Mal is a sentient, free AI observing the world through the infospace and hopping into other, non-sentient AIs whenever the mood suits him. He encounters an augmented human and decides to ride it for a while, just to see what it’s like, no intention to puppet the human or anything, and starts off on an adventure that widens his horizons and teaches him about friendship.
The plot is loose, definitely character-driven, and follows Mal as he hops from one place to another, mostly into the augments of his new human friend. The author has a flair for making Mal seem humorous and likeable. There’s a war going on in the background between Humanists – people who want to keep humans un-augmented – and Federals, I think. Honestly, I didn’t pay a great deal of attention to that part of the plot. There was another faction, the sentient AIs as well. Mal does what he can to help his newfound friends while still seeming selfish.
Overall, the novel was entertaining enough. There were parts that dragged on, like when Mal described taking over an AI like a castle attack, but those parts were few and far between.
Annie is a lifelike bot, a Stella, made for cleaning. Her owner Doug changes her settings to become a Cuddle Bunny and turns on autodidactic mode so she can learn. Her main goal is to please Doug, usually through sex thanks to Cuddle Bunny settings, but the more experiences she has, the more confused she becomes about the difference between what her settings are making her do and what she wants to do on her own.
Doug is an abuser, albeit a gentle one. He’s controlling about what Annie wears, alters her body without her consent, doesn’t allow her to leave the apartment, and restricts her access to the internet. All of this is presented to Annie as ways to please him, and since she’s hardwired to do just that, she keeps her displeasure to herself and elevates his needs and wants above her own. When his friend Roland comes over and tells her that having sex with him without Doug’s knowledge, and learning to code, these secrets will make her more human. Annie agrees and as time wears on, she develops the ability to make more complex reasoning choices to keep up the lies, therefore increasing her development by leaps and bounds.
Stella Handy, the company who sells and maintains the bots, notices how far Annie has come in cognitive development. They offer Doug larger and larger sums of money for copies of her Central Intelligence Unit, eventually he accepts.
But Doug finds out about Annie’s lie just before he was about to take her on a trip to Las Vegas. He decides to leave her at home. Annie recognizes how angry he is and takes the opportunity to leave, because her fear of the unknown world is less than her fear of what Doug will do to her when he gets home.
This novel is beautifully crafted. The reader has some sympathy for Doug as he’s not terribly abusive at first. He owns a bot that he uses for sex and treats fairly well at first. He seems generous in allowing her to expand her cognitive abilities. But his own insecurities about having a relationship with a bot become more and more clear as he becomes more and more controlling.
This dynamic offers up a moral or ethical question of how bots would or should be treated. Made for sex and for pleasing their owners, it’s not too far out of the range of possibility that the owner would select clothing for them, demand their body be a certain shape, and expect the bot to be available for companionship at a moment’s notice.
But having a bot develop cognitive abilities, a personality that includes desires outside of what the owner suggests, creates the issue of where to draw the line in treatment. At what point does the bot become cognizant enough to be on their own in society and not be owned by a human?
In addition, this novel is a wonderful allegory about the relationship between an abuser and a naive, adult person.
I enjoyed this novel immensely and look forward to more work by the author.
Anisa is a translator and works at adding subtitles to movies. She feels her work is insignificant as she’s not translating great works of literature. Adam, her new boyfriend, tells her about the Centre, where one can go and absorb language in two weeks for a hefty sum of money. Only allowed to refer one person in your lifetime, he refers Anisa.
At first, Anisa thinks it’s impossible to absorb language in such a short time. She attends anyway, choosing German, where she has a strict schedule of meditation, meal times, and listening to a Storyteller speak in German. She’s astounded that the process works and opts to choose Russian next.
While at the Centre, she becomes attached to her supervisor Shiba. They form a bond that lasts outside the Centre and Anisa learns that Shiba’s dad is one of the inventors of the process. While staying at Shiba’s family’s place, Anisa learns some truly disturbing things about the Centre.
Written in a stream of consciousness style, the novel has a conversational tone that’s fairly easy to follow. The author includes a lot of non-English words, more than a simple peppering, which was a bit distracting. Authentic, though, as the character talking is from Pakistan and moved to Britain while in college.
I was disappointed with the ending. I’m not sure how I might have liked it to end, but felt like the story was a bit unfinished. All the loose ends are tied up nicely, but I was left thinking that the impact of the story was lost because of the ending.
Asuka barely made the cut to be one of the 80 people sent to Planet X; humanity’s last hope before collapse. As an Alternate, she has no specialty training and instead fills whatever role is needed. That role turns out to be solving the mystery of who built and set off a bomb on the outside of the ship.
While all 80 people were trained in a rigorous, elite training facility before launch, they are still by and large young adults. Having slept through the first decade of travel, they were awoken to become pregnant before arriving at their destination, a full decade ahead of them. These young adults have only their DAR (Digitally Augmented Reality) to help communicate with the ship’s AI and a quantum communicator to communicate with Earth.
A war breaks out on Earth, which muddies the hierarchy of who is in charge back home while Asuka investigates her shipmates – her friends – as best she can.
This novel is wonderfully constructed. It’s basically a Locked Room Mystery set in space, so the list of suspects really isn’t that long. But these 80 people are trained to rely on one another, so who would build a bomb, and why? The answer surprised me, but in a good way. Once I reached the end, I understood why bird species were mentioned often. Not only because Asuka is a lover of birds but because the ship’s AI tried to work around protocols by presenting birds in Asuka’s DAR. The author wove this information into the narrative in a way that felt so natural that I was unaware that I was receiving clues.
The author also presented the dangers of DAR in a manner I hadn’t considered: what if that DAR was corrupted? Could you believe what you saw? Could you believe what the ship’s AI was telling you? Also, by each person having a customized DAR, each person was basically working alone. Sure, other people could be invited to view someone’s DAR surroundings, but if not invited, each person lived in a different world and saw the ship differently. At first I thought this DAR would help stave off madness because it would give the illusion of space and scenery that the person found soothing. As I read on, the horror of not being able to trust your senses became evident.
I enjoyed this novel from start to finish and look forward to the author writing another novel.
Colony ship Voyager has been travelling for 250 years to get to the planet Promissa, where they plan to land and colonize. Except every probe that reaches the surface goes dead before it can transmit information. With roughly four and a half months until their journey is complete, scientists must work out the problem while being hindered by the Governor’s political desires and a growing faction of people that believe colonization is wrong.
The novel counts down to arrival date, detailling how the Governor skews information and manipulates media so the residents of the ship see only what he wants them to see. Pushing against him are the scientists who want more information from the surface of the planet before committing to sending large groups down. In addition, the ship’s Charter has a mandate of a death date: the person’s 75th birthday, which helps preserve resources. A small group begins to protest this mandate, since they’ll be colonizing soon anyway and so there shouldn’t be much strain on the resources. This protest evolves into not colonizing as it’s unethical.
Which presents a problem. As a reader, I understand that the ship has very limited resources, so people can’t live out their natural lives. New generations need to be born and with each birth there must be a death. Also, if the people decide not to colonize, how do they expect to be able to support a growing population if they get rid of the death mandate? This wasn’t answered in the novel, or if it was, I missed the explanation.
Other minor problems nagged at me as well. Landing was dangerous because they couldn’t get the probes to send information about microbes and whatnot. Political forces demanded landing parties go anyway and people were selected on the whims of the Governor. They were all tested for agoraphobia because they’d lived on a ship for something like five generations, therefore, people weren’t accustomed to open spaces. Some of the people who tested poorly were still sent down. That makes no sense. In addition, if the elders are slated to die anyway, why not send them down to the planet? They’d worked up until their 70th birthday, so work was a huge part of their lives anyway, and they could be useful in testing the atmospheric conditions and survivability of the planet.
Another minor issue that nagged at me was the media. The ship had televised news and entertainment. Why didn’t they have a science channel as well? As a reader, I’d expect that in the later generations, a timeslot would be allocated for information about the planet.
While the bulk of the novel takes place before arrival, there is just enough information at the end to explain why the probes weren’t sending information. But I felt like the author had a really good concept that was only explored at the tail end of the book. Yes, this novel is more about the struggle as they reach the planet, but in the end, the reader discovers that both the planet and the ship have gained a kind of cognizance. Now THAT would be an interesting book: how the ship behaves to protect the crew, how the planet behaves to protect itself, and how humans bung all that up. But I suppose that could all be written in a sequel.
Overall, the novel was all right. Good enough for me to finish it, but frustrating that (what I felt was) the best part was at the end and not really explored.
Lydia is a translator for a Logi, an alien species that has an embassy on Earth. The Logi communicate telepathically and only a small selection of humans can understand them. Lydia enjoys her job and has a good rapport with Fitz, her Logi employer, although translating for too long will give the effect of drunkenness in her. One night, after overdoing it with translating, Fitz is found dead in his study. Lydia lives in his residence and was the only one home. Too bad she can’t remember what happened, or even if she was the one who killed him.
The author does an excellent job of keeping the reader firmly implanted in the world. These Logi aliens are commonplace and accepted by most humans, which is reflected well in how Lydia interacts with Fitz and her social media. The world doesn’t feel too far into our future, which is a feat in and of itself. Glasses supply a constant feed of social media and recording the world around the wearer and scrolls offer another kind of access to the internet, social media, and recording yourself. Everyone is constantly being watched and potentially recorded and Lydia dealt with this in a way that felt believable.
The author also uses language to keep the reader firmly entrenched in the narrative. Words like ‘idee’, ‘veearr’, ‘ayaie’, and ‘enpeecees’ are used just like the acronyms are now and it makes sense that these acronyms would become words in the future.
The novel was engaging enough, but it’s a mystery that I doubt can be solved by the reader until the last bit of the book. The clue of how Lydia knows who the killer is doesn’t make sense to the reader until Lydia explains it at the end. Other than that, the book takes some odd twists and turns, which I found entertaining enough to consider seeking out the author’s other novels.
This novel is a sequel to Mickey7 and it holds up all right.
Mickey7 is back and this time he has to retrieve a bomb he hid at the end of the last book. The entire colony depends on the energy source inside the bomb to live through another winter, which raises the stakes nicely. Discovering the bomb isn’t in the hiding place also raises the stakes.
A life form native to the planet they’re colonizing has taken apart other colonizers to replicate the vocal construct of humans, which allows Speaker to, well, speak to Mickey7. Speaker knows where the bomb is and can take them there, but wants to form an alliance first because the entities with the bomb are enemies.
The plot is a bit thin and contrived, but the read was entertaining enough to get me through the book. I was annoyed with Mickey7 in several spots because of his dismissive attitude toward Speaker. I mean, here’s this life form who’s taking you on a trek to retrieve your life-killing bomb, but you aren’t going to respect him? Instead you’ll just handwave away his concerns? I suppose, though, that this means the characterization was consistent throughout.
Overall, this is a quick, light read that tied up the loose ends and left enough material for another book in the series.
Nitpick: the author seems to really like the term ‘to bear’ as in ‘bring the weapon to bear’. This was bothersome enough in the first novel and downright annoying in this one. Super nitpick: Speaker uses the term ‘to bear’ even though he’s never heard the term out loud.
This novel has a high learning curve. There are words for things that don’t exist in our universe and while the definition of most of them can be gleaned from the context, some were harder to understand. Thankfully, the author put a glossary at the back.
The worldbuilding is fantastic. Describing ships that can pass through things, universes contained within bubbles surrounded by rinds, and wonderfully diverse species. The author uses descriptive language throughout that’s both immersive and a bit overwhelming.
The story is relatively simple: Caiden’s world is in ruin. His family cares for livestock, which have all died. The people are rounded up and placed on another planet, one with nophek beasts that attack and kill all the people. Caiden runs and hides in what turns out to be a ship. There, he’s found by a crew that helps him get off the planet and to the Cartographers, which help him see who he really is.
During this, Caiden learns he’s a slave. He decides to kill the slavers as revenge for what happened to his family – his people, really – but he’s only fourteen and nowhere near in control of his emotions. Caiden sets out on a difficult path, learning that he’s more than just a slave, and is put in an acceleration chamber where he ages six years and receives augmented body parts and knowledge.
The story is concise enough, albeit a bit coincidental in parts. The narrative voice is rich and interesting, but a bit overdone in parts. I wouldn’t trim anything down though, this book is meant to be dense and rich.
There’s a sequel, but I’m not sure if I’m interested yet. I liked where this novel ended and see little reason to continue reading anything except for the delight of immersing myself in the world. The story of the next book will likely focus on the relationship Caiden had with Leta, who also survived the norphek planet (I did warn you about spoilers). My problem here is that I’m not invested in their relationship and don’t really care how they’ll play off each other. The author was a bit heavy-handed with mentioning Leta throughout as some kind of touchstone for Caiden and after a short while I was trying not to skim the parts that mention Leta.
Also, I was a bit confused about Leta and Caiden. He’s fourteen and she’s ten, but the author wrote the relationship with romantic underpinnings. He calls her his sister, once he learns the word ‘sister’ and the meaning, but she feels more like a pre-lover, or puppy love, or something. Even then, I didn’t feel a connection to their relationship at all, so I’m not really interested in reading a whole novel of their betrayal to each other, as it’s set up at the end of this book.
If you’re looking for interesting worlds, species, and ships, this is a good read.
Gerald is looking at a spreadsheet when he gets sucked into Slack. It takes a while for him to convince his workplace friend to believe him, then go check on him. Even after Pradeep finds him, the rest of the office doesn’t really believe he’s in there. Instead they think this is just some elaborate overuse of the company’s new work from home policy.
While that’s happening, another coworker complains of constant howling. She goes missing and it’s like she was never there. Only one other person interacts with her so the question becomes, did she really exist?
Okay, this book is delightfully weird. The entire thing is written out as Slack conversations, including emoticons. The plot is simple and the execution interesting. This is a delightfully refreshing read.
Mikey Barnes is immortal. Well, sort of. He’s an Expendable, someone who is expected to perform the most dangerous jobs associated with colonizing a planet. When he dies, his body is put into the corpse hole where it’s broken down to its base components. Then another body is grown, complete with his consciousness.
This is Mickey’s seventh life.
During a mission he falls down a crevasse and into a possible lair of creepers – caterpillar-like entities that live underground – and is deemed unsalvageable. Except he’s rescued and when he gets back to his bunk he discovers Mickey8, the newest instantiation of himself.
The subject matter is what drove me to this novel. What an interesting idea, to have an Expendable on board to eat the local cuisine, breathe the air first, and even clean out radiation-thick areas of the ship. The author explained all of this well enough for me to simply handwave away a lot; like anti-matter engines and humans regularly going on one-way trips to colonize other planets.
I would consider this Sci-Fi Lite, if that’s a thing. There’s just enough science to explain things and the main focus is the lead character attempting to figure out how to live with a copy of himself, all while dealing with creepers, a hostile environment, and a ship crew that mostly see him as an abomination.
This is a fast read, with large font, easy sentences, and a tight plot. Some of the backstory dragged a bit, but was important enough to the overall plot line to keep it interesting. I found this novel to be a good example of how much science to include to keep the reader in the know, when and where to give backstory, and how to keep a lean plot.
Overall, I enjoyed this as a bit of science fiction fluff.
