From Publishers Weekly
In this diverting tale of the 21st century, Piercy explores a world where information has become a commodity more precious than gold. Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
This is Piercy's first full-fledged foray into science fiction, although Woman on the Edge of Time ( LJ 6/1/76) flirted with the genre. In the 21st century the world has been ravaged by environmental disaster and war, with much of the populace living in corporate domes. Depressed over child custody problems with Josh, her ex-husband, Shira Shipman returns to her childhood home, one of the few free Jewish towns. There she falls in love with Yod, an illegal cyborg created to defend the town against attack. Filled with fantastic technological description, the plot zooms to a page-turning climax. A story of a golem in 17th-century Prague told by Shira's warmhearted grandmother mirrors the action. While not as visionary as Doris Lessing's "Canopus in Argos" novels, this projection of a world with a computer for a soul has the ring of reality. As usual, Piercy's women are strong and sympathetic. With the exception of Yod, her men are either frivolous or cold. Recommended. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 6/1/91.- Harriet Gottfried, NYPLCopyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Kirkus Reviews
Despite a contrived subject--the parallel adjustment problems of a 21st-century cyborg and a 17th-century golem--the latest from Piercy (Summer People, 1989; Gone to Soldiers, 1987) boils down to a gripping love story. Shira is a midlevel artificial-intelligence expert working for Yakamura-Siemens, a corporation-state. When she loses custody of her beloved son, she returns to their birthplace, a little enclave centered around the practice of Judaism, and accepts a job working for Avram, the father of her childhood lover. Avram has created an incredibly sophisticated robot that can pass for human. To counteract the violent tendencies that had marred his previous efforts, Avram enlisted Shira's grandmother Malkah to construct the robot Yod's human personality (i.e., to make ``him'' needy, emphatic, sexual). Intermixed with Shira's narrative are Malkah's messages to Yod, including an overlong didactic bedtime story about the creation of a golem in the Jewish ghetto of Prague--a golem who protected the community against deadly pogroms but who guaranteed his own demise by falling in love with a human woman. Y-S, the nasty conglomerate, wants Yod and tries to use Shira's love for her hostage son to get her to betray her community. But Shira has fallen in love with the robot. As the golem's tale foreshadows, many complications follow. Piercy's scattershot vision of the 21st century underwhelms, and all eyes will glaze over during the Prague interludes. But unlike her past efforts that have substituted overheated plotting for focus and character development, the latest fleshes out its heroine and creates a resonant evocation of love found and lost. An overwrought conceit, then, that has at its core an engaging story. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Book Description
"A triumph of the imagination. Rich, complex, impossible to put down."
Alice Hoffman
In the middle of the twenty-first century, life as we know it has changed for all time. Shira Shipman's marriage has broken up, and her young son has been taken from her by the corporation that runs her zone, so she has returned to Tikva, the Jewish free town where she grew up. There, she is welcomed by Malkah, the brilliant grandmother who raised her, and meets an extraordinary man who is not a man at all, but a unique cyborg implanted with intelligence, emotions--and the ability to kill....
From the imagination of Marge Piercy comes yet another stunning novel of morality and courage, a bold adventure of women, men, and the world of tomorrow.



From the Inside Flap
"A triumph of the imagination. Rich, complex, impossible to put down."
Alice Hoffman
In the middle of the twenty-first century, life as we know it has changed for all time. Shira Shipman's marriage has broken up, and her young son has been taken from her by the corporation that runs her zone, so she has returned to Tikva, the Jewish free town where she grew up. There, she is welcomed by Malkah, the brilliant grandmother who raised her, and meets an extraordinary man who is not a man at all, but a unique cyborg implanted with intelligence, emotions--and the ability to kill....
From the imagination of Marge Piercy comes yet another stunning novel of morality and courage, a bold adventure of women, men, and the world of tomorrow.

ANNOTATION

The author of Gone to Soldiers presents a futuristic, feministic novel in the vein of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. In the 21st century, environmental disasters have ravaged the planet's resources and divided the world into corporate enclaves. Her young son taken from her by the corporation, a woman returns to the place where she grew up and meets a unique cyborg, implanted with intelligence, emotions--and the ability to kill.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"A triumph of the imagination. Rich, complex, impossible to put down."
Alice Hoffman
In the middle of the twenty-first century, life as we know it has changed for all time. Shira Shipman's marriage has broken up, and her young son has been taken from her by the corporation that runs her zone, so she has returned to Tikva, the Jewish free town where she grew up. There, she is welcomed by Malkah, the brilliant grandmother who raised her, and meets an extraordinary man who is not a man at all, but a unique cyborg implanted with intelligence, emotions—and the ability to kill....
From the imagination of Marge Piercy comes yet another stunning novel of morality and courage, a bold adventure of women, men, and the world of tomorrow.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly