Klara and the gift of curiosity

In October, a new movie will be released based on one of my favorite books, Klara and the Sun. This has happened a lot for me recently (see The Three Body Problem, The Martian, Project Hail Mary, and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow). I know it’s cliché to say that the book is better, but that has generally been my experience. The Martian was groundbreaking but when you force it into a 2-hour format for general consumption it becomes a forgettable action movie. The Klara trailer doesn’t give me much hope. The cheery, jokey vibe, feels nothing like the experience I had reading the book, so I wanted to take this opportunity to share what made it special to me. Note: I wrote a succinct, spoiler-free review back in 2024, so if you want the basics, I invite you to read that. For everybody else, let’s continue. Klara is an advanced humanoid robot—an Artificial Friend (“AF”)—who was designed to be a companion for children. We follow along as Klara is purchased from her store, meets Josie,…