Visions of the Future, Courtesy of Piercy

I guess I'll start this off by saying I liked He, She and It. Once again, there's a lot to talk about but I'll stick to my practice of three and find a few things.
First off, I liked the inclusion of the morality of Yod's purpose and creation. Not only that others argued about it but that he (yes, I'm going to regard him as a person and give him the gender of male) also thought about it. Whether it is morally acceptable to create a weapon that can think and feel and expect it to carry out it's purpose without being able to decide for itself whether it wants to complete it's mission, to grow beyond it's programming or follow it. Of course there is also the question if they do follow their programming if that is their choice or their conditioning via the programming told them it was their choice. Which is a whole other pickle. The morality is further complicated by the religious aspect, whether Yod was a golem or just a cyborg. It could be argued that he was a golem by the standards of his time and a golem is just a man-made creature, though I'm not sure Avram was really going for the kabbalism angle so much as the robotic.
Second, I also really liked the weaving of the story of Joseph in with the action of the book. Not only was it a good parallel for Yod to consider but it was also a good parallel for the reader. Yod's interest in a human woman was returned by Shira while Joseph's was not by Chava. Yod had the tempering influences of Malkah and Shira while Joseph only had Chava, the Maharal being useful for instructions but he didn't consider all the possibilities that Joseph would face, Malkah did and Avram contributed, in a way, by his experience with the other cyborgs. Joseph was created to defend the ghetto, Yod the town of Tikva and each did their job well. Chava gave up her son for her freedom from the family, Shira saved her son with Yod's help. Yod sacrificed himself for the good of the town and his family, Joseph wasn't given the chance however and was, in essence, killed by the Maharal. One of my favorite authors, Terry Pratchett, wrote a book about a golem joining a night watch called Feet of Clay where the whole life through the words thing played a big role. It was very interesting and, of course being Pratchett, funny.
Last, I want to touch on the struggle between individual freedoms and the authority of the state in the book as I've pretty much decided to write my paper about that topic. Of course in this case, there is no state only a multinational corporation, which could be a whole other subject. Each multi controls the social standards for it's enclave and pretty much buys people after they go to school. The multi is able to move people around at the drop of a hat and status depends on your worth to the multi which in turn controls dress, housing options, everything. Tikva's trying to stay independent by exporting chimeras and other technology and is constantly under threat from the multis. Shira and her son were pushed around just because YS wanted to steal Tikva's technology and Base. YS thought that they could just dangle Ari in front of Shira and she'd jump to come back. Underestimated her, I think.
There's more that I could talk about and I could likely talk about this stuff more but I think that's enough for now. Until Tuesday.