Hello, this is a cry for help. I'm looking for a sci-fi story I read a few years ago, and r/whatsthatbook so far hasn't been any help. I read it online, on its own site I think, after finding it through Tumblr. It follows this sapient robot living a rather uneventful life (from what I remember). I think it was the property of a university, maybe one on mars, but wasn’t used for much of anything because the uni had plenty of other robots to do things. It kinda just hung around. I remember it being much more human-like in design than any other robots, to the point of some characters finding it odd or unsettling. I remember at least one character referring to it with pronouns other than 'it' and it being confused or unsettled by this. I forget exactly why, probably some sort of internal conflict, but eventually it goes on a trip to speak to its creator (or a friend of them?). I remember it going on some sort of train or shuttle to go between it’s home and somewhere else, earth or the moon I think. At the end of the story its revealed that the robot was created because the scientist's son had been sick (and has since either died or entered a coma), and the scientist wanted to either make a robot with his mannerisms or upload his conscience into the robot, I don’t remember. I do remember the robot being deeply unsettled by its resemblance to the dead son. If this sounds even vaguely familiar please let me know!
u/JayjayJabbernut
I read a book a few years ago that followed a teenage boy, and I think one of his siblings, as they moved to their grandpa's house on this tiny island. I think the grandpa owned a lighthouse because there was one on the cover. The grandpa had a collection of handmade candles that, when lit, sent the person burning it back in time to a specific moment. The boy discovered this without his grandpa knowing, I think, and they had a bit of an argument over it at some point. There was one candle grandpa kept on the fireplace mantle that was almost completely burnt down, and the boy eventually got too curious and lit it, sending him back to a night many years ago inside a cave at sea level. I forget the exact moment it depicted but it was something sentimentally important to the grandpa because it involved someone dead. Maybe the night he proposed to his wife? I don't know. Toward the end of the book I remember it mentioning that there were three magic things on the island that could only be found by one person, the boy of course, and I specifically remember one of the magic things being a unicorn or pegasus that was on the cover of the second book in the series (which I unfortunately did not read...).