Saturday, March 9, 2024

Sourdough: A Novel

Robin Sloan

Set in the tech world of Silicon Valley, Lois is a programmer working for a robotics startup. The goal is to develop robot arms that can reliably reproduce repetitive human motion in the workforce. In typical startup fashion, Lois lives her work - long days, no social life, the apartment is really just a place to crash between work sessions. Into this world breaks a local food delivery with the best spicy soup and sourdough bread in the existence of humanity. When the owners of the restaurant move back to europe, Lois is bequeathed a starter of the sourdough, and the charge to keep it alive. So begins the life-changing journey of sourdough. For the first 2/3 of the book, this is a fascinating story and really an enjoyable read. Completely believable in the wacky silicon valley trope. Unfortunately, the last 1/3 makes a major shift and starts telling a story from the perspective of the sourdough culture itself. It just gets weird and (for me) was not meaningful at all. 

3 stars (out of 4)

Sunday, February 18, 2024

Burn-In

P.W. Singer and August Cole

FBI Agent Keegan from the Washington DC field office is a former special ops marine and all around bad-ass. Part of her expertise in the marines was bot-wrangler. As we are all increasingly aware, the wrong prompt into your AI will result in gibberish. And when the prompts to your war-bot have life or death consequences, you get good at it. So as an agent, Keegan is assigned a Tactical Autonomous Mobility System (TAMS), a new generation bi-pedal bot with sensors galore and a still learning neural architecture. Her assignment is to train it. In the real world she is also in the midst of an investigation of several anomalous computer events, and a political climate of basically "us vs them" in terms of humans/bots. What could possibly go wrong. An engaging story that gets the pacing right and has a few cut-outs where Keegan gets to geek out with the TAMS handler about the philosophy of sentience and human/bot interactions. Short answer: Human/bot interactions are complex.

4 stars (out of 4)

Tuesday, February 6, 2024

Machinehood

S.B. Divya

Set in the mid-century future where machine technology has advanced to the point where most things are operated by Weak AI (WAI), indicating intelligence but not self-awareness. Individual privacy is nearly non-existent, individuals all carry their own "swarm" of video transmitting bots/drones, everyone has an electronic tip-jar where their public feeds can earn micropayments from viewers. Think 'likes' with cash attached. Since everything is public and recorded, murder and crime is almost non-existent. Nano-meds are prevalent and people (in order to keep up with the bot workforce) regularly take flow (to enhance neural function) or zips (to enhance muscle function). Our protagonist (Welga Ramirez) is a former special forces, now private security lives on these zips (has a genetic allergy to flow) and is outstanding at her job. But when a terrorist organization calling itself "The Machinehood" actually murders several biotech billionaires, calling for equitable treatment of all AI, Welga finds herself in the middle of the investigation. Great story/plot line and a strong treatment of the questions related to machine/human interaction that will necessarily be rising in our world in the next 20 years. Well done and worth the read.

4 stars (out of 4)

Monday, January 15, 2024

Spinning Silver

Naomi Novik

In the same vein as Uprooted, Novik has created a magical fantasy world with flavors of Polish culture. Miryam is a Jewish moneylender. She picked up the trade from her father, who was not good at it, and from her Grandfather, who was. She lives in the rural villages an is finally making enough to feel comfortable. That is when the Staryk notice her, and make a deal with her to turn silver into gold. Miryam doesn't know the rules of the Staryk world and what it means to make a deal. She is pulled into a conflict that will either destroy all humanity in her country, or save it from endless winter. Enthralling. 

3 stars (out of 4)

Tuesday, January 2, 2024

The Kaiju Preservation Society

John Scalzi

Jamie was recently layed off by his prick, tech-startup CEO boss in New York. His resulting food delivery job connects him with an old school friend who offers him a job with a large animal conservation NGO. He is pretty secretive about it and for good reason. When Jamie gets to his first travel stint, he finds that the travel is to a parallel universe earth that has evolved to support Kaiju. So fun. 

4 stars (out of 4)

Sunday, December 31, 2023

The Witness for the Dead

Katherine Addison

Set in the same world as The Goblin Emperor, but really only the protagonist Tharu carries over. Tharu is a Witness for the Dead, meaning if he touches a dead body soon after death he can get a sense of the last thoughts. Comes in very helpful for solving murders and settling contested wills, etc. In many ways, aside from this fact, Addison has written a very traditional police procedural, with a few cases chased down and the reader wondering how (or if) they will tie together. At the same time he has to deal with the politics of his office and the ongoing evaluation of his call as a Witness. My only complaint is the bombardment of names and vocab in the first two chapters. I understand the fun of creating names when creating a world, but even after wading through, I still couldn't tell who was whom. The good thing is it didn't really spoil or inhibit the novel. 

4 stars (out of 4)

Friday, December 29, 2023

Uprooted

Naomi Novik

Magical Fantasy at its best with a distinct Polish perspective. Agnieszka is a young woman from the local village near The Wood. The Dragon is the most powerful sorcerer in the land and he lives in the tower at the edge of the valley, protecting everyone from the corruption and evil of The Wood. And once every decade he comes into the village to conscript a young girl to serve as his maid and servant. In Agnieszka's year, it is clear who will be chosen...her best friend Kasia. Until she isn't, and Agnieszka is picked. So begins the journey to discovering her own magical abilities and finding what actually is going on in the Wood.

4 stars (out of 4)