★ 03/20/2017
SecUnit, aka Murderbot, is a semiorganic corporate profit center, genderless and constructed of cheap parts to perform contract bodyguard services for clients who mostly don’t want them. SecUnit can choose its attitude because it has hacked its governor (a hat-tip to Susan R. Matthews), blocking the functions that would punish it for anything but robotic obedience. Disgusted by humans and secretly addicted to a video serial called Sanctuary Moon, SecUnit is simply enduring another assignment until something completely outside of its data parameters tries to kill its humans. Nebula finalist Wells (Edge of Worlds) gives depth to a rousing but basically familiar action plot by turning it into the vehicle by which SecUnit engages with its own rigorously denied humanity. The creepy panopticon of SecUnit’s multiple interfaces allows a hybrid first-person/omniscient perspective that contextualizes its experience without ever giving center stage to the humans. Agent: Jennifer Jackson, Donald Maass Literary. (May)
Look, we’ve all been there. You started out the New Year on a high note. You told yourself you were going to learn a new instrument, become a baking aficionado, and run a marathon all before the year was through. You also told yourself you were going to read twice as many books as you […]
N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy is about the end of history. At the 2018 Hugo Awards, presented last night at WorldCon 76 in San Jose, California, she made history. “I am on this stage accepting this award for pretty much the same reason as every previous Hugo winner,” Jemisin said. “Because I worked my ass […]
If the literary novella remains a curiosity, the form remains a mainstay of science fiction and fantasy—and more people seem to be reading them than ever. But what’s a novella anyway? This year’s winner of both the Hugo and Nebula awards in the novella category is All Systems Red by Martha Wells, a hugely entertaining […]
In an interview last month with the B&N Podcast, Hugo-winning author John Scalzi posited that we are currently in a new Golden Age of science fiction and fantasy, and it’s hard to disagree with him. Never before within the genres have their been so many excellent books on offer to so many different types of […]
Earlier this year I wrote a post about how artificial intelligences might develop a personality. And once you are a person (biological, artificial, or some combination of the two), theoretically you are entitled to have your own life—and you can chose to keep at least part of that life private. Five recent books that explore […]