I came to find out about George Nader - and his gay robot science fiction novel - after a weird-ass journey through Hollywood gay history that began with reading more about Rock Hudson after I rewatched one of my teenage favorites, Giant (in which he stars along with my favorite bisexual babe James Dean). . . anyway, although the book suffers from serious pacing issues and "of the time-isms" it also was a something I am so happy I was able to find and read. The first half of the book does such a good job of transposing real world gay culture (bath houses, gay mentorship, etc.) into the world of a sci-fi novel about the forbidden relationship between a man and a male robot.

(internet research shit: George Nader was an American actor and when he hurt his eye in a car crash, he decided to write (he was a former English major). He was also close friends with Rock Hudson and when Nader was unable to return to acting due to his eye injury (the set lights were too much of a strain), Hudson hired Nader to be his personal secretary and this secured him financially. Nader and his partner, Mark Miller, remained dear friends with Hudson and inherited most of his estate after Hudson's passing from AIDS complications.)

This was not at all what I thought it would be. First of all 'robot' in this book was not what you would normally identify as robot as we're generally taught. What they called 'robots' were actually genetically engineered beings.

Earth is an absolute mess and quite frankly I wouldn't be surprised if we one day reach the kind of destruction and fight for power portrayed in this book.

It was a love story, but more so it was about the lengths government will go to to keep control of something/one for their own gain. They will lie, break oaths, murder, manipulate, brainwash, etc., all in the name of the greater good as they see it.

This was basically Chrome's trail of being misled, taken prisoner, and blackmailed. All the while he longed for his beloved Vortex.

I think if this book had been written today, it would have a movie and/or probably a TV show.

It was a little hard to read in places, but that was because the author took great care in being detailed in telling the processes with which robots were created and things of that nature. The clinical-ness of it was a bit daunting, but once you got past it, the story was very intriguing. ( )

My first gay sci-fi read. Good, but looses something towards the end. ( )