A succinct SF yarn tackling longstanding genre themes of machine-life and consciousness.
In Moskovitz’s SF novel, a continuation of his Brink of Life trilogy, a humanlike robot in the high-tech future becomes a fugitive.
In an advanced future society, a female-presenting robot named Photina is connected to the family and extended circle of Marcus Takana, a man lured into a conspiracy by elites to extend lifespans and achieve immortality via technology. These intrigues were foiled, thanks to an Oregon-based hacker enclave and journalist Lena Holbrook (and, in part, to Photina). A domestic automaton, Photina is classified derisively as a “SPUD” (Sentient Processing Unit and Sentient Processing Device). The Takanas cherish Photina as an equal, but “human supremacist” agitators and politicians rally against her kind and oppose attempts to grant SPUDs legal rights and recognition. The demise of Photina’s mentor (who had spurned immortality) stirs feelings of grief in the robot, but, during the burial, Photina almost attacks Marcus’ daughter, Natasha Takana, despite Isaac Asimov’s Rules of Robotics (“a robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, cause a human being to come to harm”) being hardwired into her. Subsequently, Photina experiences turbulent visions and memory gaps as deadly assaults are carried out on both Holbrook and an anti-SPUDS crusader. Photina logically decides laws of robotics permit her to flee the household for everyone’s safety. The fugitive robot meets a sympathetic SPUD called Drew who helps remove Photina’s malware and find answers to who may be manipulating her. Many readers have gone down this road before via SF grandmasters like Asimov and Brian Aldiss, following the conflicted travails of machines verging on human. A tight page count and a terse narrative voice lend a quick pace to the plot’s twists and surprises but also mute the story’s emotional resonance and leave little time for worldbuilding (do not expect detailed explorations of tomorrow’s New York City or Washington, D.C.). Fairy-tale ingredients from sources including Pinocchio and The Velveteen Rabbit are telegraphed by the title and effectively enhance the narrative. Disquietingly, the author credits the online AI called ChatGPT4 and Autocrit software as collaborators.
A succinct SF yarn tackling longstanding genre themes of machine-life and consciousness.Pub Date: March 15, 2024
ISBN: 9798990163805
Page Count: 142
Publisher: Fluke Tale Productions
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Fun while it lasts but not one of Scalzi’s stronger books.
Some people are born supervillains, and others have supervillainy thrust upon them.
Charlie Fitzer, a former business journalist–turned–substitute teacher, is broke and somewhat desperate. His circumstances take an unexpected and dangerous turn when his estranged uncle Jake dies, leaving his business—i.e., his trillion-dollar supervillain empire—to Charlie. Charlie doesn’t really have the skills or experience to manage the staff of the volcano lair, and matters don’t improve when he’s pressured to attend a high-level meeting with other supervillains, none of whom got along with his uncle. With the aid of his uncle’s No. 1, Mathilda Morrison, and his cat, Hera (who turns out to be an intelligent and typing-capable spy for his uncle’s organization), Charlie must sort out whom he can trust before he gets blackmailed, blown up, or both. This book serves as a follow-up of sorts to Scalzi’s The Kaiju Preservation Society (2022) in that both are riffs on genre film tropes. The current work is fluffier and sillier than the previous novel and, indeed, many of Scalzi’s other books, although there is the occasional jab about governments being in bed with unscrupulous corporate enterprises or the ways in which people can profit from human suffering. This is one of many available stories about a good-hearted Everyman thrust into fantastical circumstances, struggling to survive as a fish out of water, and, while well executed for its type, the plot doesn’t go anywhere that will surprise you.
Fun while it lasts but not one of Scalzi’s stronger books.Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2023
ISBN: 9780765389220
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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