This book offered an intersting look at what our future could be. I thought that the story was good and the author was successfully able to pull off multiple POVs. The mystery and intrigue were there for most of the book, but the ending felt more like an examination of humanity's future with the focus on change. This made the end of the book have a very different tone and pace then the rest of it which took away the momentum and the excitement. I wish the ending had been better on those points because it took away from the book as a whole. Still exciting but kind of like if Die Hard had ended in a morality lesson instead of explosions.

I really enjoyed this book. I thought the characters were well thought out and the story moved at a pretty good pace. No earth shattering finish, but I thought it ended well. Interesting concept that did not get too "techy" but was plausible.

Machinehood is the first novel by SciFi/Fantasy short fiction writer S.B. Divya, who managed to pick up a Nebula nomination for best novella in 2016 for her story, Runtime. I remember not loving Runtime, but mostly due to the fact that the setting contained within felt too constricted by the novella format - I felt that the story could have benefitted from being a full novel instead. So when I saw on Netgalley that Divya was finally releasing a full length novel in 2021, I was definitely intrigued.

And Machinehood is a really interesting scifi novels, with some really interesting ideas about how humanity will progress in the future as machines and AIs become more intelligent, and how human work and protest changes to match, and how much everything will be the same. I think its ending is a bit abrupt and it could've perhaps used a longer final act, but its two main characters and their lives are generally really interesting, making this a really solid read. It's not a perfect book or one of the most powerful I've read, but its content is one that got me really thinking for a while, so it's more than worth your time.

-------------------------------------------------------Plot Summary---------------------------------------------------
The world of 2095 is one greatly different than that of the start of the 21st century. Bots and Weak Artificial Intelligences (WAIs) may not be sentient, but they are powerful enough to replace much of the world's human workforce - with many humans doing jobs that consist mainly of just supervising the bots. Cameras and drones are everywhere, and privacy is a thing of the past - and people exploit this by taking gigs to draw attention to themselves, where they might receive tips from entertained audiences. And the remaining human workers compete with machines via bio-enhancements and drugs like Flow or Zips, that provide short term physical and mental enhancements to allow them to compete. But as the machines get better and better, the Funders behind the drugs are forced to work even harder to improve their stock so that humanity doesn't get further obsolete....

Welga Ramirez was once a groundbreaking special forces officer....before her country betrayed her. Now she does work as a specialized bodyguard for Funders, stopping the various pestering protest groups in entertaining fashion so as to maximize the tips she earns from her audiences. It's a safe job, since no protestors will actually cause lethal harm anymore - although Welga is experiencing weird inexplicable muscle spasms from her Zip usage of late. Or so the job is supposed to be.

But when strange seemingly artificial humans attacks Welga's Funder and two others around the world in a suicide attack, the world is thrown for a loop. The attackers are followed by a message from an entity known as The Machinehood - threatening more attacks if the world doesn't give full rights to intelligent machines and if the world doesn't cease its production of drugs. Soon Welga and her sister in law Nithya will be pressed into action to try and figure out what's really behind the attacks and how to stop them from destroying the world and everyone they care about.....
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Machinehood is essentially an idea-focused story told from the perspectives of two different characters, Welga and Nithya, in a world that is very different....and yet very similar to our own. On a surface level, certain things are still very much identical to our own world: the Earth still very much has as central powers the US, India, and China, with a fourth major power being a Middle Eastern allegedly religious based country that the West is at work with (we only see them through biased eyes, so take that for what it's worth). The world is much more global, with travel between countries much easier to accomplish (our protagonists jet from India to the US and back a few times) but citizens are still tied to the laws of those countries (and the laws of their spouse's country), so for example, when Nithya gets unexpectedly pregnant, she is subject to American anti-abortion laws due to her husband's American citizenship.

And yet this world is very different from our own in many other ways....at least on the surface. The increase in machine and AI technology may have made lives easier, but they also have removed most of the world's potential jobs. And so humanity has been forced to rely on more and more drugs to enhance both physical and mental abilities - drugs that are supposedly safer than cyborg like enhancements that were once tried only to disastrous effect. It's a vicious cycle where machine improvements require more and more drugs for humans to compete, and it winds up with humanity being forced to supplement their own incomes by exploiting the global lack of privacy - anyone can view cameras of everyone anywhere - to earn tips from interested onlookers. It's a cycle where those who can't take drugs for biological reasons are left way behind, and while the telecommunication and travel capabilities make people able to work with each other anywhere in the world, disasters and war can still result in one losing everything and becoming a refugee. It's a very plausible looking and disastrous seeming future, which makes it easy to buy in to Divya's ideas.

Indeed, in this world are two - really three people, but the third is a spoiler so I won't mention them - point of view characters who illustrate the scope of the problem as they try to handle the crisis that forms this plot. Welga wants to help people but was betrayed by her country, and so while she dreams also of one day possibly retiring and forming a cooking business with her romantic partner, she can't conceive of the idea of quitting once a new military crisis comes about by the Machinehood. And yet governments show again the signs of betrayal and the very drugs she's reliant on seem to be betraying her, so what is the point of it all when there seems to be no future? Her sister-in-law Nithya also genuinely wants to help people - through her work on drugs and the science behind them, through aid to a co-worker who is in a desperate state, and however she can: but when the choice to do so threatens her own livelihood and the love of her husband, can she really do it? And what is a world that forces these two to make such choices?

This intersects with a plot that features a faction with its own spin on Buddhism, and with a potential new path forwards in the end. And yet things aren't quite easy either going forward, and nor is anyone in a position that seems quite clearly to lead to better things, which makes sense given the inertial of history to this point in this book. I'm not quite sure that it all winds up working - the arc of the book leads to one major event and choice by Welga and another character, and I feel like 1-2 more chapters in that arc perhaps could've allowed it go carry on its argument more clearly - because while I was left thinking about it all in the conclusion, it's kind of hard to see necessarily how to apply such thoughts to our own world, which I suspect was the author's intent. Like you'll note I basically say nothing above about rights of sentient beings like bots and AIs above, which seems like it should be a major theme, but it never really seems to come across as such?

But Still, Machinehood is still a mostly interesting story with a really believable and curious take on the future and mostly satisfying ending, even if it's too abrupt for my taste. Worth your time just for that alone, even if I don't quite think it stuck the landing with its themes in retrospect.

Set in the near future, AI’s and bots compete with humans in a gig-dominated economy. Humans take “pills” to help them compete with bots. Microdrones allow for pretty much a 24/7 reality show for everyone. There are even tip jars that people can add money to when they feel like someone is doing something fun/interesting/whatever. We follow Welga, an ex-military turned bodyguard. But then a terrorist group called the Machinehood makes their move and demands that humans stop pill production and recognize bots as intelligent beings. Chaos ensues and Welga is recruited by the US Government to help fight the Machinehood, which they think is the same as an old enemy. This had all the pieces for a great book. But something was missing for me. I think it ended up being a little too check-mark-y. I saw another review that said it was interesting, but not engaging. And that fits the bill. I’m not sure I would recommend it, but I also wouldn’t not recommend. So if it sounds interesting, go for it, but maybe lower your expectations.

Thanks for the review copy! I first read SB Divya's work in the form of her novella, Runtime, and I'm really happy to be able to read a novel-length work. Machinehood has compelling world building and realistic, fleshed-out characters. The exploration of AI and enhanced humans under the lens of the gig economy is compelling. It's social commentary, but I didn't feel like it was beating me over the head with it. Great read!

No conocía la obra de S.B. Divya pero me parecía muy atractiva la premisa sobre la que se basa su novela Machinehood, tratando temas tan actuales como los distintos caminos para la mejora del ser humano, ya sea mediante modificaciones cibernéticas o medicación. El hecho de que no existan apenas trabajos estables y que la economía se base en pequeños encargos es una realidad patente hoy en día, con la precariedad instalada en muchos hogares. Divya va un paso más adelante habiendo implantado el trabajo robótico en muchas áreas, con la consiguiente reducción del empleo del personal menos cualificado. En una carrera sin visos de terminar, los humanos han de utilizar todo tipo de suplementos y drogas para conseguir alcanzar el nivel de las inteligencias artificiales «débiles», que van mejorando progresivamente.


En este contexto seguiremos los pasos de Welga Ramírez, una guardaespaldas con pasado en las fuerzas armadas, que se encuentra involucrada en una de las primeras actuaciones de la autodenominada Machinehood, una oscura organización que promulga la desaparición de las pastillas y la igualdad de derechos de las inteligencias artificiales.

A pesar de que las ideas del libro me han parecido muy interesantes, lo cierto es que la trama y la ejecución no están a la altura de lo que esperaba. Me interesaba el diálogo entre hombre y máquina, pero me he encontrado con una filosofía neobudista un tanto superficial. Además, el principal «enemigo» con el que se quiere relacionar Machinehood desde el principio, el califa que está unificando el Magreb, parece un villano de opereta, colocado en un pedestal para atraer la atención. Su lema de no agresión provoca mi incredulidad, cuando no ataca a nadie pero es que capaz de ir estrechando el cerco de los refugiados en el límite de sus fronteras, atacando centros neurálgicos necesarios para la vida.

También son necesarias varias casualidades para que Welga se encuentre metida de lleno en una operación para desmantelar la Machinehood. No solo que esté presente en el ataque mencionado anteriormente, a esto hay que unir una grabación que justo llega a sus manos con información relevante, su pasado como operativo contra el califa… En fin, todo muy preparado, demasiado.

Machinehood es un ejercicio de especulación que parte de una buena base pero que va perdiendo fuelle por el camino. Se lee con rapidez, pero apenas deja poso. Un poco como su portada que podría ser atractiva pero es demasiado fría.

A chilling tale of the consequences of escalating need for technology. All are aware that technology is as addictive as every escapist, feel-good drug. People were originally horrified with the thought of tiny nanomachines tinkering with their bodies. In this near future world we have drugs and pills (actually nanomachines) that can aid us in every endeavor. There exists a huge and expanding market for these "enhancement" pills. "Juvers" for muscle recovery and repair. "Flow" to enhance focus and intelligence. "Zips" to enhance performance and speed. "Buffs" to make us stronger. All with the goal to allow humans to remain competitive with the ever improving Artificial Intelligence machines (WAI) and bots. One day an organization, shrouded in mystery and intent, and known as "Machinehood" beams across communication channels an ultimatum. "Cease all pill and drug production by March 19 or we will make it happen. A New Era awaits humankind" Later as their Manifesto goes public .;. their goal becomes more easily defined. "All of us are intelligent machines. All of us deserve the right of personhood". ( They obviously are making the case that AI's have now reached the stage of Sentience and demand equality)
Our intrepid hero is Welga Ramirez, former soldier,and present-day bodyguard, who is flawed and partially surgically enhanced. Experiencing increasing seizures and tremors on the basis of decades usage of "Zips". But, yet she is uniquely qualified to investigate and confront this threat. The Machinehood threatens to start killing the "funders" who are responsible for the ever expanding market of designer drugs and pills. Will Welga and the government agencies who draw her back into the fray, uncover the forces behind this movement?
S B Divya unwinds a chilling , and twisted tale of the ramifications of technology. Her tale is compelling and propulsive and excels in worldbuilding. Successfully woven into her narrative is the dilemma of the working class and continued presence of bigotry. Thanks to NetGalley and Gallery Books for providing an Uncorrected Proof in exchange for an honest review. Anticipated publication will be March 2. 2021.

A perfect thriller, hands down.

The two POV characters were exciting and endearing in their own ways.

The story line kept me guessing. The themes of revolution and workers rights parallel nicely with the challenges of today.

Can’t wait to see what else S.B. Divya has in store far readers in the future.

Net Galley ARC received for review.

I'm surprised by how ambivalent I am with regard to this story. It should have been just right for me with the emphasis placed on artificial intelligence but this didn't strike me as a futuristic adventure of humans and AIs but a moral dilemma of how the AIs should be treated by humans. This world sounded like it would be interesting to read about because, essentially, all humans are addicted to pills of all types as augmentation for improving themselves. They even formulate their own drugs of choice which help them compete with AIs. Machinehood is a terrorist organization which announces that all pill production must stop within a week and when that doesn't happen they begin to kill the largest pill funders. The main character is working as a Shield (read that as bodyguard) for one of the pill funders.

There seemed to be so many opportunities lost when I would have liked to get closer to the main character and gotten to see how this world really worked. As one example Welga Ramirez almost dies while working as a shield but instead of showing readers what scientific advances repair her body there is just the destruction and then a day passes and Welga is all better.

Social media is hyped up to an incredible extent in the story with masses of robotic cameras swarming everywhere recording anything and everything that happens throughout both personal and business situations. People watch the videos and vote their thumbs up or down by placing virtual coins in a tip jar resulting in income for the people featured in the videos. Jobs are performed with the knowledge that you can get higher tips if you put on a better or different performance; the performances even enter into what is usually the most private of interactions.

My attachment to Welga was absolutely nil and the mission of the Machinehood group wasn't anything I cared about either.

Thank you to NetGalley and Gallery Saga Press for an e-galley of this novel.

Machinehood

[Blurb Goes here]

First and foremost, this adventure is not your usual rant about machines taking over the world, nor is it a bunch of short stories from the genre, glued together. It is instead a great read about a woman who suddenly finds herself fighting against an unknown enemy.

As the story progresses, you can't help but notice that it is perfectly structured and well thought through out. The characters are developed like all characters should. They evolve not only in personality, but in some cases, in ideology as well. There's a political undertone to it, close to the one we're living through right now, but it's not used to preach, it's just there as an important part of the story.

Also from an economic point of view, there's the exploitation we are suffering from big corporations right now, but it is used to highlight this future world problems, where humankind is forced to digest special pills to keep up with their machine counterparts, all to be able to put food on the table.

The future in the book is not only plausible, is eerie familiar. That's not to say that the author tries to tech us a lesson, she doesn't, she just states facts and the story moves forward flawlessly. I cannot say enough good things about this book without using spoilers (which I hate). If you where waiting for a great Sci Fi book, one not loaded with tech jargon and improbable settings, this is the book you should read.

I was ended up being very surprised by this book. This was such a strong debut novel, and I look forward to seeing what comes from Divya in the future. The worldbuilding in this book is so good, so fully formed and believable. I felt like I was living in 2095 while reading this. Divya does such a good job of crafting details and peeling back the layers of this world at just the right pace. This can be very hard to do in sci-fi novels, without feeling like an informational exposition dump. This isn't a book just about hard sci-fi though. It's packed with genuine heart. Every character feels complex and realistic, as does the incredible diversity of ethnicities, religions, and genders. With the stakes so high and the plot so deep, I wondered if everything could pull together in the end--it did. The ending is satisfying and strong, and left me a little sad that it was all done.

I received an advanced copy of this book via Netgalley.

The year 2021 has just started, but I already know this is one of the best new science fiction books I will read this year. It's that good. Divya has created an utterly immersive future that is plausible and spooky all at once.

Welcome to a future Earth where designer drugs help people work and think faster in order to keep them competitive with advanced machines. Everyone has personal drone clouds that broadcast their activities to the world, with strangers casting money into their tip jar for deeds done well. Welga is a tough woman working in higher echelons of security when a client is killed by a new terrorist group. The Machinehood is demanding rights for bots--or else they'll shut down the pill trade and tech networks, essentially ending modern civilization. Welga tries to find out who and what the Machinehood really is, even as her own health begins to shatter. This is a read that ponders some very deep philosophical questions: what is a machine? what is sentient life?

Some scifi books with advanced tech this deep are so full of jargon they lose me within the first chapter. This book didn't. Divya builds details at the right pace. This isn't a book just about hard scifi, though. It's packed with genuine heart. Every character feels complex and realistic, as does the incredible diversity of ethnicities, religions, and genders. With the stakes so high and the plot so deep, I wondered if everything could pull together in the end--it did. The ending is satisfying and strong, and left me a little sad that it was all done.

Truly a stellar work, and the first one to go on my novel award nominee list for 2021.

What a ride of a book. This story completely transports you to a future that seems both extremely alien, but also close to possible. The story ostensibly focuses on Welga Ramirez and those close to her, but uses them as a representation of the rest of the world. They all intertwine to bring together pieces of a massive conspiracy and either save or reshape the world. It took me a little bit of time to get into the book (there really is a lot that you get thrown into at the beginning), but eventually I couldn't stop reading. Divya asks fascinating social and ethical questions in this book and I'm still thinking them over.

This is the second book by Divya that I've read - the first was the very good novella, Run Time (Tor.com). The synopsis caught my attention: "Zero Dark Thirty meets The Social Network" is a pretty intriguing pitch.

Machinehood takes on a number of important contemporary issues in the guise of a science fiction thriller - artificial intelligence, sentience, labour rights, automation (in the form of the aforementioned AI), and the gig economy are all examined in the novel, to good, thought-provoking effect. In addition to these, the novel poses interesting questions about human enhancement - especially pharmaceutical.

A really interesting science fiction novel. Definitely recommended.

In an era of speculating on the capabilities of AI within the realms of science fiction; it is no small task to try to bring a new and fresh take on the subgenre. The plot, ideas, and overall execution worked well. The pace goes forward at a steady pace, but there were a couple asides with the characters that I did not feel really contributed anything to the novel. Tense with global conflict between AI and humans, Machinehood delivers with just enough philosophizing on the aspects of personhood to balance out the action. If you're a fan of scifi and more specifically the tension between humanity and its AI creations, this book might be worth the read. You'll find some familiar tropes, but you may also be pleasantly surprised with some new ideas.

I really tried to like Machinehood. The concept was great and I thought the writing was good. Unfortunately, the characters just failed to bring me into the fold like I had hoped for. Overall, it was a good story, but with flat characters, I have to give it 3 stars.

Weird, fast-paced, and told from two perspectives, this is a sci-fi book to challenge your thoughts on AI. The writing is good, although you may get "there" before one of the main characters does. I don't think the cover represents the book very well, but I think science fiction readers (or action movie lovers) will like this. I'm really glad I picked this one up!

Science Fiction in its truest sense takes the current societal order and known science and amplifies it in a way one may believe is a possible future for all of us. S.B. Divya does this and more in her debut novel "Machinehood'. Out of our cultural context of division and labor, our desire to be competitive in our lives and current technology trends pushing us closer and close to computing hardware that one may ask when human and machine converge. Come to think of it, in some aspects we are already there, exo-skeletons making us more efficient and self driving cars competing for our livelihood. The book makes you think how far you would go or the others around you to succeed in the mission of your life..

This is the most concept-heavy SF book that I've read in some time. It's set almost 100 years into the future, at the end of the twenty-first century. The main character, Welga Ramirez, is ex-military and now works as a Shield. Shields protect Funders from Protesters. All of these titles are essentially job/careers. Funders... fund new technological developments and provide employment, and protesters attack them when they go out in public. These protesters must register as groups and also give notification as to when they are likely to strike. Shields are both bodyguards and reality-show characters. They make the conflicts look exciting and a little sexy. This means that Welga makes sure that she's appropriately fashion-forward when she's working, doesn't take out opponents too quickly, and makes it look good when she fights. Welga has a virtual tip jar and a cloud of microdrones that follow her to catch her activity. Most people in this world either have the good fortune to work directly for a funder or they're gigsters, finding any way they can to make a living. Everyone has tip jars and everyone is accustomed to the total lack of privacy that performative life makes necessary.

And this is just the beginning. There's a conflict about whether artificial beings should have rights. There's tension over humans supervising robots doing much of the actual work because humans otherwise would have no way to make a living- this society has not evolved beyond capitalism even though there's a great surplus of labor and the strain is showing. Climate change is taken as a given, everyone takes drugs every day from their kitchen pharmaceutical dispensers because new diseases (both engineered and natural) are constantly being created. Welga herself is constantly on "zips" (drugs that speed up reflexes) because of her work as a shield, and she also takes buffs (for strength) and 'juvers (for healing) almost daily. Everyone is part of this pill-popping culture in order to keep up with AIs and also with each other. Everyone is racing faster and faster just to stay in place.

The concepts in this book were the most interesting part to me. The author has imagine a rather grim yet rather plausible future. Characters, on the other hand, tended to be a bit more basic. I was interested in them, but not very emotionally invested. The book ramps up a plot early in the book, but the conflict kind of peters out at the end instead of exploding. That loses the book a star, but I'm really impressed by this author. She's looking at our present and writing about about our future (but it's really about our present after all, like most science fiction). It's an imaginative book with plenty of action. I'd love to see more books like this, by this author or others.

Thank you netgalley for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
This was a fast pace, mechanical novel that paints a futuristic world where robots are common place and the people learn to work around them. Characters are solid and the storyline prestine just missing a bit more intimate dive. Sometimes the characters come off as one dimensional.

Overall, worth the read.