Tech-driven codes and programs display terrifying flaws in Kroll’s near-future tale, in which self-aware robots and radical new therapies threaten the humans they’re meant to serve.

In the mid-21st century, a new Internet-based system identifies individuals by their DNA. This makes it easy for the governing World Council to mandate the Healthcheck Protocol—a periodic scan using Directed Neuroplasticity Therapy that has all but eliminated violent crime and disease. One of the men who helped develop the original DN tech, Sam Pilgrim, is currently at an isolated ship-based research lab in the Indian Ocean. It’s there that he makes a startling discovery: Certain animatronics (sentient robots built with DNT hardware and firmware) may have become self-aware. On the other side of the world, in one of this future society’s “Districts” (a collection of small nation-states), Sam’s wife Robin and the couple’s 16-year-old daughter Lane come across similarly shocking information. As a doctor, Robin oversees DNT treatment, including one particular session that results in myriad inexplicable anomalies. Lane hears something similarly disquieting about the DNT offshoot Directed Neuroplasticity Edutainment (the “E” was originally for “Entertainment”); allegedly, DNE’s users, who revel in “neuropacks” (recordings of others’ real-life experiences), are suffering damaging effects over time. Foul play is not a given; self-aware animatronics or potentially harmful DNT may simply be the result of errors in code. DNT was never perfect—years earlier, the initial round of recipients became “Partials,” having been compromised physically, cognitively, or immunologically. But something sinister may be afoot as well—for one thing, Sam and Robin know that Simon Thorr, the other DN developer (whose company provides DNE as a service), harbors a dark secret or two.

Kroll’s worldbuilding in this opening series installment is sublime. Readers may want to skip to the end to peruse the “Historical Context” appendix, which illuminates the dense, riveting history of the World Council, DN, and animatronics. (This largely covers a mere handful of years prior to the novel’s present-day 2051.) The story primarily focuses on Sam, Robin, Lane, and Thorr, along with Sam’s co-workers at the lab, a regular DNE user, and a Partial who’s befriended Lane. They’re immersed in a narrative that thrives on chic technology as well as indelible terminology and slang (“One of the other SIM4s, whose name was Stretz, was functioning as a hardware technician in the firmware lab, stealthily accomplishing modifications to a trio of anim storage devices.”). The cast adds a welcome human element; Sam and Robin discover an unanticipated intimacy in their bouts of virtual sex that seemingly reinvigorates their relationship. (Neither one is fond of the self-absorbed Thorr.) The slow-burn plot teems with revelations as characters sift through data, exchange secret messages, and carefully relay what they’ve learned to someone they hopefully can trust; hardly surprising that many of them are perpetually “discombobulated” by what they’ve seen or heard. The novel’s ending leaves a lot to unpack for sequels and offers plenty of incentive for readers to come back.

This engrossing, perspicacious SF yarn sets the stage for a sure-to-be-memorable saga.