In case youre at a loss for what to get that special mimetic poly-carbon, humanoid unit you bunk with for the holiday convivialities, Madeline Ashbys vN might do the trick. Its theme is a potential near-future when synthetic humanoids have been engineered with AI capacity and who live amongst us as part of societys cultural backdrop. Some of the roles are hilariously surprising and others shocking, yet theyre utterly recognizable characters crafted of both light and dark and sometimes interestingly melded. Its future vision is fascinating and complexly authentic, layered in ways that dont immediately give their satoric kicks away. The books protagonist is a young woman which is a welcome, rare change and its leavened throughout with the thorny intellectual wrestling associated with the issues of gender-specific privilege and power as well as the issues of race that separate humans from synthetic humanoids. It carries an engaging robot creation myth thats reasonable, pretty resonant and unlike any Ive read before. Theres some thrilling action as well. There are also a few critical issues with the basic storytelling skills and Ashbys reliance on a Deus Ex Machina resolution was pretty frustrating as I felt that the potential to not resort to a coded exit was possible. She has yet to really evolve into an adroit, expository storyteller, but thats part of the fascination for me; watching a good writers development into a great writer, because I think shes really got potential. Theres a second book in this series (iD) that I feel really bears this belief out. Regardless, pick it up and see for yourself, but Im enjoying her right now a lot. I also really love some of the other titles on what is turning into a solid press with a kick-ass name: Angry Robot Books. angryrobotbooks/books/vn-by-madeline-ashby/
Posted on: Tue, 18 Nov 2014 01:27:33 +0000
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