Autonomous was an exciting read, full of character and pace. A great take on AI and identity, there's a sense of larger things to explore - it will definitely be interesting to see more from Newitz

Jack is in trouble. A pirate of drugs, she uses her background and education to reverse engineer popular drugs and make them available for much cheaper to the population who can't afford them. But this latest reverse engineer has gone deadly. She reversed a popular productivity drug and now users are becoming addicted, unable to leave their work for anything else, not food not home not rest. Scores are being hospitalized and some are dying. Jack needs to fix this fast. She takes her pirate spaceship down and revisits the labs she started in where she can get help. She takes along Threezed, a slave she ended up with when she killed his master for trying to steal her ship.

Paladin is a semi-autonomous robot. She works with Eliasz, a human intelligence agent who seems to have a past that won't let him live in the present and a fondness for Paladin that seems to cross the barriers between human and machine. Their assignment is to find Jack and stop her by whatever means necessary.

Annalee Newitz has created an interesting exploration of what it means to be human and outlines some of the new dilemmas we will face as artificial intelligence becomes viable. Her world is set in 2144, not an impossible leap of the imagination. Jack is a sympathetic character as she tries to liberate drugs that can improve lives but Paladin is also sympathetic as she explores what it means to be human and to maybe one day have free will to do what she chooses. Newitz writes extensively both fiction and nonfiction about the intersection that is outlined in this book and has a background that includes an MIT science journalism fellowship, a career as a policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and a PhD from Berkeley. This book is recommended for science fiction readers.

Autonomous was an interesting take on AI and the rise of technology with some interesting messages along the way. I loved the characters and plot and it does leave you with the burning question how can anything or anyone be free when anything can be owned.

Something about this felt more like a computer manual than a story. Not terrible but I had trouble holding interest.

Preview excerpts are such teases. I'll be hunting down the rest of this book. I was a fan of Newitz's writing on nonfiction, and now I'm a fan of her fiction too. The characters, world, and beginning of the story all have me wanting to read the rest of the book.

Unfortunately, this was just a preview, but I finally got around to reading the full book and it was great!

My impression of the excerpt is very positive. It focuses on highly popular subjects like molecular biotechnology, artificial intelligence and smart drugs. It is clear that the author has done a lot of research in a variety of technological subjects, specially pleasing for the tech savvy readers.

The story so far focuses on Jack (a scientist turned pirate who reverse engineers drugs to make it accessible to the poor), Threezed (a human indentured/ slave), Eliasz (a military agent) and his partner Paladin (a type of robot that uses a human brain as a secondary graphic processor). The story begins with strange cases of people addicted to work, that repeat a single task over and over again. Jack fears it is one of her bootstrap drugs, one still in beta testing, which prompts her to flee while searching for a solution. In the meanwhile, Eliasz and Paladin are on their first mission together trying to locate Jack.The relationships between them: Jack -Threezed and Eliasz- Paladin intrigue me. I can only anticipate their encounter as the excerpt ends here.

My favorite part: The communication between robots. It mimics the real process when computers interact, but instead of 1's and 0's you get a dry human-like conversation and at times they go off protocol showing their personalities. I found most of those interactions hilarious, I hope there are more to come on the following chapters.

This excerpt makes me want to read the whole book in a sitting. I'm super excited to own this.

A transcending read that combines futuristic robotics with crime components.. The two points of view balances the thriller with the mystery. A good flowing read.

It’s true that Newitz’s vision of the somewhat dystopian state of the world in 2144 is kind of intriguing and on every page there is some fascinating gadget, invention, etc. I also liked Jack and her backstory about the failed patent-revolution thirty years ago. But I felt that this novel have too much on its plate and Newitz cannot really find the focus. The plot becomes a bit dull in the middle of the novel and there is no real tension at the end. The whole reverse-engineered-drug-gone-wrong theme got resolved way too early and I felt we left Jack’s story unfinished.

The novel concerns the free will of the robots, and also introduces a modern form of human slavery in connection with this, but I think that this topic mostly remained unexplored. Among the vast number of characters, we have a human slave, an autonomous biobot (who looks like a human) and Paladin, who looks like a robot, and at one point becomes autonomous for the sake of the mission. Newitz uses the Paladin-Eliasz storyline mostly to talk about gender identity. In this postmodern-posthuman love story we got a guy who’s got a thing for robots, and a robot whose gender identity is unclear. Everyone assumes that Paladin is a male as default, but at some point he decides that he really is a she. The sudden change of pronouns have some really interesting implications, but that’s just it: I can’t say that it was groundbreaking or really interesting in any ways.

And what about other parts of the world? Is everyone working in biotech or the drug industry as it seems like? How does these new post-national entities work? We learn about a Mars colony in a sentence than got absolutely nothing about it. I was interested in so much more about this world than what the story presents. So I am a bit disappointed with this story as a whole: it felt a like if Newitz tossed many elements into the blender and walked away. The novel has interesting sections, characters, environments and ideas, but these do not fit comfortably together. A Hungarian proverb perfectly covers my feelings. “Sokat akar a szarka, de nem bírja a farka” - which roughly translates as: “The magpie wants too much, but her tail is unable to carry it.” That summarizes my experience with Autonomous perfectly.

Jack Chen pirates popular, corporate made drugs to fund reverse engineering of drugs that save lives and cure sickness. This time, however, she's reverse engineered a popular work-reward drug called Zacuity, and left chaos in her wake. It seems Zacuity's creators broke international patent law, and made the drug actually form addictive paths in the brain, making workers fatally addicted to whatever work they were doing while taking the drug. People are dying, and the authorities are blaming her instead of Zacuity's makers. They want her dead, and the Zacuity scandal safely swept under the rug.

Combat robot Paladin begins to have thoughts and experiences he never figured on encountering when he's assigned to go undercover with Eliasz. He finds himself contemplating humans and human behaviour, and the nature of his own biological components-- namely the bio brain safely tucked away in his carapace. Are the feelings and curiosities he's experiencing going to change if he ever gains autonomy?

Newitz gives us a rich, interesting (if quite grim) view of a future where capitalism has reach it's apex--prioritizing property rights over human rights. There are a few problems I have concerning some facets of a relationship featured in the book, but despite that the book does entertain and make the reader think about where our future is going if medicine continues to prioritize profits over people.

This excerpt is very intriguing. I would have loved to read and review the novel which seem to have all the elements I love in SF. Though since publication day I have seen some negative reviews from friends so I think I will not buy it, except in case of kindle sales.

You might know Annalee Newitz from her editorship of excellent SF culture website io9 and tech sites Gizmodo and Ars Technica, or from her extensive non-fiction writings, including Scatter, Adapt and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction from Doubleday and Anchor (which I bought for my e-reader as soon as I became aware of it). Autonomous is Newitz’ first science fiction novel, and she brings all her prescient sciencey genius to the table. I’ve only read a preview except so cavet lector: that’s all I’m talking about.

Autonomous takes place in a near-ish future where countries are not quite as they are now, and quality of life depends on what medications you have access to—medications which are tightly controlled by patents and pricing. It’s America’s healthcare system turned up to eleven and gone international.

It follows Jack, a conscientious drug pirate who starts the book sailing the antarctic seas in her drug-smuggling submarine, as well as a mercenary robot, Paladin, and its new partner, Eliasz, as they investigate the catastrophic side effects of a new and hyped productivity drug.

This drug is the thread that links the characters together. It’s a productivity enhancer that works by associating the pleasure normally linked to satisfying mild addiction to work. In Newitz’ world, it’s not the first of its kind, but one of a host of similar drugs. The thing that marks this one out is how it backfires: producing a far, far stronger reaction than anticipated, literally working people to death.

It’s a world informed by years of on-the-pulse futurist science and speculation, and as a result feels totally plausible, and low-key terrifying for that. And it’s not only the prospect of a world subject to the horrible conditions of American-style ‘healthcare’, but the idea of humans willingly drugging themselves into greater productivity in a capitalist dystopia—and that’s before the drug starts literally killing people.

Given I’ve only read a preview, I can’t say how the book will eventually unfold and what happens to Jack, Paladin and Eliasz. But I know for sure I need to find out at the earliest possible opportunity.

Jack is a self-proclaimed Robin Hood, providing cheap reverse-engineered pharmaceutical drugs for those who can't afford the brand names. As her anti-patent ways are illegal, Jack is also a pirate who traverses the world in a submarine. But when a recent drug hack starts causing lethal overdoses, Jack must find a way stop the drug epidemic while dodging military agent Eliasz, and his robot partner, Paladin, who are hot on her trail.

In this preview excerpt, which includes the first five chapters, the mid-22nd century is a wild place, with robots who look like humans, and middle-aged ladies scientists who are also pirates. Who wouldn't want to read a book with the summary of Autonomous? Big Pharma and drug copyrights also appear to be major players in this story, but already in motion are intriguing ideas of identity, as explored through human slavery and robot consciousness and sexuality. The characters have not yet hooked me, but the fast-paced, smart, and imaginative story (which already mentions mass spectrometry among other science lingo) is bound to be a really fun read.

I enjoyed this sampler very much.

I found the characters to be interesting and in a short span of time, I had a good grasp on their personalities, motivations and personal goals. I like that Jack as the main character is a bit older, edging into middle age. It's very refreshing to see older female characters and I also liked that she's very active and assertive. We see her do research, talk about it and actively think about it, so I felt this was a pretty good representation of a woman on a (arguably) stem career path.

I was very interested in the world, and really would have wanted to know more about what happened to our world to push it in the direction we see in the book. Things like Free Trade Zone and Asian Union are brought up and kind of brushed aside like yesterday's news and I was on the edge of my seat wanting to know the story behind that. But it did make the world seem rich with history, a long with the already established history and pop culture of our world.

All in all, I really enjoyed it and I'm interested in picking up the finished copy.

This is a book to get lost in!

Honestly, this is not my preferred genre but Newitz has a knack for world building and character development that grips you and pulls you in to the story that is a rare treat.

I only got the first few chapters as an ARC but I am HOOKED already. I love the character development, and the world that this story is set in. I am waiting with bated breath for the publication so I can finally finish it. It's giving me vibes of Company Town by Madeline Ashby.

I'm not sure about this one... I really enjoyed the chapters from Jack's perspective. The idea of a "drug pirate" who reverse engineers medicines for the poor in a dystopian future where people are dying wholesale is an intriguing one and her character is compelling. Even in the initial pages of this sample, she jumps off the page and I found myself exceedingly curious to see how she would manage to stay on the run, particularly given her fears about the safety of one of her recent productions... The alternating chapters, featuring Paladin and Eliasz, were much less interesting to me and I struggled with them a bit. They were more aggressive and traditional harder core sci-fi, star-wars focused, and that's not really my cup of tea. Their stories intersect fairly earl on, yet I still found myself slogging through the Paladin chapters, speed-reading even the bits about their hunt for Jack, until I saw direct mention of her... I have high hopes for Med - the sample only gave a brief glimpse of her, but she seems to be a character of Jack-ian interest from my perspective, which tips the overall scales in favor for me. All in all, I think it would be worth giving the full book a look - as the story lines begin merging, I'm cautiously optimistic that the bits of greater interest to me will surpass those that I struggled with a bit, and result in a story that delivers on the promise of the blurb.

Enjoyed the excerpt but I need to see the whole thing to comment fairly