Kinky, quirky, provocative, thought provoking, amusing: these are only a few of the words that spring to mind in the course of reading Donald Southey's quite remarkable little book, I, Messiah. For him to write a story starring a robot with a soul was risky. He could all too easily have failed. He didn't. Sid, Southey's robot, is a wonderfully warm creation: wise, loving, loved ... and different. It is a difference that inevitably presents a threat to those who control the culture into which he was "born", so they "crucify" him by dismemberment. But, of course, Sid lives on in the lives, robotic and human, of those with whom he came into contact, just as Jesus lives on, and just, it is to be hoped, as the message of I Messiah will live on in all who read it in the years to come. It deserves a place in the best seller lists.