I had fond memories of the ‘Not Quite Human’ books, but after re-reading them they have some flaws… And are just a little disturbing…

Some History…

“Not Quite Human” was a book series published in the 80’s following the adventures of Chip Carson and family. It was later adapted into a  trilogy of Disney-Channel movies.

Not Quite Human:  The Movies 

I fondly remembered the Not Quite Human movie series on Disney staring Alan Thicke and Jay Underwood. I would imagine most readers of “a certain age” are at least familiar with this series in passing – it was on Disney almost constantly in the 90s.  I haven’t watched these for a few years and I know my opinions on these 3 films is heavily filtered by my nostalgia goggles. 

Strangely these are not on Disney Plus, have never been released to DVD or BluRay and can only be watched legally by buying a used VHS.  I found one at a thrift store and the rest on eBay!  The films are firmly stored in my head as how I view Chip and that universe, I had almost forgotten there were several books starring the very same characters!

Not Quite Human: The Books

I had one of those vague feelings that as a kid I read these books.  When I bought them up on eBay I immediately recognized the covers.  I had definitely  read these in my elementary school library. In fact I remember the little cubby hole where they kept the nerdy books like this fondly – the ceiling was low, kid height, as if to say “this is an area just for you!”

Written by Seth McEvoy and published over the course of 2 years, each of the 6 books in this series are a breezy read for an adult.  I read through each book in about an hour – all books in the series could easily be put into one book and be about the length of an actual novel.

 “Batteries Not Included” is the first book in the series and it’s pretty fun.  It follows the adventures of Chip Carson, a teenage robot, his father, Dr. Jonas Carson, and his sister, Becky.  Doctor Carson decides to test his ‘greatest invention’ –  a humanoid robot, Chip (the world’s first “electrologic” android) by sending it to High School along with his daughter Becky.  

Shenanigans occur where Chip is accused of a variety of crimes and the story follows Chip’s adventure trying to clear his name, and find the real culprit. 

Chip meets a few friends, makes a few enemies, and the story is a pretty good introduction to this universe and its characters. 

It’s a fun short romp and I finished “Batteries not Included” looking forward to seeing how Chip’s story progressed and how he developed.  

A Pattern Emerges

Alas – the second book ‘All Geared Up” follows a similar formula, to a fault.  Chip is an android in high school, he’s accused of some crimes, he clears his name and his android secret is kept. Chip isn’t developed as a character, and is strangely not characterized much at all, a trend that will continue.  He’s not given much personality beyond “Robot” and we only really see how others react to him, not how he thinks or feels. 

I get that this is a children’s book, and maybe the idea is to use the character as a “insert” character where the reader could imagine it being themselves, but I found the never-changing nature of Chip to be pretty dull.  I’m not expecting a full Asimovian treatment of this android, but a LITTLE development would have been welcome. 

The Horror of Chip Carson

An ongoing plot element is that at the end of every day Chip’s memory needs to be backed up – dumped and saved on a computer in his father’s basement.  If this is not done he may get corrupted data, which it is implied would kill him.

At the end of the day his father, Dr. Carson, will review his recordings and update his program with the new information.   It’s not made clear if Chip is actually learning or developing new thoughts – developing a self aware mind.  It’s always written in a way that implies his father is creating algorithms and updates to Chip’s programs that he will then use the next day. 

I was always pleasantly surprised when Chip actually learned and dealt with new information – it’s such a rare thing in these books.  Instead of learning and developing as a person, it’s always played up as a gag that he is a robot, doesn’t know how to engage with people, and his father has to shake his head and update the program. 

This works for a little bit as a joke, but after a while you find yourself wondering – what IS Chip Carson?  Is he even self aware? Instead of being allowed to develop new thought patterns or behaviors his father is manually doing that for him every night.  

I found the whole concept a little troubling. Is Chip even a person? When he is shut down for the night does that Chip Carson die, to be replaced with a new Chip Carson that operates under a similar set of memories but with new programming rules? 

I found myself desperately hoping, book after book, that Chip would develop as a person.  At times he is written like he is but his person-hood isn’t really defined. Maybe this is just me desperately wanting these stories to have meant something, to have been worth my time reading?    

Worth a Read?

Obviously, these are books written for kids.  Kid-me loved these books, so maybe a kid today would too?  The technology is very dated of course, so much that I could easily imagine a young reader being confused.  Adult readers looking for nostalgia like I was should enjoy these books as they are a cheap and easy read. 

Maybe you’re a completionist and want to read every bit of android fiction?  If not then I’m not sure these books actually are worth a read.  They are pretty thin stuff – I know, it’s a children’s book, but children and young adults can have more complicated stories than this.  The first book being simple would have been fine, but the repetition in book after book of basically the same plot is frustrating. 

Where to Get: 

As far as I can tell this series is no longer published.  You can find it used in lots of places like eBay (where I got mine) and other online book stores.  I don’t think I ever paid more than $5 each (with shipping) for these books.