From our beloved teddy bear to our cherished first car, we form deep emotional bonds with inanimate objects. Inevitably, AI machines will develop the capacity to love us in return.In a post-apocalyptic world that survives on garbage left over from the Gawd Wars eight generations ago, Sunny Boy, a semi-organic machine made initially to emulate a thirteen-year-old, and later modified as an eighteen-year-old, longs to be loved. His quest to find a family takes him from a farm in Winnipeg to the far reaches of the known galaxy. When Sunny Boy becomes embroiled in an ancient battle between a collective intelligence and a parasitic alien crystal, the boundaries between organic and inorganic life are called into question.