward” (150).

One theme that I found interesting that was shown throughout the novel was that of feminism.  Unlike many other science fiction novels, women are portrayed as very important, smart, are even valued more than men at times.  Avram knows he cannot complete Yod’s creation without the help of women’s knowledge.  Malkah explains her view of the unimportance of men when she states, “Malkah said love was mostly nonsense and self-hypnosis, and men were by and large fine to work with and fun in bed, but never expect much otherwise” (38).  Piercy has a way of adding little touches like this to the novel to stress the beauty and importance of women.

Along with the main plot there is an interwoven story throughout the novel.  Malkah tells the story of Rabbi Judah Loew and the golem, Joseph.  These two lives of cyborg’s Yod and Joseph are very similar in that they raise the question of what it means to be human from both perspectives of artificial life and those that love that mixture of mechanically and biologically created life.

The end of the novel is both exciting and sad.  As I was anxious and excited to find out what the characters futures hold but when the time came I found myself sad as well.  I will leave the ending up to you to find out as it is a very interesting, unsuspected one.  Even if you are one that has not been previously interested or engaged in a novel from the Cyberpunk genre, you will find this book hard to put down once you start.  Piercy’s writing style helps create relationships among the characters and the reader which makes this novel an excellent read.