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The Mad Scientist’s Daughter

by Cassandra Rose Clarke (Goodreads Author)

3.97 of 5 stars 3.97 · rating details · 292 ratings · 140 reviews

The Mad Scientist’s Daughter is the heartbreaking story of the journey from childhood to adulthood, with an intriguing science fictional twist.

There’s never been anyone - or anything - quite like Finn.
He looks, and acts human, though he has no desire to be. He was programmed to assist his owners, and performs his duties to perfection. A billion-dollar construct, his primar...more

Paperback, UK/RoW, 400 pages

Published February 7th 2013 by Angry Robot (first published January 29th 2013)

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Jan 29, 2013 Maja rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: annoying-love-triangle, arc-2012, are-you-kidding-me, incredibly-stupid-choices, netgalley, romance, sci-fi, reviewed-in-2012

The Mad Scientist’s Daughter takes place over the course of many years. At the beginning, Cat, the daughter of two accomplished scientist, is only eight years old. Her father brings home a strange man, Finn, to live with them and be Cat’s tutor. At first, Cat doesn’t understand what this man is, his reactions and behavior unlike anything she’d ever seen before. As she grows up, what he is no longer matters as Finn becomes her anchor, that one immutable thing that holds together her very chaotic,...more The Mad Scientist’s Daughter takes place over the course of many years. At the beginning, Cat, the daughter of two accomplished scientist, is only eight years old. Her father brings home a strange man, Finn, to live with them and be Cat’s tutor. At first, Cat doesn’t understand what this man is, his reactions and behavior unlike anything she’d ever seen before. As she grows up, what he is no longer matters as Finn becomes her anchor, that one immutable thing that holds together her very chaotic, directionless life.

Cat spends most of the book in utter denial, running from her feelings toward Finn and convincing herself that, as an android, he can’t possibly feel the same. We see her in different stages of her life and thus get to meet many sides of her. She struggles for most of her life, doing everything she deems normal and acceptable, all the while punishing herself for loving something unnatural, an abomination. While running from herself and from Finn, Cat makes a series of selfish choices and ends up hurting the only person who’s ever shown her a modicum of respect.

As a character, Cat is a hive of conflicting emotions, ranging from guilt and self-disgust to love and acceptance. Try as she might, she can’t quite hide her emotions from the world, especially when someone threatens or insults Finn. Her fierce protectiveness and the readiness with which she jumps to his defense give her away each and every time.

Beneath everything Cat does is a deep self-hatred and desperate need for approval. At its very core, The Mad Scientist’s Daughter is a romance, but a desperate, torturous one that can be very hard to read about.

Finn isn’t much of a hero, but not through any fault of his own. Not quite an android and not quite a man, one of a kind in every way, he is everybody’s victim, even those who love him the most. His emotional awakening comes at a very high price because it leads him to realize that everyone who was ever supposed to care for him and protect him either abandoned him or used him in the worst possible way.

It’s clear by now that Cat is no heroine either. Quite the contrary, I’m afraid. One bad choice after another and one train wreck of a marriage do not a heroine make. Even when she supposedly turned a new leaf, some of her choices deeply troubled me and I’m surprised Clarke never addressed them.

Overall, The Mad Scientist’s Daughter is by no means a light-hearted, fun book, and it’s certainly not young adult. Had I known how complicated and angst-filled it was, I doubt I would have picked it up, but now I’m glad I did.

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Jan 22, 2013 Ceridwen rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: NSP, Mike, Elizabeth, not sure who else

Shelves: america-and-environs, it-s-alive, angry-robot, capital-l-labor, capital-r-romantic, daddy-drinks-because-you-cry, ecopunk, ghost-stories, gothic, reviewed, sci-fi, the-future-is-now, the-housewife, netgalley

When I was in junior high, I knew this girl who claimed to be a test tube baby. She claimed a lot of fantastic things, like that she had no sense of smell because of the scientific tinkering of her experimental origins, and some other odd physical anomalies. I pretty much knew this was bullshit, but this was back before I could spend 15 seconds typing into a screen on my cell browser "first test tube baby US" and get the name and birthdate of Elizabeth Jordan Carr, born on December 28, 1981. Ms...more

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Jan 21, 2013 Keertana rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: arc-galley-and-first-reads, why-the-hype

Looking back, I think I can acknowledge that The Mad Scientist's Daughter is more of a tragic love story than anything else. Although it's been marketed as sci-fi, focusing on robots and a dystopian future that seems eerily similar to something our own children may experience, at the core, it is all romance and not much else. Let me clarify - all dramatic and angst-ridden romance. Unfortunately, I didn't even feel much for this main romance since I was too preoccupied coming up with ways to murd...more

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Dec 10, 2012 Danielle rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: netgalley-arc, oh-the-tears, romance, sci-fi

Read This Review & More Like It At Ageless Pages Reviews

No summary could do The Mad Scientist’s Daughter justice. Look up there. That is an awful summary. I don’t want to read that book. That makes the story look like it’s about Finn and the fight for robot rights. Now, those are certainly in the book, but The Mad Scientist’s Daughter is about Caterina Novak, Cat for short, growing, learning, changing, learning she’s changed in the wrong ways, and growing some more. It’s about love and loss...more Read This Review & More Like It At Ageless Pages Reviews

No summary could do The Mad Scientist’s Daughter justice. Look up there. That is an awful summary. I don’t want to read that book. That makes the story look like it’s about Finn and the fight for robot rights. Now, those are certainly in the book, but The Mad Scientist’s Daughter is about Caterina Novak, Cat for short, growing, learning, changing, learning she’s changed in the wrong ways, and growing some more. It’s about love and loss and death and life and humanity. It has more in common with David Nicholls’ One Day than Asimov's I, Robot.

The book is divided into 3 parts, Cat’s childhood, young adult, and adult lives. When Cat is five, her father brings home a strange man whom Cat thinks is a ghost. He is, in fact, Finn, a mysterious android who her father adamantly did NOT create, but will be staying with them. Through Cat's childhood, she and Finn bond as he becomes her tutor and later her best friend. Cat’s parents, reclusive scientists, fear she’s becoming too close to Finn and needs more human companionship. They are right.

For a book that deals with a lot of ethical questions regarding humanity and servitude, it really does gloss over the complete inappropriateness of a girl falling in love with an authority figure she’s known since she was five. From puberty until her late thirties, Cat lusts after Finn and the feelings are returned. It makes the first sex scene pretty icky, particularly due to Cat’s emotional state at the time. That’s not to say their love wasn’t sweet or hot, but there’s always an undercurrent of inappropriateness that no one but Cat’s mom comments on.

Cat undergoes a lot of trauma over the years and it doesn’t make her a very nice person. She is selfish, unhappy, and deeply flawed. Basically from high school until the last hundred pages, I didn’t like her at all. But, unlike many other books with unlikeable protagonists, I felt like her final redemption was well earned. She seemed to want to change, understand why she was wrong, and came to it in a believable way. I read the last section, her thirties, though a non stop wash of tears as every bad thing that can happen to a person came to pass. Even the ending is heart-breakingly bittersweet. Some parts do feel a little manipulative and, again, Finn and Cat’s last love scene has an icky undercurrent, but so much of the writing is beautiful, it’s easy to give the flaws a pass. (less)

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Jan 29, 2013 Livvy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 5-stars, adult, arcs, favorites, jan-2013, romance, tear-jerker, science-fiction, robots

The Mad Scientist’s Daughter is a novel that moved me to tears. I truly did not expect to feel so emotional about a robot. I mean a robot to me has always been metal pieces controlled with complicated electronic circuits inside and sometimes, occasionally the robot may have a system that allows responses. However, Finn is a robot like no other. He was human, he felt human to me and ultimately I couldn’t displace him as not being human and this humanity that surrounded Finn made his story all the...more

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Feb 12, 2013 Jamie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: cover-love, favorites, reviewed, reviewed-more-than-3-stars, arc-reviewed, own-hard-copy

DISCLAIMER: I received The Mad Scientist's Daughter as a publisher ARC through NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

This review can also be found at The Title Page

Rating: 4.5 Stars

The blurb for this book is a bit misleading, not so much in a bad way. Don't expect a book from the point of view of an android, that's not what this is about. This book is about a young girl's growth from adolescence to adulthood. It follows Cat in her journey to find herself and figure out who she is in the mid...more

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Feb 09, 2013 Crini rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: a-ya, genre-scifi, lang-english, released-2013, s-standalone, netgalley, mine-ebooks, r-waste-of-time, read-2012

First of all: I didn't read the whole book, only nearly half of it. I was really excited about it and wanted to love it but it just wasn't for me. What makes me sad because the cover is awesome and the summary sounded like a story I would like. I thought the story would be different. Even if the title indicates that it's all about the scientist's daughter I thought it would be more about the boy, the robot too. That he would appear way more often than he did. And also the role he plays in her li...more First of all: I didn't read the whole book, only nearly half of it. I was really excited about it and wanted to love it but it just wasn't for me. What makes me sad because the cover is awesome and the summary sounded like a story I would like. I thought the story would be different. Even if the title indicates that it's all about the scientist's daughter I thought it would be more about the boy, the robot too. That he would appear way more often than he did. And also the role he plays in her life was a bit shocking for me and not at all what I expected.

The story has a really good start and while reading it I thought the whole book was going to be very good. We get to know Cat as a child and how she gets to know Finn. That part was really cute, to see how she reacts to him and how she becomes attached to him.
But it didn't take long to me not liking it anymore.

The whole story covers a really big time span, so there are a lot of "3 years later"s or similar sentences at the beginning of a new chapter. Therefore you don’t get to know Cat in details. I felt more like watching a movie on fast forward, just picking up some not really interesting details about her life.
And in all of this there isn't that much about Finn. She sometimes misses him or needs his help and he appears.

I thought it would be all about him, how it's for someone like him, how people react to him and his relationship to Cat. But instead it's all about her, how she has to cope with him just being a machine and not a real person. And I couldn't understand why she feels about him the way she does. She knows him her whole life and she changes but he never does and still she has the same feelings for him when she’s 28 (which she is at the time I stopped reading) as she had since she was a teen. I think we never really get to know her enough to understand her and instead her actions felt very weird to me and at one point I was kind of shocked about how everything develops.

On top of that I was a bit confused about the world this all takes place in. It's somewhere in the future and there are some hints about a major event but not any details about it. Could be that there are more information through the second half, but I didn't like to be in the unknown for so long about the world the story takes place in.

The idea behind the story is really good. Cat is a damaged character, influenced by how she grew up, but I wished we would get a better look inside her to better understand her, which I couldn't at all. Therefore I didn't like her that much and wasn't interested in her life which results in me being bored and not liking the story. I wish Cassandra would have concentrated more on a smaller time span of Cat's life and thereby give a better look inside Cat's feelings.
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Mar 14, 2013 Laura *Little Read Riding Hood* rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Heartbreaking is right. I would also describe the story as hauntingly beautiful, heart-wrenchingly sad, yet full of hope and promise. We follow Cat from childhood to adulthood, following the twists and turns growing up in a post-disaster world and all the trials and tribulations that come with it. Throw in a set of genius parents and the fact that Cat has somewhat of a learning disorder, and you've got the right recipe for strife.

And then there is Finn. At first Cat thinks he is a ghost, yet sti...more

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Dec 24, 2012 Janice (the_red1) rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: futuristic, romance, sci-fi, favorites, sexual-tension, standalone-title, received-for-review, netgalley, flawed-character, feel-the-feels

The synopsis of this book is misleading. It sounds like a book about Finn, but it isn't his name on the title; he is obviously not the mad scientist's daughter. No, that would be Cat, and make no mistake, this is very much her story.

The tale spans a couple of decades, beginning with Cat's childhood and her first introduction to her father's assistant and her new tutor, Finn, and then following Cat through her teenage years, young adulthood, and finally, womanhood. The "when" of this book is a bi...more

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Dec 17, 2012 Ellie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi, favorites

One evening Cat’s father brings Finn home. He is to be her tutor. But Finn is no normal tutor; he is a robot, and not just any robot but a billion dollar prototype; one of a kind. To Cat, he is her friend. Her father tells her Finn’s kindness is a program but as she grows, so do her feelings for him. In a world where robots have helped humankind return from the brink of destruction, they struggle to be accepted. Is her father right? And if so what future can they have?

This book is just stunning;...more

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Jan 26, 2013 Tien rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction, net-galley, speculative-fiction

I’ve enjoyed all that I’ve read from Angry Robot so far and this one, a little weird and caught me by surprise but was still worth the read. That’s what spec-fic is all about though, isn’t it!

The story began when Cat was just a little girl and her parents brought a ‘special android’ to tutor her rather than sending her to school. Being the only child with no other playmate, Finn became not only her tutor but her best friend. As she grew, her relationship with Finn changed and yet, everything is...more

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Feb 19, 2013 Gavin rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

You know how they don't say don't judge a book by its cover? I know I judged it based on the title. I really thought I'd get a actionesk piece from the mad scientist's daughters point of view.

Instead I got a very touching life/love story of a daughter of a (mad) scientist.

I grabbed the sample off amazon. By the end of it I *needed* to find out what happened next so picked up the book right away. I'm not sure if I would recommend this book to a lot of people, but I really enjoyed it. I loved th...more

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Mar 04, 2013 S.A. Partridge rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

There is no better feeling in the world than being swallowed whole by a book. The Mad Scientist’s Daughter is one of those rare novels that keeps you spellbound to the point where everything else literally disappears around you. I read the novel in a day, totally forgetting about food and everything else I needed to do. This hasn’t happened in a while.

The book follows Cat Novak from child to adulthood; a girl whose father has created the perfect android and attracted all the wrong attention beca...more

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Feb 13, 2013 Shweta rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: got-an-arc-to-review

The best bit about book blogging is the wonderful set of recommendations you are showered with when in doubt about your next bookish obsession. If it wasn’t for the book blogging community I wouldn’t have known about Cassandra Rose Clarke and the amazing books she has written. When I received this book for review I had already read her The Assassin’s Curse which is a YA title and for which my review is long over due. However, I was cautious to pin up my hopes for this book as it was clearly an a...more The best bit about book blogging is the wonderful set of recommendations you are showered with when in doubt about your next bookish obsession. If it wasn’t for the book blogging community I wouldn’t have known about Cassandra Rose Clarke and the amazing books she has written. When I received this book for review I had already read her The Assassin’s Curse which is a YA title and for which my review is long over due. However, I was cautious to pin up my hopes for this book as it was clearly an adult title and sci-fi at that. Some authors manage to make this cross over very smoothly and it appears Cassandra Rose Clarke is one among those.

How appealing can a story be, one that deals with a beautiful girl falling in love with her robot tutor/friend? I kept asking myself the whole time it took me to decide on reading this book. Once I started, there was no time to think about such inconsequential things for the story albeit the fact that it deals with Robo love is quiet addictive. Starting off from the point when Finn, the robot who has been upgraded with an emotion chip and a database that includes every possible encyclopedia in the world enters into Cat Novak’s life, plot moves forward. It slowly charts the development of a special relationship between the two and as she grows older Cat understands the true depth of her feelings for Finn who has been her constant companion since childhood. In a world much greyer than ours her’s is a story of pure heartbreak. A story of wishing to have a normal life, one that wouldn’t involve Finn but failing miserably at it. I have rarely read a science fiction that made me tiny bit weepy except for may Susan Beth Pfeffer books. This one did bring out a tear or two.

As for the character development in the story Clarke does an amazing job in fleshing out her protagonist. Cat is not fiery or kick ass but she leaves an impression. She is identifiable except for the fact that her heart beats for a robot. Growing up in a family where science is religion Cat paints a contrasting picture by choosing arts to specialize. Her love for the loom is highlighted when she chooses it for a career as compared to robotics or mathematics. These minor details make the story memorable.

The writing is crisp and as I mentioned earlier, addictive. Though the first half goes slow and takes time to develop, it’s only a little while before the gears change. Cat and Finn and every other minor detail in this story makes for a very very absorbing and totally addictive reading.

Highly recommended!

This book was provided to me for review by Angry Robot Books
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Feb 04, 2013 Tahlia Newland rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: urban-fantasy, sci-fi

The mad scientists Daughter is the most extreme story of unrequited love that I have ever read. The idea is a good one, set in a future where androids are a reality, it raises the question of what makes something 'human' enough to deserve rights. At what point does using androids become slavery? We're talking about machines with sentience here and the one in this story has more sentience than most.

Caterina grows up with Finn. When he first arrives at her house, she's senses something different a...more The mad scientists Daughter is the most extreme story of unrequited love that I have ever read. The idea is a good one, set in a future where androids are a reality, it raises the question of what makes something 'human' enough to deserve rights. At what point does using androids become slavery? We're talking about machines with sentience here and the one in this story has more sentience than most.

Caterina grows up with Finn. When he first arrives at her house, she's senses something different about him and decides that he must be a ghost. Only when she is much older does she realise that he is an android. He becomes her tutor and she falls in love with him. Of course there are a lot of problems associated with that, not least of which is that Cat doesn't admit it to herself and when she finally does, she tells herself that he can't feel, a convenient way to absolve her of the problem of trying to live her life being true to that love. He doesn't help by reminding her that he is just a machine.

Only when it's too late does she realize not only how much she misjudged him, but also how little she actually knows him, how subtly she has treated him like a machine. There's a lot of value in this story, but it moves way too slowly, especially for those who would usually read science fiction. It's more like reading contemporary romance with an android as the male character; even then the pace is frustratingly slow. The tediousness of the pace does reflect Cat's life, but I think the book would have been better had it been pruned considerably.

The characters were all well-drawn and had my sympathy. I ached to see Cat and Finn come together, but parts of Cat's character annoyed me. She drifted through her life, letting it happen to her rather than taking control in any meaningful way. Her decision to marry was so obviously the wrong choice, her feelings for him so obviously non-existent that I couldn't believe she could be so stupid. Her friends didn't even try to convince her it was the wrong choice. Then she literally moped around the house as nothing more than his wife, letting her life slip away as if she had never been anything other than a hollow shell designed to look pretty at his business dinners. I was subjected to pages and pages that told me the same thing - she was totally miserable.

The prose itself was well-written and very detailed; I felt what Cat felt, smelt what she smelt, heard what she heard and so on. The detail made the writing immediate, but overall, there was too much of it. Unnecessary detail was one of the reasons the story moved so slowly.

I enjoyed the book in a kind of masochistic way, because the story was quite painful, not only because of the pace, but also because Cat was so passive. Nevertheless, I couldn't put it down. I just had to see those two get it together.
3stars, for me, but If you aren't bothered by a slow pace, you may well give it more.
I received a free copy of this book in return for an honest review.
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Jan 30, 2013 Big Book Little Book rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Caroline for www.bigbooklittlebook.com
Copy received via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

While I have a growing appreciation for YA fantasy and speculative fiction, particularly those liberally sprinkled with romance, I have to admit that I am more than a little intimidated by the thought of reading these genre’s within the adult category. So while the synopsis for The Mad Scientists Daughter, sparked my interest with its originality, my main reason for request to review The Mad Scien...more

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Jan 30, 2013 Melody rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi

This is one of those rare books that makes you want to read every single word. For someone who reads as much as I do, this is astonishingly rare. Maybe some of this is due to the fact that I read it on the heels of suffering through a few urban fantasy novels that, while entertaining, moved at the speed of light, never letting a moment breathe or an elicited emotion carry before the next crisis or explosion.

The Mad Scientist's Daughter is not slow though. It's moving and powerful and startlingl...more

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Dec 21, 2012 Christy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 21st-century-american-lit, science-fiction-and-fantasy, arc-netgalley, romance

What does it mean to love? Is love found in desire? In actions? In reciprocity of feeling? Is love defined by what someone gives you? By what you give them? By a need for someone? Or is love when you really see someone who for who and what they are and accept them as they are?

The Mad Scientist’s Daughter addresses all of these questions in a beautifully written and reflective science fiction romance that works as a thoughtful response to both Isaac Asimov’s robots and Mary Shelley’s creation my...more

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Dec 15, 2012 Michelle rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

First of all, I think this has to be one of my favourite covers, it makes me sigh every time I see it. I was luck enough to receive an ecopy to review, but I think I shall need a physical copy too, just so I can have it on my shelf!

Anyway, onto the story, which opens with a young Cat being introduced to Finn, a robot who seems a little different to the others we are introduced to. The story is set in a time when robots are quite common, helping to rebuild a world affected by severe climate chang...more

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Dec 08, 2012 Andrew rated it 5 of 5 stars

Last month I reviewed Laura Lam's "Pantomime", breaking a promise to myself not to review books I freelance proofread because sometimes I might find I'm at odds with whichever publisher I might be working with - which would be unprofessional. However, sometimes the silence needs to be broken for exceptional works. "Pantomime" was one of them, and now I find myself loving "The Mad Scientist's Daughter".

This book is fascinating, beautifully written, wonderfully paced, evocative, futuristic and ide...more

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Dec 06, 2012 Mrs. B. rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Modern, Romantic Sci-Fi Odyssey

The Mad Scientist's Daughter kept me reading the whole way through to the end. The themes of what makes us human, the nature of love, and our increasing dependence on technology were well explored. I thought that the author's vision of the future was both outlandish and realistic. I mean somethings were so similar to our world today (bars, workaholics, cigarettes), but the little touches here and there to future technologies were fun (AI houses, lunar station, auto...more

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Nov 18, 2012 OpenBookSociety.com rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Brought to you by OBS reviewer Vicki

The Mad Scientist’s Daughter is a bittersweet, sci-fi/love story about a woman named Caterina Novak and the love of her life, Finn. The novel follows Cat as a curious, bright-eyed child and moves throughout her life into her mid thirties. As a child she is slightly neglected by her workaholic father and her disinterested mother, but things begin to change for Cat when Finn comes to live with the family to home-school tutor her.

Finn is an android; unique to his...more

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Nov 15, 2012 Amanda Cole rated it 5 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This novel, Mad Scientist's Daughter, is defined as a coming-of-age story. Its main focus is on Cat, the mad scientist's daughter, and the novel accompanies her throughout a significant portion of her life, from her childhood (when she meets the android, Finn, on the very first page) into her thirties or thereabouts. Although she falls in love with Finn-the-android early on in her life, their love story doesn't complete itself till the end of the novel (as is always the case with love stories)....more This novel, Mad Scientist's Daughter, is defined as a coming-of-age story. Its main focus is on Cat, the mad scientist's daughter, and the novel accompanies her throughout a significant portion of her life, from her childhood (when she meets the android, Finn, on the very first page) into her thirties or thereabouts. Although she falls in love with Finn-the-android early on in her life, their love story doesn't complete itself till the end of the novel (as is always the case with love stories). Their love story intertwines with Cat's life throughout the book, but it is not present at every moment. That's somewhat unusual for love stories - in romance novels, the characters aren't even allowed to be apart for very long, and in most romance-driven stories, the lovers maintain a strong dual presence. In this story they do not.

That isn't remotely a criticism. Rather, I think it's an important thing to note with respect to the story's construction: although Cat is in love with Finn, it takes her a long time to really come to terms with what this means for her. For most of her life, Cat struck me as an essentially selfish person. Not a bad person, not at all; she's compassionate, capable of great empathy, and fiercely protective of Finn; but she makes choices that are bad for everyone and often the worst for herself. Even though I knew she loved Finn, she was too afraid of his not loving her back. Granted, he kept saying he wasn't capable of it, and it must be a frightening thing to understand that you've fallen in love with someone who believes, and whom you believe, is not capable of even the simplest emotion. These two aren't kept apart by external forces so much as by their own doubts, limitations and failings.

Finn, too, has a mind and will of his own. He's not a simple machine, or even one who's recently sentient. He makes his own decisions, a major one of which involves pulling away from Cat and leaving her. She lets him go. Really, although this novel has (is?) a love story, it's a love story that, to me, mainly involved two people who don't know what to do about loving each other. They have to learn how - not together, but apart. That one of them is a human and the other a robot has, perhaps, a different effect than you might think on each of them.

It would also be wrong to say that this book doesn't touch on any issues of robot ethics. It does - it doesn't write a treatise on it, but it's in there, typically arising out of the characters' interactions, and the moments when questions of robots' humanity crop up are some of the times when Cat is at her best. She instinctively understands the pain that's inflicted on Finn by others who regard his non-human status as less-than-human. That's impressive considering she can't know what it's like to be a machine. Finn even notes this, in one scene. It's up to the individual to decide whether Finn really feels it (despite saying he can't), or if he only intellectually understands the concept of existence and oblivion.

One of the things I loved about this story was its scope. If you are seeking a story with a short narrative arc that encompasses only a few events, this is perhaps the wrong book for you. Mad Scientit's Daughter covers such a large span of Cat's life because that's what it sets out to do, and in doing so it creates a beautiful dual construction between Cat and Finn: the trajectory of Cat's human life, from childhood to adolescence, marriage and motherhood is contrasted with Finn's agelessness; an especially poignant touch, since Finn was created to replace someone who died young and never would grow any older.

It's a beautiful, haunting love story. Don't lose sight of that; even though Finn might not always be on the page, the story of Cat's life, as we see it, begins and ends with him. I felt the pain of their separation with every line, even when they were together again. (less)

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Dec 28, 2012 sj rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: egalley, triggery, the-motherfucking-future

Originally posted here.

"Ugh, Amy. This book is a ROMANCE. I did not KNOW it was a romance when I started reading it. I DON'T LIKE ROMANCES!"

That's a paraphrasing of an email I sent when I was about a quarter of the way through Cassandra Rose Clarke's The Mad Scientist's Daughter.

I've talked before about how I'm not a big fan of romances (like real romance, not the ridiculous PNR stuff that is closer to erotica than romance, and anyone who thinks it's truly romance is effing delusional) in the bo...more

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Dec 01, 2012 Jenny rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: netgalley, sci-fi-fantasy, ebooks, read2012

When you read the description, it sounds like it will be a book about a robot, but really this is more of a romance novel where one of the love interests "just happens" to be an android.

The author at times dips into ethical issues surrounding "owning" sentient beings, in fact one character is trying to find a way to make a robot that is as smart as possible without being sentient, so he doesn't have to worry about robot's rights.

However, there is one glaring ethical dilemma that I felt the auth...more

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Feb 02, 2013 Carl V. rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

“Many years later Cat still remembered the damp twilight on her skin and the way the dewy grass prickled and snapped beneath her bare feet as she ran up to the edge of the forest that surrounded her home.”

How could she possibly forget that firefly-lit night, the night she sneaked up to the screened-in porch to find a stranger sitting there with her father? An inquisitive child, Cat quickly overcame her shyness and was soon introduced to Finn, a being she would later grow to understand was an an...more “Many years later Cat still remembered the damp twilight on her skin and the way the dewy grass prickled and snapped beneath her bare feet as she ran up to the edge of the forest that surrounded her home.”

How could she possibly forget that firefly-lit night, the night she sneaked up to the screened-in porch to find a stranger sitting there with her father? An inquisitive child, Cat quickly overcame her shyness and was soon introduced to Finn, a being she would later grow to understand was an android. But before that understanding came Finn would be settled in to the family primarily as an assistant to Cat’s father, Dr. Novak, an expert in the field of cybernetics, and secondarily as a tutor to young Cat. Yes, that was a special night, a night that would not fade from her memory, for that night which started out like any other ordinary night would be the night that changed Cat’s world forever.

There was no hesitation on my part when I first read of Cassandra Roses Clarke’s upcoming novel, The Mad Scientist’s Daughter, a few weeks ago. I promptly made an appointment with myself to be at my local bookstore on the day of its release. When they did not have it I just as promptly ordered it for the Kindle–there was to be no waiting. I read 49% of the novel that first night (at the risk of outing myself as an uber-nerd I must admit the percentage read feature is one of the things I love best about Kindle reading). I had not previously read anything by Ms. Clarke nor had I sought out any early reviews of this work. The novel’s tag line was enough for me. I am very fond of robot stories. Beyond the fascination I have with the dreamed up creations of folks like Isaac Asimov all the way across the spectrum to the very real and intriguing robot Curiosity that is at this very moment fulfilling its functions on the surface of Mars, I like robots because their examination in story often reflects back profound truths about humanity. This is what I expected Cassandra Rose Clarke to deliver and she did not disappoint.

I raved about this in much more detail here:

http://www.stainlesssteeldroppings.co...(less)

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Dec 30, 2012 Sarah (Head Stuck In A Book) rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: young-adult, review-copy, sci-fi-romance, e-book, owned-and-read

As much as I enjoyed this book, I also found it to be a little bit disturbing, as in the relationship between Kat and Finn.
Don't get me wrong, it is an interesting concept but when it came to the physical side of their relationship I was turned off a bit, although in saying that I did end up in tears quite a few times throughout their time together.

I did really like Finn's character in the book, he was humanised so much that sometimes I did forget that he was an android.
Kat however I had a love/...more

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Nov 10, 2012 Katharine rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: review, read-2012

‘The Mad Scientist’s Daughter’ by Cassandra Rose Clarke (of ‘The Assassin’s Curse’ fame) is a coming of age story set in the unspecified future of America that captured my interested as soon as it spoke of the destruction of Australia and how we were replaced by AI computers until we were able to repopulate once again, along with the rest of the world.

Cat(erina Novak) is the daughter of a scientist and cyberneticist, however numbers only jumble in front of her eyes and science is simply tolerabl...more ‘The Mad Scientist’s Daughter’ by Cassandra Rose Clarke (of ‘The Assassin’s Curse’ fame) is a coming of age story set in the unspecified future of America that captured my interested as soon as it spoke of the destruction of Australia and how we were replaced by AI computers until we were able to repopulate once again, along with the rest of the world.

Cat(erina Novak) is the daughter of a scientist and cyberneticist, however numbers only jumble in front of her eyes and science is simply tolerable. What Cat really likes is stories, art and being outside in the woods and garden instead. When her father brings home an android called Finn, she first thinks he must be a ghost, but taking him to the local cemetery doesn’t seem to help him find his way home. Then her parents say he’s going to be their tutor (as the local school isn’t very good) and she accepts it only because he knows many stories and still lets her run wild in the woods in the mornings at least.

Cat’s family live remotely and she doesn’t meet anyone her own age until she reaches high school, so until then she and Finn become close. He talks to her like her parents never do, and is unable to get frustrated with her, and doesn’t despair over the fact she doesn’t know algebra at 10 years old.

Finn looks human and his smile almost seems real – he’s one of a kind. Most androids and robots in the increasingly split world population aren’t as fine-tuned as he is, but they’re still obtaining rights around the world thanks to government rights and activists, but Cat doesn’t care for all that. He’s her friend, and he’s always there when she needs him most – when she’s in trouble – when she can’t call her parents after a bad party or when she needs to company after one drama or another. As she grows up and moves to the city, has this boyfriend or that and so on, he’s still there, looking exactly the same and performing his duties to perfection.

This impossible connection and friendship is the basis for a novel that gives us much to ponder on – whether this will be reality some day (every day seeming more possible thanks to Apple and society in general) and the fact it’s shapes from all sides of the story – showing the business world as well as religion – makes it only that much more believable.

The characters are what drives this story, whether it’s Cat struggling through life, her mad yet grounded and caring father, the friends and lovers Cat meets throughout her life, or Finn, the android who doesn’t want to be human yet seems like the most perfect creation.

‘The Mad Scientist’s Daughter’ follows Cat’s life from when she’s only a few years old until she’s well into her middle-years. It carefully shows what life would be like after a sheltered upbringing, showing Cat’s selfish moments whilst making the reader emphasise with her still despite this. The plot moves along steadily, never boring thanks to the delicate prose with the tension building throughout until the second half, where it then just runs home with a reassuring, realistic and ultimately satisfying end.

One thing that struck me with this novel is that there is no info-dumping despite the large amount of information you know of the world and how everything is in the future, thanks to how it’s slipped in throughout, very descriptive and easy to imagine as at times there are new words we don’t have just yet, and at other times simple still using ‘computers’ and ‘oven’, as of course, not everything would change.

Most important in this novel, even though it’s about Cat, is Finn. He seems so real by the end, and whether you think you would be for or against AIs having the same rights as humans, you can’t help but hope he succeeds in the end, and finds his place in the world. Just where that place is… I’ll simply insist that you read this book and find out – it’s easily one of my favourites for 2012.

Thank you Net Galley and Angry Robot for the advance. Also posted here: http://sentientonline.net/?p=3754
(less)

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Nov 19, 2012 Shona Lawrence rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: arc-s, netgalley

I received and ARC of this from the publishers via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. I cant actually remember what I imagined when I first read the blurb, but I know the book wasn't what I expected. It's like nothing I have ever read before. It's kind of a mix of AI, Bicentennial Man, I Robot with Finn coming across a little like Data from star Trek, told from the perspective of 5 year old Cat as she grows up.

The story is told over 3 parts. The first part reads like diary entries, som...more

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Dec 06, 2012 Troubled Scribe rated it 4 of 5 stars

The entire ensemble that Angry Robot Books put together in marketing The Mad Scientist’s Daughter is a thing of true beauty to any lover of books. The cover is intriguing, “A tale of Love, Loss and Robots” is a fascinating tagline, and even the synopsis on the back entices the reader, thus leading me to choose The Mad Scientist’s Daughter over all my other books waiting to be read.

When reading and reviewing books the tendency to compare them frequently comes into mind, even when perhaps the book...more The entire ensemble that Angry Robot Books put together in marketing The Mad Scientist’s Daughter is a thing of true beauty to any lover of books. The cover is intriguing, “A tale of Love, Loss and Robots” is a fascinating tagline, and even the synopsis on the back entices the reader, thus leading me to choose The Mad Scientist’s Daughter over all my other books waiting to be read.

When reading and reviewing books the tendency to compare them frequently comes into mind, even when perhaps the books or characters are from completely different worlds and settings. For the first three quarters of The Mad Scientist’s Daughter, I can’t shake the comparison and mental attachment of Cassandra Rose Clarke’s Cat to that of Jenny from Forest Gump. Cat starts out as this innocent young wildflower and metamorphosed into something completely unexpected once she breaks free from her cocoon and heads off to college.

Just like Jenny, Cat comes into contact with an assortment of men, none of which can compare to her perfect Finn nor will they ever because Finn isn’t human. She encounters drugs and eventually finds her vice in cigarettes. Cat marries a rich and powerful man, Richard, but buried deep inside her, Cat is still in love with Finn and ultimately it is this love that destroys her marriage. Cat is, for the majority of the story, a very tragic heroine filled with a powerful and sometimes overwhelming confusion of emotions.

Cat also feels like somewhat of a hippie for her time, while the majority of civilization seems to be moving in the direction of pro-technology and anti-robot rights. Cat is on the exact opposite path in nearly all aspects of her life.

The shocker for me in The Mad Scientist’s Daughter was that I wasn’t expecting any sex scenes in this book and when it first occurred I was actually kind of shocked initially. I then found them somewhat amusing after my early surprise wore off. For the prudish of us, while maybe not tastefully written, Clarke does a wonderful job in my eyes of toeing the proverbial line between what my limited knowledge tells me is the boundaries of erotica and romance.

The ultimate disappointment for me was my own imagination running away with the conflict. I had my heart set on some unholy lovers’ union of robot and human and then the ensuing apocalyptic battle between them and the rest of the world. In the end the conflict, which in a way is similar to my imagined one, mostly remains solely on Cat trying to fight her emotions of loving and not loving Finn. There is no real war, only the one inside her.

The world, the writing, everything is top-notch and what you would expect it to be from an author writing under the Angry Robot regime. I just wish the novel had gone a little farther and done a bit more in certain areas to increase the conflict.

Readers and reviewers are going to absolutely love The Mad Scientist’s Daughter. 7.5 Liams out of 10, Cassandra Rose Clarke has proven she can write with the best of them in this one and I expect this was just a taste of what is to come from her.(less)

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About Cassandra Rose Clarke

Cassandra Rose Clarke is a speculative fiction writer living amongst the beige stucco and overgrown pecan trees of Houston, Texas. She graduated in 2006 from The University of St. Thomas with a bachelor’s degree in English, and in 2008 she completed her master’s degree in creative writing at The University of Texas at Austin. Both of these degrees have served her surprisingly well.

During the summe...more

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Books by Cassandra Rose Clarke

The Assassin's Curse (The Assassin's Curse, #1)

The Pirate's Wish (The Assassin's Curse, #2)

The Witch's Betrayal (The Assassin's Curse, 0.5)

The Nobleman’s Revenge (The Wizard's Promise #2)

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“She’d never encountered any stories as intricate or compelling as the stories he gave her, nor anything that made her sigh when she read it. She liked best the stories about people becoming other things. Stories where women became swans or echoes. In the evenings, when Finn disappeared into the mysterious recesses of the laboratory, Cat went out to the garden or down to the river and wondered what it would be like to be a stream of water, a cypress tree, a star burning a million miles away.” — 2 people liked it

“There is nothing else like me in the entire world, said Finn. "That's what you wrote. I'm the only one. I can't tell you what it means to be the only one of my kind," he said. "I can't...There is a lack in myself. But your thesis almost filled it in. It was...a start.” — 1 person liked it

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