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
An unforgettable story of survival and the power of friendship—nothing short of a science-fiction masterwork.
Weir’s latest is a page-turning interstellar thrill ride that follows a junior high school teacher–turned–reluctant astronaut at the center of a desperate mission to save humankind from a looming extinction event.
Ryland Grace was a once-promising molecular biologist who wrote a controversial academic paper contesting the assumption that life requires liquid water. Now disgraced, he works as a junior high science teacher in San Francisco. His previous theories, however, make him the perfect researcher for a multinational task force that's trying to understand how and why the sun is suddenly dimming at an alarming rate. A barely detectable line of light that rises from the sun’s north pole and curves toward Venus is inexplicably draining the star of power. According to scientists, an “instant ice age” is all but inevitable within a few decades. All the other stars in proximity to the sun seem to be suffering with the same affliction—except Tau Ceti. An unwilling last-minute replacement as part of a three-person mission heading to Tau Ceti in hopes of finding an answer, Ryland finds himself awakening from an induced coma on the spaceship with two dead crewmates and a spotty memory. With time running out for humankind, he discovers an alien spacecraft in the vicinity of his ship with a strange traveler on a similar quest. Although hard scientific speculation fuels the storyline, the real power lies in the many jaw-dropping plot twists, the relentless tension, and the extraordinary dynamic between Ryland and the alien (whom he nicknames Rocky because of its carapace of oxidized minerals and metallic alloy bones). Readers may find themselves consuming this emotionally intense and thematically profound novel in one stay-up-all-night-until-your-eyes-bleed sitting.
An unforgettable story of survival and the power of friendship—nothing short of a science-fiction masterwork.Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-13520-4
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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