The Vestigial Heart, MIT Press, April 2018.

You can read the first pages and a sample of the appendix (discussion topics and questions for reading groups) here.
Articles and Reviews
Ian White's review in STARBURST Magazine, 25/5/2018
Review in NewScientist, 19/5/2018
Fiction Book Review in Publishers Weekly, 23/4/2018
William Grabovski's STARRED review in the Library Journal, 12/4/2018
This Week's New Sci-Fi & Fantasy Books in the Barnes & Noble Blog, 10/4/2018
The MIT Press: Books Rooted in Science, but Not Just for Scholars, Publishers Weekly, 8/12/2017

Goodreads' book page
Amazon' Author page
Summary
A thirteen-year-old girl wakes up in a future where human emotions are extinct and people rely on personal-assistant robots to navigate daily life.

Imagine a future in which many human emotions are extinct, and "emotional masseuses" try to help people recover those lost sensations. Individuals rely on personal-assistant robots to navigate daily life. Students are taught not to think but to employ search programs. Companies protect their intellectual property by erasing the memory of their employees. And then imagine what it would feel like to be a sweet, smart thirteen-year-old girl from the twenty-first century who wakes from a cryogenically induced sleep into this strange world. This is the compelling story told by Carme Torras in this prize-winning science fiction novel. We meet Celia, brought back to life when a cure is found for her formerly terminal disease, and Lu, Celia's adoptive mother, protective but mystified by her new daughter. There is Leo, a bioengineer, who is developing a "creativity prosthesis" to augment humans' atrophied capacities, and the eccentric robotics mogul Dr. Craft. And there is Silvana, an emotional masseuse who reads old books to research the power of emotion. Silvana sees Celia as a living, breathing example of the emotions and feelings that are now out of reach for most people.

Editorial comment
Torras, a prominent roboticist, weaves provocative ethical issues into her story. What kind of robots do we want when robot companions become as common as personal computers are now? Is it the responsibility of researchers to design robots that make the human mind evolve in a certain way? An appendix provides readers with a list of ethics questions raised by the book.

Instructor materials
The book can be used in a course/debate on Ethics in AI and Social Robotics. In addition to the novel, the following materials are provided:
- An appendix with a list of ethics questions raised by the novel, as well as hints to trigger a debate.
- An online teacher's guide for 6-8 sessions on "Ethics in AI and Social Robotics" following the chapters in the novel and including scholarly references for further reading.
- A 100-slide presentation that instructors can use and extend as desired.

Buying options (both paperback and ebook): MIT Press, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, IndieBound, Indigo, Powell's

Back to Carme Torras' Literary corner