The Kingdom™, a theme park that's part Disney World, part Westworld, is the ultimate fantasy experience for families: scientists work to bring back "hybrid" versions (read: part machine) of animals that have long been extinct, such as polar bears and zebras, giving people the chance to experience them in simulated "wild" experiences. Then there are the Fantasists: the hybrid human-androids, built to look, superficially, like princesses from around the world, whose only job is to enhance guest experiences. Ana is one of the Fantasists, and as the book opens, she is on trial for murdering a park employee named Owen Chen boy that she seemed to have some sort of relationship with. But Fantasists are made, not born, and Ana wasn't programmed to murder or to lie. She certainly wasn't programmed to love. Through flashbacks, trial transcripts, and evidence exhibits, Ana's story, and greater revelations about the world around her, unfold in tantalizing pieces. A layered and fast-paced mystery with an ethical backbone.

Ana is flawless, and she lives in a fantastical place of perfection where her job is to please.Ana and her Fantasist "sisters" are human/animatronic hybrids. They perform as gorgeous princesses for paying guests in the Kingdom, a kind of futuristic Disneyland. At night they settle in for update installations, their wrists bound with velvet straps to their beds. But hybrid creatures throughout the Kingdom, from butterfly to polar bear, are starting to malfunction. The Fantasist women are acting out of character too. Ana finds herself having strange sensations such as desire and anger…feelings. As Ana evolves, she begins to wonder why her sisters can't remember what happens behind the scenes when powerful visitors get time alone with the Fantasists. And then—as punishment for a bizarre act of violence—one of her sisters is abruptly replaced. As her discernment and fear grow, so does Ana's obsession with 19-year-old Taiwanese-American Owen Chen. The textured narrative unfolds through court documents, trial transcripts, and first-person narration from Ana, cleverly conveying her motivations. This sublime blend of The Stepford Wives and Westworld is richly composed and intricately plotted. Ana and most major characters are white; there is some diversity among the Fantasists.Breathtakingly imagines humanity entangled with artificial intelligence. (map) (Fantasy. 13-18)

Rothenberg (The Catastrophic History of You and Me) presents a thought-provoking anti-fairy tale of AI enslavement for the amusement of humans. Ana is one of seven Fantasists, organic-technological hybrids who serve as princesses-hostesses and attractions-at the Kingdom, the world-s most advanced amusement park in the 2090s. The Fantasists have been engineered to be beautiful representatives of the global population and are programmed to be helpful, polite, and compliant. Ana and some of her -sisters,- though, have begun to have their own thoughts. Beginning with the discovery of an unnamed body, the story follows three timelines, interweaving brief coverage of a public trial and a secret post-trial interview of Ana with events leading up to the murder. Those events include two of Ana-s sisters, Nia and Eve, who were permanently shut down after violent aberrant behavior, as well as Ana-s growing relationship with Owen, a maintenance man with an unusually high security clearance. Rothenberg delves into questions of what it means to be sentient and how humankind treats beings considered to be -lesser.- Combining elements of mystery, drama, and romance with science fiction, this novel will have broad appeal. Ages 14-up. (May)