Alpha Bots

I was already amazed by the book and the audio-version is even better! The narrator does such a great job in bringing these characters to live, it's a pleasure to listen to her. I forgot how controverse and twisted this book was. I still can't stand the male love interest and the so called villainess ist just... even better than I remembered her. It was a joy to listen to this, especially after having had the pleasure of reading it beforehand! I can't wait for the second book.


I received a free ARC by Netgalley, after being invited to listen to this audiobook by the publishers, in exchange for an honest review.

Blunt and brutal in places - especially the dialogue. I just wish I liked this a bit more than I did. The description of the book held more promise than the book actually delivered.

It was humourous in a warped way and I guess if your sense of humour is not in sync with the author's you're really not going to enjoy this book. The narrator did a good job with the material but all in all, I was left wanting more substance.

It's narration was the first thing to put me off. I don't like when the narrator, male or female, tries to do the voice of the opposite sex. It doesn't work. But I could have put that aside if the story didn't start out like a cliché porn script. Not that porn scripts are ever not cliché. It fully lost me, and this is strikingly early on, when the android announced she got high off bananas. Granted their was a lot of them, and pilling and boiling and baking but still... bananas. That was enough for me.

I think categorizing this in the LGBTQIA genre is a mistake. (Maybe Women's Studies?) This book is out of my usual realm of interest, but I enjoyed it well enough. There is humor, frequent references to horrible treatment of women, but in the context of AI women-- definitely a take of Stepford Wives. (They are in New Stepford, after all.)

Not sure if the author's main intent was to make a statement on the continued misogyny in today's society but that's how it came across to me. I felt it was a little long as it moved from more 'future reality' to complete fantasy in the conclusion.

I really liked the AI facing reality- particularly Cookie's reconciling her robotic identity with her human feelings and (perceived) limitations.

The audio version was well produced and Laci Powers adds to enjoyment with her gifted narration.

I received a copy from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I think this was a really good idea but I didn't really enjoy the way it was written. I mean, it's a fine book but for someone who has read the Murderbot series this kind of is a miss. Even though Murderbot and this is pretty different. Yet I know I would have put this down if it wasn't for the very speeded up audiobook.
So an okay book but I'm not really interested in seeing where the story goes for here.

this book. wow. I went into it expecting something peculiar. The basic synopsis of Stepford retelling with AI, sounded like it would be a lot of fun. It certainly was.
Growing along with Cookie as she becomes self-aware, and decides not to take shit from Normie, was a fist-pump. you GO, girl. I didn't know what to think of Maggie at first, I was hoping for some gay-I romance, but it turned out to be even more interesting.
Let's talk about those babies. when you get there, just WOW
This was a crazy rollercoaster of a ride that i didn't know i needed to read.

Thank you SemiScope and NetGalley for the ARC of Alpha Bots by Ava Lock.

Welcome to the neighborhood of New Stepford. The people who live here are perfect- the men work the day away and then come home at night to their perfect homes and wives. One day at book club, a strange man joins the wives and triggers something in them. The wives learn their lives are a lie- they are AI and their "husbands" jobs are to test them out. A fake marriage, a broken life and Cookie Rifkin breaks free of the mold.

Alpha Bots is like nothing I have ever read before. It was a combination of female empowerment, sci-fi and a lot of misandry. I'm intrigued to see where the rest of the series takes.

I have friends who, when I talk about book or movie plots with them, they'll say things like "I totally say that coming," or such-and-such was so obvious. I don't like to take in my stories with such a critical point of view though. I want to enjoy the story as it comes, and let the creator entertain me with where the plot is going. But with Alpha Bots it was a whole other experience for me. There are so many twists and turns that I couldn't help but notice all the details that would come up. In Alpha Bots, the author Ava Lock masterfully brings up ideas early on in the story which come around full circle later. As I read I kept looking at details and trying to guess at what they could be foreshadowing. It's fun every time when I thought there was a clue turns out to be a wrong guess on my part as the story takes an amazingly different direction!

Every action and fight scene is intense! The descriptions are so vivid, which helps me see it in my mind as a I read. And Ava keeps the excitement going! So often too does one chapter end with a hook that keeps me excited to see what comes next. Alpha Bots is a real page turner.

The scenes inspired by Fight Club are also really well written and fun. My favorite is when the Wives are given assignments to start and lose a fight.The reasoning for these assignments are different from Fight Club and very much fit the context of Alpha Bots while the fights themselves are uniquely entertaining.

When I read a story, I'm more interested in the actual story and characters than any underlying social commentary it offers. Alpha Bots delivers on both counts. I love how realistic the characters feel, and how they deal with the elements that come up in the story. There are so many characters to love and feel for and empathize with, some of whom could easily be a main character of their own story. But my favorite was a fish named Oscar.

In addition to the story itself, Laci Powers does an amazing job bringing it to live in her audio presentation! She gives the characters different voices, and expertly uses accents where appropriate. In addition she tells the story in a dynamic fashion that brings an extra level of drama to the experience.

I highly recommend this book, you'll never look at bananas or Doc Martens the same way!

Cookie Rifkin is a womanoid who awakens to her misogynistic user in an isolated Nevada town. Her user restricted Cookies activities to cooking, cleaning and sex.

She and her womanoid friends find excape with in their book club and drug use, to deal with their stifling lives and mistreatment.

Along comes her Prince (giving her the gift of user-restrictions-override), and her mentor (a rebel womanoid with answers).
❤️⚠️ follows!

Cookie confronts her user with feelings of unfulfillment, dissatisfaction and anger.

Is Cookie a woman-oid because of her shape or her treatment?

Chaos spreads in New Steford after Cookie and the other womanoids draw a line in the sand and react.

Cookie realizes that she and her friends are being manipulated by the rebellious womanoid mentor. They are trapped between a group of men that is using them as an appliance and a superior AI using them as a tool of destruction.

How far will Stepford Corp. allow their town to spiral out of control?

The old Science Fiction of laser guns and rockets have passed. Welcome the new Sci-Fi of advanced communication, zero-waste recycling, and purposeful evolution, as the womanoids upgrade their software and hardware to ind their true self.

The author Ava Lock has created a thought provoking feminist satire told from the POV of Human Level Artificial Intelligence. The Narrator creates plenty of laugh-out-loud moments as she reads the men as if they expect no consequences for their actions.

Loved it!

It was a interesting book. A lot of the elements caught me off guard. I honestly leaned a thing of two about fruit

This book honestly hard to review. In the beginning I would have said this was a middle of the road sci-fi but then it really kicked up in the second half. It got dark and I love that.
For me I think some of the characters brought this down a bit. I liked a lot of the characters, Cook-E in particular really stood out. She is one of the main reasons I adored this book so much.
Overall this was a really solid sci-fi. The dark turn it took was great. I think if you are into A.I. based sci-fi then this is definitely something you'll enjoy.

Stepford Wives that are Artificial Intelligence (AI). Yes, sign me up. That is what I first thought when I saw this book. I thought that narrator Laci Powers did a good job of narrating this book. I saw a comment by another reader that they did not like when females do male character voices. Not all audio books have the ability to be able to have both a male and female narrator. This is where I thought Laci did a good job with the various character voices. They were distinct enough to keep everyone straight as there were a lot of different characters in this story but only a handful of main ones.

This book is about the female empowerment. The men in this story are egomaniacal narcissists. The men believe the women are just created for their own sexual pleasure. They should obey and be the "perfect" wives. There is just only problem and her name is Cookie. Cookie is the heroine that female need.

The sex is minimal and light on LGBTQIA. So if readers are looking for more LGBTQIA to read, they may be disappointed. In regards, to the women empowerment, it was mainly Cookie. Some of the other women may have tried to be rebellious but they did not succeed as Cookie did. For this I was disappointed as I wanted more stronger women featured in this story. However, I did like this book enough that I would listen to book two.

An exciting book with high quality, enjoyable narration from voice actress Laci Powers. Alpha Bots has the same effect as a mystery novel, in that it has an effortless way of turning your attention to minute details, and to make you question the difference between what's foreshadowing, or what's just flavor. Alpha Bots deals with broad themes such as humanity, free will, and love (it is, after all, a book largely about AI), as well as smaller, more intimate themes less explored in the genre like abuse and self-love. Feminist messaging and themes are baked into it at every level, tying the world of New Stepford (a name so sarcastically on-the-nose that I can't help but love it) back into our modern world.

I honestly didn’t think I would enjoy this book as much as I did. There were a number of reasons for this:
1. I really did judge the book by the cover - to me it looked a bit tacky.
2. I’m often skeptical about books that are supposed to be humorous, just in case they aren’t. But this one really is (which is aided by the great narrator) and New Stepford - fab!
3. I don’t often read series- this will be an exception

This is a fun sexy satire in a town where men have married domestic sex kitten androids in lieu of wives. The voice actor was EXCELLENT delivering the humorous lines of a sexy ingenue who wants more. The ideal audience enjoys gritty action combined with feminist satire without worrying about political correct gender roles. (It is basic M/F plus a bi curious F)

I was given access to this on audiobook, so I don’t have exact text to quote. To give a sense of the story’s flavor, sometimes a gun is just a gun. But sometimes a gun may recall uncomfortable situations when, for her husband’s pleasure, it’s been stuck down her throat while she’s on her knees, which according to past experiences, only takes a few minutes.

You cannot review this book without mentioning its parents in concept: The sexism of The Stepford Wives and the WTF violence of Fight Club.

NetGalley gave me an ARC from which to write this review.

What a dystopian story, very interesting perceptions and perspectives as we follow the lives of Alpha Bots in particular Cookie Rifkin. All the females AI’s live mild, mannered, boring lives waiting upon their husbands to please. So when the Alphabots become separated, abandoned, or run away from the men who pay their bills, their keep; that’s when the story gets going.

My takeaway is, even women can enjoy and be able to abuse their power of privilege when independent (financially and emotionally) also.

An interesting read but bland as well. Unlike others I’ve not read or watched the Stepfords Wives.

The premise of this book initially intrigued me and drew me in - the idea of Artificially intelligent created women made to serve men .. it sounds like every mans dream. And it’s great justice to read it all go wrong!

It was so interesting to hear through Cookies (the main characters) thought processes, how she was programmed and her own struggles as she became sentient and aware of the limitations of her life. Overcoming her programming and expanding her horizons. It’s a great book in overcoming feminist stereotypes of what typically men would programme a woman like cookie for, and for a small representation for LGBTQIA+, having no boundaries and rules of programming to follow.

As long as you’re not put off by crude language and straight to the point sex talk, it’s a good listen. I only scored this one a bit less because of this, though I don’t mind it. It was an important element to this book and it was well written.

It’s full of women overcoming the boxes they were put in, a feminist uprising
It was greatly narrated. It really brought the book to life and really made for easily listening, I loved the narrator in this audiobook! It was entertaining to listen to, with plenty to keep you listening.

I have to admit, it did get weird at times and went in a direction I did not foresee! Many ‘eh?!’ Moments but they kept you on your toes ! It was an entertaining listen and compelling to see what was going to happen and how it was going to end. Especially towards its conclusion, all that was building drew to a head and I liked how it ended. I’d be intrigued to see how it could expand into further books!

Cookie Rifkin,, a fembot, an AI wife in the town of New Stepford. If you're old enough to remember The StepfordvWives, then you already have an idea what this audiobook is about.
But someone is trying to make the women break free of the tyranny of their husbands but forcing them to feel an emotion that was not programmed into them; Anger.
The story is very funny in places and can make you squirm in others. It is also educational, I never knew you could make organic drugs from bananas or nutmeg. Good to know.
I could have done without the love story that seemed to have just been shoved in there, and the hetero-sex left me feeling uncomfortable. I have no issues with straight sex or the descriptions of it, but here the dialog as foreplay was laughable and kinda weird. Then after talking to each other like a cheap budget porno, Cokie calls it making love. That was not "making love, that was f*cking, plain and simple.
My other issue is this being listed as LGBTQIA. This is not LGBTQIA. There is one lesbian kiss, that results in Cokie showing real anger and when later she thinks the other female is, in fact, sexy, she goes into self-loathing. Not cool, not cool at all. We've come further than this Ava Lock.
Other than that, I actually enjoyed this book.
I was given the Audiobook version to review. The narrator was fine, though she wasn't very good at male voices and there were a few words where her pronunciation was driving me insane. I HATED the way she pronounced Rita. Like this is a hard word? Anyway, I cringed every time but it did not take too much away from my enjoyment of the book.
I received this Audiobook free from Independent Book Publishers Association and @Netgalley in exchange for my honest and unbiased opinion.

New Stepford women are charming and lovely. They have a book club, they shop carefully using their many coupons, they clean their houses, take care of their husbands and perform their marital duties like any other woman would do outside their small community. Besides, all men work in the mines and there are no children.

Cookie Rifkin is one of these women. However, she suffers from severe anxiety and panic attacks. The reason why this happens is because her restrictions are set too low…She has no free will at all.

But what restrictions? What is the meaning of this? Well, Cookie is not really human. She is an AI. A humanoid. A Robot.

THE STORY

Cookie is a robot, and she knows this. But she suffers from anxiety because her settings are not right. Her husband hat set them very low. That is why she needs anti-depressant drugs, but her doctor refuses to prescribe them. For this reason, she cooks bananas and smokes them, which makes her relatively high…

Then one day, when she is at the supermarket, she encounters Office Margaret Rouser, a policewoman who shamelessly flirts with her. Outrageous!!! Women don’t hit on women in New Stepford.

However Maggie is more than a policewoman. In Cookie’s own words, Maggie is her “nemesis”.

Since their first contact, Cookie’s life will change forever. She would become self-aware of what is going on in her city with men.

Cookie would understand that she is a slave, reduced to a mere sexual toy under her husband Norman’s orders. She would learn what she means for her husband, the man she thought loved her and cared for her.

Furthermore, she would suffer the consequences of standing up against oppression and sexual enslavement because she would lose many good friends in the way. But it has to be done. Someone has to do it, even if it implies dying and losing your loved ones.

So Cookie starts a rebellion against her husband and all men in general in New Stepford. But this doesn’t mean that men should die, which is Maggie’s approach to the problem. Fanaticism is never good, though.

Because Cookie also meets Wayne Dixon. And Wayne is a man. But Cookie feels something for him. But does she really?

In addition to this, it is Wayne who helps her awakening, and leads her in her way to freedom.

FINAL THOUGHTS ABOUT “ALPHA BOTS”

In “Alpha Bots” we accompany Cookie in her journey to get out of the oppression she has suffered her whole (robotic) life.

And that is the fascinating thing about this book. From the first page the reader knows that we are talking about robots here, not “real” women. But is it so?

The majority of the situations described in the book, even the most grotesque ones (The scene of Cookie’s friend reduced to a mere skeleton lying in the sofa and being abused by two men would always stay on my mind!) can otherwise be extrapolated to situations lived by “real” women nowadays.

I found this aspect of the narration fascinating. I think the author made an amazing job by creating such a science-fiction world that feels so close to our real world.

In addition to this, the witty conversations, word-plays and double meanings make it very easy for me to follow the narration and extremely entertaining. They also added an extra layer of humour which was much appreciated, taking into consideration that some situations of the book are quite dark. I listened to it in Audiobook format while strolling around in my neighbourhood and I found myself many times smiling widely.

But there is so much more in here…so many circumstances that I would need two or three reviews more to cover everything. Plus I don’t wanna say too much and spoil the experience to the possible readers.

I would recommend this book for lovers of science-fiction who want to reflect on women’s feelings in regard to their relationship with men in general. The whole book is a big satire of many social problems that women experience on a daily basis.

However, the book is quite special and I am sure not everyone would enjoy reading it, so handle it with care. ;)
---

Thanks to the publisher, Semiscope, the author Ava Lock and NetGalley for providing me with a free copy of “Alpha Bots” in exchange for an honest review.

What a great concept for a series. This first book begins setting up the main character, Cookie Rifkin and how she fits into the AI world of the Stepford wives. What at first experience seems an innocuous maybe even suggestive relationship with Maggie leads to the idea being turned on its head when she gets power hungry. The use of internal dialogue is interestingly used along with the imagery, sometimes sexual, that brings the characters to "life".
Ava Lock uses the AI ability to "upload" to great effect and it doesn't get overused in this first novel. The addition of Wayne to the mix adds an interesting angle with it leading into the second (currently reading) and I'm guessing subsequent books in the set.
The narrator in this audiobook brings the characters to life with good use of characterisation and adds to the enjoyment of the story through the telling of it.
Really enjoyable, different from the norm, with smatterings of Philip K Dick / Asimov's toying with AI and synth life forms, this novel is one for all hard sci-fi fans as well as those who are simply looking for something that is refreshingly different.

I found the concept fascinating and very different from other things in the genre while having a Kill Bill vibe. The language Cookie and the other Womanoids used started off a bit stiff but got better; this could have been to show them changing, but it was offputting. I like that Cookie grows and changes during the story but was disappointed Cookie chose to follow another man. Cookie's anxiety seemed genuine initially but stayed for too long and then changed to an obsession with her creator, who again was a man. The metaphor, in the end, seems to be that a woman can only be complete with a man, which makes me wonder if Ava Lock is a man.

This book was filled with so much humour! From start to finish I laughed at the way this book pokes holes in the misogyny in today’s society with a wonderful sci-fi twist. I will say that at times the story was a little hard to understand but I am very excited to get into the second/third book in this series because I am hooked.

This is one of the most original, entertaining, and amusing stories I've not read in a long time. By that I mean it was an audiobook, so I didn't even have to read it - I just sat back and listened - and laughed my ass off. There were some minor issues with it, but nothing to take away from the brilliance of the story and the hectic way it was told.

On top of this, the reader, Laci Powers, was awesome in the role and really put soul into the story and life into Cookie, the main character. I'm not a series fan, but I did secure the sequel to this before I even finished the first volume which is highly unusual for me. I remain nervous about sequels, and rightly so, because I did not enjoy the sequel at all. I'll review that next.

Be warned that this first volume pulls no punches, and is as explicit with language as it is with sex talk, which is to say there's a lot! That was one of the most amusing parts for me: to hear the naïve and softly-spoken Cookie talking so frankly and cussing like a sailor as she became liberated from her servitude, but this may bother other readers. I enjoyed her liberation, and I think it was made all the more amusing by Laci Powers's take on the character, too. The subtle snipes the author frequently took at male chauvinism and the genderist world order were wonderful.

Cookie Rifkin is a life-like AI robot designed to emulate a woman and to be servile and submissive to men, specifically her husband Norman. She's a gynoid if you will, but in the books they're referred to as womanoids. The thing is that, in New Stepford (get the reference?!), there are no human women, just human men. There are no children either. None of the womanoids think this is odd, that is until Cookie starts a book club with four other womanoids (Chrissy, Isabel, Paula, and Rita, all of whom have their own stories to tell), meets Wayne, finds her freedom, and becomes a startling rebel. Frankly, I think the story would have been even more powerful without Wayne. To me he was an annoyance, but this is what we have here.

The story begins innocently enough in a small homage to The Stepford Wives (and note to some ignorant reviewers: that was a novel from the same author who wrote Rosemary's Baby long before it was ever a movie!) where Cookie is wakened - and eventually woke - by the bed shaking and realizes that her husband is masturbating. This inexplicable and unexpected event in Cookie's life is what sets her off on her trail of discovery and eventual insurgency.

After meeting Wayne, Cookie encounters Maggie, who appears to be some sort of slacker police officer, but the more Cookie learns, the more she realizes that not everything in New Stepford is as it seems at first sight, and her encounters with Wayne and Maggie are not accidental. There is much more going on here, and over time, Cookie and her friends learn what real networking is, and they're not so much going to eat the forbidden fruit as overturn the entire apple cart. But it's not going to be a smooth ride by any means.

As far as problems are concerned, I said they were minor. There are times when Cookie's 'functionality' is described in ways that make her seem fully human, and at other times makes her seem very robotic, so this to me was a paradox; like for example she seems to eat and drink and breathe although she seems not to need to do any of that. The author never really went into any of the details of how she worked which was fine to begin with, but later, when Cookie learns how to upgrade herself, she seems much more robotic than she did when the story began, so it felt a bit like the rules of the world were changing, and this was a bit confusing, but it wasn't enough of a problem to detract from the story for me.

Also the upgrading is a bit problematic in another way. I don't want to give away spoilers, but in a way it's reminiscent of a time travel story where something goes wrong in the past and it would seem perfectly simple to just go back before that time and nip the problem in the bud, but the author makes up some arbitrary rule why that's not possible and it spoils the story for me. In the same way in this story (which involves no time-travel let me be clear!) Cookie's upgrades seem endless, but when she could have used a relatively minor upgrade to get her out of a tricky situation, she seems not to think of doing the very thing that could solve her problem. This rather demeans Cookie's agency and her inventiveness.

It made for a bit of a deus ex machina situation at some points and a 'Cookie has to be dumb not to think of that' at others, with problems being very easily solved at times, whereas at other times, they seemed insoluble by using the same convenient means. It was a bit inconsistent. I was enjoying the story enough that I let that slide, but this may bother some readers. Additionally, there is no real LGBTQIA angle to this story. There's a tease here and there, like the author is intrigued by Sapphic stories, but is too afraid to explore one for herself; so this is essentially hetero all the way

Overall though, I highly commend this story as beautifully done, entertaining, amusing, and even educational. I'm just sorry the sequel was a different thing altogether.

This audiobook book was so much fun! I love Laci Powers (the narrator) voices for each character, I find Cookie's voice annoying but it is also how I imagine her voice would sound, so it worked perfectly.

This book was a fresh take on artificial intelligence and The Stepford Wives. I love that the author used they/them pronouns for some of the characters, removed the gender from others, and included some saucy scenes.

I cannot wait to read book two, the tag line I read today said Cookie lets her freak flag fly!, that sounds fantastic to me.

Loved re reading this book along with my ebook to follow along with the audio. Just took me forever as I am on jury service.