Review of eGalley

In the world of 2095, technology has progressed to the point that basic chores are nonexistent, furniture reforms itself into various pieces as needed, the kitchen cooks the food, and Artificial Intelligence thrives. People take a variety of pills to keep various illnesses at bay, to enhance their capabilities, to compete with artificial intelligence. They no longer have permanent jobs; they supervise the bots and the gig economy keeps them working at short-term projects and then searching for a new project.

Social media rules. Everything [yes, EVERYTHING] is live-streamed, thanks to network constellations, microdrones, and swarms of tiny cameras surrounding everyone. Tip jars help with finances; if the watchers like what they see, they drop coin into your tip jar.

Into this seemingly utopian existence comes Machinehood with its Manifesto requiring the cessation of all pill production and recognition of the sentience of Artificial Intelligence as equal with humanity. Attacks by Machinehood operatives who seem to be part human, part machine, kill several pill funders; they believe in using force to gain their objectives.

Bodyguard Welga Ramirez finds herself pulled back into intelligence work for the government. Despite her desire to dismantle the Machinehood, she finds herself caught up in an unexpected dilemma that threatens her life. Is the Machinehood hiding in the caliphate of the al-Muwahhidun empire? Is it threatening the way of life of earth from one of the orbiting space colonies?

As global panic takes hold, people destroy their bots in hopes of staving off an AI takeover. Can Welga find the answers before Machinehood destroys their world?

The complex world-building throughout this narrative is impressive, but there’s a LOT crammed into this narrative where, at times, the technology threatens to overwhelm the storytelling. Welga is sure to earn the reader’s empathy; however, despite the intimacy in the telling of the tale, the reader often feels like an observer standing on the sidelines watching the unfolding story. Nevertheless, there’s much to consider in this thought-provoking tale.

Recommended.

I received a free copy of this eBook from Gallery Books / Saga Press and NetGalley
#Machinehood #NetGalley

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<p>Review copy provided by the publisher.</p>
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<p>This is a classic science fiction form I'm not seeing enough of: near-future SF written from an intimate voice. The main points of view in the book are two sisters-in-law, Welga and Nithya, who are also close friends, and whose perspective gives triangulation on the future Divya has created. Most humans are constantly accompanied and assisted by their WAIs (weak AIs), machine intelligences that don't quite make the full equal personhood grade by humanity's current estimation. But they're darn good at what they <em>can</em> do, and as a result humanity has chosen to enter an arms race of source with machines, taking a variety of designer drugs to enhance intellectual focus, speed, healing ability, stamina, and more.</p>
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<p>Enter the Machinehood. The Machinehood is a combined human-AI group that is not the least bit satisfied with the status of AIs in the world--and not thrilled with the way human bodies are treated, either. They've gotten to the point where they are willing to engage in violent revolution.</p>
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<p>Welga has been aligned with the status quo for most of her life--previously as a Marine, now in her work as a shield. But her mother died of bad reactions to drugs, and she's starting to have some of those herself. Her sister-in-law Nithya has the biotech skills to help her if anyone can--if anyone human can. And they're both ready to oppose the Machinehood for the safety of their loved ones--for humanity as a whole. They think. They hope.</p>
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<p>This book has a few weaknesses. The exposition is often clunky, and the secondary characters (especially Luis, the man who ties the two protagonists together) are sometimes sketched-in ciphers. But if you like near-future hard SF that centers the lives of individuals and gives you close views of their thoughts, <em>Machinehood</em> is exactly what you're looking for.</p>
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I enjoy a varied reading diet and was due a science fiction book. This was available on Netgalley and had an intriguing premise and good reviews, so, despite initial reservations, it was mission go. And turns out the reservations were well founded. There was something about the description of the book that didn’t quite excite me and neither did the book. Oh it tried, it really did. It had perfectly decent writing, a lot of grand ideas, tons of action, morals, etc. It had all the right qualities for a good sci fi book, in fact it had a lot of ingredients I specifically enjoy in a sci fi book…social relevance/commentary being one of the prerequisites. But in the end int just didn’t work for me and while I endeavor to put into words why not, I’ll just talk about the plot. So in the year 2095 the world’s technology has come pretty far, the development of AI specifically has done so much (too much?) to change the social structure, now people are reduced to working gig economies observing and supervising AI and now people are being aggressively chemically assisted to be their best most competitive selves (it isn’t all negative, of course, in fact a lot of it dramatically enhances people’s lives, but it is a crippling dependency). Essentially AI is thriving and people are junkies, desperately trying to stay on the level. That’s reductive, but practical…and so into this world Machinehood emerges. Manifesto and all. An idea that all intelligence ought to be equal and cooperative, a notion for a purer and more integrative sort of existence. Originating either in a caliphate of Maghreb or a Buddhist space colony, this is a very dangerous idea, it threatens to upset the entire apple cart of current status quo and so it must be investigated. Which ends up down to a single special forces operative named Welga Ramirez. So yeah, that all sounds exciting, doesn’t it. And to be fair, the author does try to make it exciting, but somehow it never really did it for me, the excitement was muted at best, in fact there was too much action for my liking and, frankly, too much tech also. I mean, the tech was fascinating, but once established, it was still all too prevalent, overwhelming the story at times. The characters were interesting enough and properly heroic when needed to be, but can’t say I cared about any of them. That’s kind of the main thing with this novel, it was all interesting, but not especially engaging. The sort of book to appreciate, not to love. The author to her credit did some very interesting things with world building, AI development and integration, futuristic logistics, etc. The 2095 of her creation is culturally and ethnically diverse with a wide variety of multiethnic gender nonspecific characters, who still use the tragically unimaginative and grammatically iffy They to describe themselves. The tech has made chores nearly obsolete, fabrics and furniture reconstitute themselves, food get delivered and prepares itself in a futuristic kitchen, it’s an almost magically convenient world…so long as it functions properly. And the obverse evil side of that coin is that social media developments have turned lives into reality shows with too much information too easily available and observed. Brave new world indeed, one it seems only Welga’s heroic efforts can help save. I really did wish I liked this more, but it was just too many things smushed together and seasoned too heavily with action scenes and action movie like characters. It read fairly quickly for being over 400 pages, so that was nice. But much like some AI, no matter how lifelike, it lacked that certain something to properly bring it to life. The cover has the same effect, actually, oddly enough. Almost there. Thanks Netgalley.

I heard about this book from the author during the 2020 WorldCon. She had previously written short fiction I was very impressed by so I was excited when she announced her first novel. I thank her publisher for letting me read it early. Unless I read five better books published in 2021 this will be one of my 2022 Hugo nominations for best novel of the year. I can not recall any year where I read five books better than this one. (For those who do not know already; members of the World Science Fiction Convention are able to nominate up to 5 novels published in the previous calendar year for the Hugo award.)

It is mostly set 75 years in the future and extends many of the trends we currently see in economics and technology. A lot of the impact this novel had for me were the unexpected changes in direction of characters' plans. Really quite amazing that when a character learns something new their plans change to take the new information into account.

The story is told in not quite alternating chapters from the pov of two sisters in law. The world they inhabit in 2095 is neither a utopia or a dystopia (or maybe it is both). It is a multi polar world with at least China, Europe, India, North Africa, and the U.S. as powers. There are city states in orbit some of which have declared independence. The combination of drone and cyber tech has pretty much reduced personal privacy expectations to zero; very much as David Brin did in his novel, Earth.

I dislike reviews with spoilers but I am going to risk what I think is a very minor one. In this future there are pills for many sorts of personal enhancements. Speed, strength, mental focus. body repair. These pills are not drugs. Or not only drugs. I think nanobot most closely describes them though the characters take them for granted and do not give detailed descriptions. This threw me at first as I read "pill" and thought "drug" and could not imagine a drug working as well as they do in the story. Suffice to say that when we do get a partial description of what a pill is the descriptions satisfies my imagination.

It has been three days since I finished Machinehood and I am still thinking of it and discovering things I missed. It is very satisfying.

Overall 5⭐

Character diversity: 5⭐

Worldbuilding: 5⭐

Pacing: 4⭐

Plot line wrap up: 5⭐

Ending: 5⭐

I loved this book, absolutely loved it. The merging of human with machine and possible sentient machines is one of my favorite things. This did it well in my opinion. It was hard to put down.

One of my favorite aspects of it was the way social media had changed by the time the story starts. Microdrones, small flying camera bots, infest the air. Everyone's actions are live streamed. If people like what they see, there's a tip jar.

The drones are for more than that but I really liked that.

The way health is managed, with pills every day to stave off this illness or that health condition, people with implants that handle certain aspects of their health, it's all there.

It's premise sounds simple: a group wants the same rights afforded humans to be afforded to machines--it's something that's popped up in time throughout humanity.

Bots handled protests, bots handle caring for the ill and so much more.

As someone with a piece if machinery implanted to handle part of my health, the idea of it becoming sentient and having control is a terrifying thing to think about.

Welga has loads more, and a job that requires to use pills--filled with small machines--so when things go south, it's a nightmare for her. Watching how her body betrayed her wishes was upsetting as a reader whose gone through something similar.

The writing made it impossible not to be affected and I imagine anyone else would be as well.

I'll definitely be recommending this book.

Spoiler Note:there is an abortion in the book. It's not described in any great detail but if that's not your thing, now you know. And it's something that gets brought up often.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher