''Android Karenina'' is a 2010

parody A parody is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satire, satirical or irony, ironic imitation. Often its subject is an Originality, original work or some aspect of it (theme/content, author, style, e ...

novel A novel is an extended work of narrative fiction usually written in prose and published as a book. The word derives from the for 'new', 'news', or 'short story (of something new)', itself from the , a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ...

written by Ben H. Winters based on the 1877 novel ''

Anna Karenina ''Anna Karenina'' ( rus, Анна Каренина, p=ˈanːə kɐˈrʲenʲɪnə) is a novel by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy, first published in book form in 1878. Tolstoy called it his first true novel. It was initially released in serial in ...

'' by

Leo Tolstoy Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy Tolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; ,Throughout Tolstoy's whole life, his name was written as using Reforms of Russian orthography#The post-revolution re ...

. The novel is a mashup, adding

steampunk Steampunk is a subgenre of science fiction that incorporates retrofuturistic technology and Applied arts, aesthetics inspired by, but not limited to, 19th-century Industrial Revolution, industrial steam engine, steam-powered machinery. Steampun ...

elements to the

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

19th-century environment of ''Anna Karenina,'' a book first published in 1877. The book has the same main couples as Tolstoy's – Anna Karenina and Count Vronsky, and Kitty Shcherbatskaya and Konstantin Levin. Their society is high-tech, with servant-robots performing tasks all the way from pest control to education of children; the robots love their humans and are governed by the Iron Laws of Robot Behavior. Both Anna's husband and a terrorist group of scientists are opposed to widespread ownership of robots. The book also has time travel, space travel, aliens, and monsters. Eventually, the robots revolt against the humans, leading the latter to create ultra-human cyborgs to fight back. Winters previously wrote '' Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters'' (2009) with

Jane Austen Jane Austen ( ; 16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist known primarily for #List of works, her six novels, which implicitly interpret, critique, and comment on the English landed gentry at the end of the 18th century ...

, another parody novel.

Reception

Jay Parini Jay Parini (born April 2, 1948) is an American writer and academic. He is known for novels, poetry, biography, screenplays and criticism. He has published novels about Leo Tolstoy, Walter Benjamin, Paul the Apostle, Herman Melville, and a noveli ...

of ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' doubts that Tolstoy would have been amused by a parody of his book. For Elif Batuman of ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

'', the book is an unoriginal repetition of the original story. Ron Hogan of ''

Den of Geek ''Den of Geek'' is a UK and US-based website covering entertainment with a focus on pop culture. The website also issues a biannual magazine. History ''Den of Geek'' was founded in 2007 by Simon Brew in London. In 2012, DoG Tech LLC licensed ' ...

s'' acknowledged the clever reinterpretation of the original story, admitting that the steampunk/Tolstoy combination works, and calling the book a "definitive mash-up novel".

References

2010 American novels American satirical novels Parody novels Works based on Anna Karenina Quirk Books books {{2010s-parody-novel-stub