Android Karenina Glossary of Terms: A Reader's Companion

One thing about turning Tolstoy's classic story of love and loss into a sci-fi action/adventure epic: the vocabulary is off the charts. Between the Russian names, the sci-fi words, and the totally made-up words, Android Karenina is the kind of book where the curious reader might benefit from a bit of a glossary.

 

Beloved-companion: the common term for Class IIIs, the extremely advanced, custom-built robots owned by most wealthy Russians. Class IIIs are best friend and servant, offering wise counsel or quiet comfort, lifting baggage, providing personal security, and on and on. The title character of Android Karenina is beloved-companion to the beautiful Anna Karenina.

Caretaker: a human official who watches over and leads a band of robot soldiers, typically 77s.

Communiqué: a visual or written message, relayed in the torso-mounted monitor of one's beloved-companion.

the Face: the beloved-companion of Alexei Karenin, Anna's husband. It hides half of his natural face, and many secrets.

the Grav: the Moscow-St. Petersburg High Speed Massive Antigravitational Transport; similar to what we call a train, but bigger, faster, and cleaner. 

groznium: “the miracle metal,” an alloy discovered beneath the Russian soil in the time of Ivan the Terrible. Groznium's various remarkable properties have allowed for the technological advancements that have so transformed Russian society.

Honored Guests: alien creatures from a distant planet who will one day come to redeem the human race—according to the true believers known as xenotheologists.

The Iron Laws: the sacred body of programming that controls the behavior of robots.

koschei: skittering, insect-like killer robots, one of the various mechanized death devices designed by UnConSciya.

Lupo: the beloved-companion robot of Count Vronsky, the dashing regimental soldier with whom Anna falls in love. Lupo, animal-shaped like all military issue beloved-companions, is a giant mechanical wolf.

Ministry: though there are other Ministries, the term invariably refers to the most powerful, The Ministry of Robotics and State Administration. Supreme power rests with those in the Higher Branches of Ministry.

Pitbots: along with Glowing Scrubblers and II/Extractor/4s, robots who work in the vast groznium mines held by landowners such as Konstantin Dmitrich Levin.   

UnConSciya: a violent anarchist cabal made up of former official scientists, frustrated by government control of technological progress; short for the Union of Concerned Scientists

77s: enforcer robots, feared and loved, whose bulb-shaped heads move in a constant slow and watchful revolve. At the beginning of the novel, 77s are the most powerful and feared robot in Russia.

But that's at the beginning...