The Kingdom

May 27, 2019
Rothenberg (The Catastrophic History of You and Me) presents a thought-provoking anti–fairy tale of AI enslavement for the amusement of humans. Ana is one of seven Fantasists, organic-technological hybrids who serve as princesses—hostesses and attractions—at the Kingdom, the world’s most advanced amusement park in the 2090s. The Fantasists have been engineered to be beautiful representatives of the global population and are programmed to be helpful, polite, and compliant. Ana and some of her “sisters,” though, have begun to have their own thoughts. Beginning with the discovery of an unnamed body, the story follows three timelines, interweaving brief coverage of a public trial and a secret post-trial interview of Ana with events leading up to the murder. Those events include two of Ana’s sisters, Nia and Eve, who were permanently shut down after violent aberrant behavior, as well as Ana’s growing relationship with Owen, a maintenance man with an unusually high security clearance. Rothenberg delves into questions of what it means to be sentient and how humankind treats beings considered to be “lesser.” Combining elements of mystery, drama, and romance with science fiction, this novel will have broad appeal. Ages 14–up.