In a strange little home built into the branches of a grove of trees live three robots—fatherly inventor android Giovanni Lawson, a pleasantly sadistic nurse machine, and a small vacuum despearte for love and attention. Victor Lawson, a human, lives there too. They're a family, hidden and safe. Then one day Vic salvages and repairs an unfamiliar android labeled HAP, and he learns of a shared dark past between Hap and Gio—a past spent hunting humans. When Hap unwittingly alerts robots from Gio's former life to their whereabouts, the family is no longer hidden and safe. Gio is captured and taken back to his old laboratory in the City of Electric Dreams. So together, the rest of Vic's assembled family must journey across an unforgiving and otherworldly country to rescue Gio from decommissioning—or worse, reprogramming. Along the way to save Gio, amid conflicted feelings of betrayal and affection for Hap, Vic must decide for himself: Can he accept love with strings attached?
Klune does what he does best in In the Lives of Puppets—building and maintaining a found family narrative between a varied cast of characters, making readers believe in their journey and happiness as a group, and keeping us cheering until they get to their happily ever after. Vic, Hap, Rambo, Nurse Ratched, and Gio all have their parts in their family, and I love how organic and authentic their interactions were. Nurse Ratched was genuinely funny, and her interactions with Rambo were just so silly they couldn't not warm your heart. Vic's and Hap's relationship developed steadily, and it was interesting to read about Vic's thoughts regarding humanity while interacting solely with robots and machines. It's hard to put into words, but if you read Klune for his found family narratives, I think you'll be pleased by the one that exists within these pages.
In the Lives of Puppets has a different world than any of Klune's previous adult fantasies. There's a sort of dystopian/apocalyptic feel to Vic's story, but it also feels very science-fiction and fantasy-esque. I love how in Klune's previous books, there's a sense of home and place. That exists within the opening pages of In the Lives of Puppets, and is then abruptly taken away as Vic learns the true meaning of home. One of the novel's strengths is how it spends a lot of time developing the themes and messages of the narrative. The meaning of home is one of them, and so is what family means. But some of the bigger ones include forgiveness and what it means to be human and the choices we make for the ones we love. I do believe Klune's strength is in how he can articulate themes as vast as these into stories that we can imagine continuing on long after the last page, and there is lots of that here.
That being said, there was one big thing that kept me from fully enjoying the novel. I felt there was a dissonance between Klune's cozy, whimsical way of writing versus the adventure plot of the novel. The plot itself relies on the characters leaving home and embarking on a journey to save another character. However, the writing and pacing of the novel made it clear that the adventure was less of a focus compared to the philosophical message of the novel overall. The strongest parts of the novel included the prologue, epilogue, and the first part (before the characters leave home). That's because each of these parts of the novel spend a lot of time explaining Vic's grief over not being a robot, and (re)building the family dynamics between the characters. These moments feel wholesome, and strong in that it is clear that Klune's strength is in writing the found family trope as they are becoming and acting as a family. The adventure narrative felt stilted to me, as the slower pacing of the novel didn't match the high stakes involved. I probably would not have minded all of this as much had the adventure element of the story hadn't been as long, and has the epilogue had been a bit longer.
I will definitely check out future books from Klune, even though I didn't love this one as much as his previous adult fantasies. Until then, you can find Klune online at tjklunebooks.com or on Instagram @TJKluneBooks. You can find more of my reviews of his work here.
*This review can also be found on my Goodreads page*
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