Author interviewed in October episode of "Wrath of the iOtians":
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1429369/9352652

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Activation Degradation by Marina J. Lostetter is a science-fiction book following a biological robot who realizes the life he was created for can be more meaningful. Ms. Lostetter is a published author who writes novels and short fiction.

Unit Four is a biological robot whose purpose, for the 90 days it exists, is chiefly to oversee a mine in the Jovian atmosphere. However, as Unit Four gets consciousness, it immediacy gets put in defense mode to protect the Earth’s last energy resource from invaders.

I’m a big fan of the Murderbot Diaries, and even though this book isn’t by Martha Wells I figured I’d give it a shot. I’m glad I did, Activation Degradation by Marina J. Lostetter is both interesting and well written.

Right off the bat, the book takes off and keeps on building. The author managed to get the reader caught up surprisingly quick. Even though Unit Four, the protagonist robot, woke up to a situation none of us would envy.

I liked that the robot can communicate with its handlers immediately. It has selective memories implant from a previous version so the learning curb is very short. Due to the enormous radiation, these biological robots live only 90 days.

This is a gritty novel, in a world where nothing is certain and everyone has an agenda. After finishing the book, I still didn’t know whose story to believe, but that’s part of the charm.

The novel has several twists which I thought were pretty clever. The ending leaves the reader, and Unit Four, in a philosophical conundrum which, I at least, saw parallels to today’s alternate realities and misinformation campaigns. Realities where no one is really sure what’s true anymore.

It really has nothing to do with the series, and stands very well on its own. In the beginning it was confusing a bit because I kept looking for references, however, there were none I could find. I also didn’t care for some of the relationship side bars. Regardless of sexual orientation, chiefly the relationships seemed forced just to check another checkbox, in an otherwise fantastic novel which really didn’t need that

The one thing I don’t understand is why the Murderbot reference in the blurb?
Alas, who am I to get involved in marketing? Heck… it caught my eye.

A body is a body,” Aimsley said, echoing Doc, perhaps truly understanding what they’d meant for the first time. “It’s the person that matters.”

From the minute Unit 4 is activated, something isn’t right. Its helper is panicking, something is attacking the station (which supplies most of Earth’s energy needs), and its systems are not working at an optimum level. Hell, it can’t even say that’s it’s anywhere close to optimum. But when Unit 4 attacks the pirates, it realizes everything it thought it knew is completely wrong…

“And we don’t abandon people because we don’t know how to deal with the problems they cause. Do we?”

How to even begin to describe this book?

It’s definitely Murderbot mixed with first contact with a heavy dash of body horror à la Hurley’s The Stars Are Legion, and from there it’s its very own being, filled with the horrors of space, the horrors of humanity, and the rising and falling implications of the reverberations of the past continuing to slam dunk on the present.

It was a bit slow to start (just like Unit Four/Aimsley’s activation period), but I really, really enjoyed it, and I hope that there will be a sequel (even though it wraps things up nicely).

I don’t want to spoil any more than this, because I feel that the best way to approach this book is knowing as little as possible going in, so that you’re experiencing whatever the fuck is happening as Unit 4 does.

However, it is delightfully queer, and heartwarming, and heart pounding all at once. And I plan on reading more of Lostetter’s backlist, because I love her writing!

I received this ARC from NetGalley for an honest review

Facts are slow to be revealed to both the reader and to main character – Unit Four. A newborn robot only knows so much. So facts are not pertinent – at first. The story starts slowly but picks up steam as soon as Unit Four gets into its ship to start on his mission. As the details of the robot’s existence come to life, so too does the reader’s awareness that the creators haven’t revealed all the facts that might apply to a certain robot.

Activation Degradation is a fascinating story of birth, life and a not-so-sure expiration date. One of the things that I appreciated is the lack of a ‘past’ for Unit Four. As humans, we tend to constantly look to the past. Sometimes, the best and only thing to do is to forge ahead and not be constrained by tradition. Unit Four understands this better than most. And because it does, Unit Four is not limited by its past.

When Unit Four encounters the enemy, it’s life will expand exponentially. The enemy is not what it was led to believe. For that matter, Unit Four is not what it was led to believe. Unit Four has many decisions to make. Decisions that may help him fulfill his preordained destiny or may change his life in unimagined ways. I know what I am hoping for.

Thanks to the publisher who provided a copy through NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

4.5

Firstly, while I can kind of see the comparison to Murderbot, I think anyone going into this expecting that will be disappointed because the only thing that makes Activation Degradation similar to Murderbot is that they both follow robot main characters and they take place in space.

Now that that has been taken care of, wow was this a ride! Much like Unit Four, the reader is thrown into this story completely blind and slowly starts to understand the truth of what is going on. Because of that initial confusion, I did find the story a little hard to get sink into, but once I got partially through Part 2 I was completely enthralled.

I can't really talk about the plot without giving anything away, but I loved the twist and turns so much and actually gasped at one moment near the end. The cast is quite small, but they are all queer which I love to see. And per the author's twitter, "they are a found-family of queer space pirates" which includes pretty much every buzzword I have. (https://twitter.com/marinalostetter/status/1444779056294252554?s=12) Also, it's a standalone which I love to see in SFF though I would also love if the author wrote something else in this world. I especially want to see more about <spoiler>the crystals/space flower and the real situation on Earth</spoiler>.

I highly recommend this to those sci-fi fans who enjoy a good found family and/or mystery/thriller plots.

Unit 4 is a soft-shelled organic maintenance robot tasked with overseeing a mine on Jupiter. However, it has inexplicably missing data files, and when its handler orders it to defend against alien invaders, Unit 4 begins to question its programming.

Activation Degradation by Marina J. Lostetter is a compelling space thriller that questions what makes humans human and what sort of rights do non-human sentient beings deserve.

I think what I enjoyed most about this book is seeing Unit 4’s inner conflict and natural progression from more cerebral robot to a robot with very human emotions. It’s a charming, sympathetic character who likes bees and cats, so I couldn’t help but root for the robot.

I admit, my first experience with Lostetter was through The Helm of Midnight, and while both books are introspective and emotionally-driven, I find this story has better focus and is more tightly written. At no point did it feel like a slog to get through.

Overall, this is a high-octane AI mystery thriller that’s grisly at times, and yet, it also has a touch of humor and heart.

I can certainly see why this would be compared to Murderbot in so many blurbs! It's an excellent becoming human type story, but it's unique and in no way derivative of the Murderbot series that has taken readers by storm. There are a few little twists and turns that totally blew me away!
The story starts off in possibly the most stressful situation possible. Unit Four, our protagonist, has just been yanked from a solution vat and is being rushed about to help save a mining station that has come under attack. Four's handler insists that the attackers are extremely dangerous and so in a last ditch effort Four takes out a ship to fend off the invaders. It (as Four wants to be referred to as) is captured by humanoid creatures, and though it manages to injure a few, ends up strapped to a chair. Turns out the humanoids are humans (a shock!) which also begs the question of who/what is Four's handler if Earth isn't inhabited by humans any longer. There a several of these topsy-turvy moments that really make one question what's happening! Keeps you on your toes for sure!
The humans don't trust Unit Four (who has been given the name Aimsley) but they do need it's help. Their ship was damaged in the short battle that commenced at the beginning of the story and they now must work with Aimsley to repair their ship.
This is ultimately a story of self-discovery and though it doesn't give you the warm fuzzy that Becky Chambers stories have, it does have a similar feeling. It's a crew up against stacked odds, they're a weird and wonderful found family and now Aimsley might just get to be a part of that. Life can be longer than 90 days of eating recycled protein and getting blasted by radiation. Should a sequel be in the works, I would most definitely check it out!

This did not feel like the 480 pages that Goodreads insists it is. This is both a good thing and a bad thing.

The good: it was a fast-paced read. I only set aside short hours to read it and tore through it. Unit Four's perspective was compelling as it got to experience a life totally different than what it may have known before. The openness and exploration as well as the overall themes were brilliantly handled.

The bad: we only really get to see three characters with any real depth, and even that started way late. it was a whole lot of talking bookended with action. And the action and the talking were both good and very important, but by keeping them separate, it made the book feel very unbalanced. Fuentes and Buyer (Also Doc but less so) felt more like their jobs than actual people - a few little bits of personality, but because we see everything from an outsider perspective, it's not enough to anchor them.

But now I really want to read some of Lostetter's older scifi!

4.25 Stars. This was really good! When I saw this this was supposed to be Murderbot-ish, plus the fact that I just love sci-fi, I realized I had pretty high hopes this would be a good fit for me. While this has a bit of a similar feel to Murderbot, it is definitely different enough that is feels fresh and not just a copy. I think Murderbot fans will really enjoy this, but I also believe sci-fi fans, that like a good humanity and found family type story, will too.

The writing is really good. The book is about 500 pages and I only stopped once because it was 3am and I had to sleep. There are some slower parts, but there are good action moments and just interesting scenes that really keep the story moving. I think it is a testament to Lostetter’s writing that I was hooked even during the slower parts. There was only one small part, of one action scene, that I had a little trouble imagining, but other than that, everything was very clear and the book played out like a movie in front of my eyes. Speaking of movies, I could see this making a good movie or limited series, but it 100% works very well for a book too.

I was really happy with how LGBTQ+ friendly this book was. There were intersex, nonbinary, pansexual, and gay characters and I might even be leaving someone out as there are a few side characters that I lost track of a bit. There is a side m/m relationship and there is an f/nb romance. This romance is very light, and just at the real beginning stages, but it was sweet and I was rooting for them as a potential couple.

There is a lot more that I would love to talk about but this story has a lot of twists and turns. And just when you think you might have it figured out, Lostetter says ‘no way!’ I really enjoyed the sci-fi mystery of this book and I thought it was well written and fun. This is a standalone book but I would absolutely read another book or even novella in this world.

TLDR: A really good LGBTQ+ friendly sci-fi read. Lostetter writes really well and it is easy to stay engaged even during the slower moments. Lots of fun twists and turns, and a main character that is very easy to like. Murderbot fans should really enjoy this, but I think most sci-fi fans will too. If this author writes more LGBTQ+ friendly sci-fi, I would absolutely read it.

AMS Unit 4 is a biomechanical bot whose sole purpose is to keep its helium-3 mine functional for Earth. After a battle with the "aliens," Four is taken hostage on the ship, and its life will never be the same.

Activation Degradation was a beautiful book. I don't even know how to properly describe how much I enjoyed it. There's so much going on, and it was so fast paced, I finished this almost 500 page book in only two days. There are morally gray characters, possibly evil characters that go soft, and a ton of diversity. There's not one but TWO intersex characters in this novel!

I was lucky enough to read this advanced review copy from Net Galley, but I will be picking up a hard copy as soon as it's available on September 28th.

Oh, hello, blurb that barely scratches the surface of this book. I wasn’t exactly sure what I was getting in to with this book, but it was exactly what I needed right now. At its heart, it’s a book about found family, about finding the people who love you even when you mess up, who love you for who you are and not what you can do for them.

“It had a job to do. It wanted to do its job. It wanted to pilot the boat, defeat the aliens, earn its handler’s praise, and then live out the rest of its activation period in whatever state of being was exactly the opposite of this go go go go.
It had been awake for less than fifteen minutes and already it longed to rest.”


Autonomous Maintenance System Unit 4 is not having a good day. Freshly reconstituted during an attack on the mining platform around Jupiter that it calls home, Unit 4 is immediately sent off to fight the aliens that are dismantling pieces of the station. Something isn’t right, with Unit 4 or the aliens, but it sets off on its suicide mission anyway. After all, it’s a robot designed to do its job, so it’ll do the best job it can. But this attack – and its aftermath – have more ramifications than Unit 4 can possibly have imagined. Angry and confused, will Unit 4 take the chance to become more than it was intended to be?

“But what’s happening here, between all of us, could change everything. I know it could.”


This is one of those books it’s hard to talk about without getting into spoilers. The plot twists are interesting, and in at least one case for me, highly unexpected. While you’re thrown right into the middle of the action, the beginning is a bit slow but quickly accelerates once the reader understands exactly what’s at stake – even if Unit 4 doesn’t. While there’s a decent amount of action, the heart of the story is the characters and the relationships they build, especially Unit 4’s.

“Why look after the soul of a thing if you’ve trained it to believe it has no soul?”


The blurb specifically compares this to Murderbot, which I can see on a surface level. There’s the focus on found family, but the tone is very different from Murderbot’s sarcasm and cynicism. Unit 4, instead, spends much of the book confused and frightened. There are so many lines in the book that start with “It didn’t know what to do” and, wow, after this past year, I empathized so much with that. One of Unit 4’s first actions after being reconstituted is “decommissioning” one of its counterparts when it’s injured, complete with a wash of feelings that it doesn’t understand. From that moment on I spent a good chunk of the book just wanting to wrap it in a warm blanket and give it a hug. All Unit 4 wants to do is complete the job it’s been programmed to do and its slow awakening to the realities of what that job entails, of its purpose, were both intensely heartbreaking and heartwarming.

Much like Unit 4, the reader slowly gets the feeling that something isn’t quite right, and then gets hit with the horrifying clue-stick long before the character does. A good part of the emotional weight of the book is anticipating how Unit 4 will react to those revelations – and how the characters around Unit 4 will react to it. Speaking of those characters, it’s casually queer (space is gay, folks), with characters with nonbinary pronouns, a m/m couple and an intersex person. There’s a sweet romantic element, too, just delightfully gentle in the way it was woven in.

Overall, an easy 4.5 stars, and definitely a book I’ll be recommending. While the main plot is wrapped up neatly, I’m hoping for a sequel as this is definitely a universe I’d like to explore more of!

I received an advance review copy of this book from NetGalley. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Activation Degradation is the latest book by author Marina J Lostetter, whose Noumenon trilogy was liked by others a lot more than myself (I don't particularly love generation ship novels, so I bailed after book 1), and whose recent epic fantasy novel, The Helm of Midnight (written as "Marina Lostetter") I liked a lot. So I had no idea what to expect out of Activation Degradation, which returned to a Sci-Fi setting for the first time since the last Noumenon book.

I needn't have worried - Activation Degradation is very very good, telling a tale featuring as its protagonist a Murderbot-like construct, except one who is not self-aware of what it is and finds its world thrown into disarray when the "aliens" it tries to fight off turn out to be a crew of humans. The story has some really solid action sequences, all the while also containing some strong themes about family/community, about loyalty, about sins of the past, and about the unacceptability of systems that deliberately create harm to a few for the sake of others. The book appears to be a stand alone, although I'd love to see more explored in this universe, and definitely is worth your time.

----------------------------------------------------Plot Summary-----------------------------------------------------
Unit 4 activates disoriented, without the proper initialization process. But its handler tells it that there was no choice, as strange alien attackers are approaching the Jupiter mining platform responsible for generating 1/3 of the Earth's power. With its fellow three units, who were initialized earlier, it has to mobilize to deal with the threat - and if possible, to get evidence from the enemy as to what exactly they are and what they want.

When the attack goes awry, and Unit 4 has to euthanize its fellow Unit 2, Unit 4 finds itself desperate to achieve its mission, to take down the invaders who made it necessary. And so Unit 4 takes its living ship and rams it into the invader, hoping that its own deactivation will mean something.....but deactivation doesn't come.
Instead, Unit 4 finds itself onboard the alien ship - except the ship is seemingly crewed by bipdedal fleshy beings like its robot self. To Unit 4 it seems like these robots must have been reprogrammed by the enemy, and it insists to itself that it won't let the same thing happen to it. But these beings don't call themselves robots - they call themselves humans, have strange relations to each other, and their dialogue, and their computer information, suggests to Unit 4 that everything it knows could be wrong....
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Trying not to spoil in the above plot summary, but it's basically impossible to leave out some of the above to talk about this novel. Activation Degradation features a being who will remind readers of Martha Wells' Murderbot - a construct made of a combination of biological and machine parts, that refers to itself as "it". The difference here is that Unit 4, unlike Murderbot, clearly has incomplete knowledge over its own situation and believes itself to be a robot, whose only purpose is to respond to its handler's commands to fight off the intruders.

And so Unit 4 is thrown for a loop once it gets its first taste of human conflict. Unit 4 is highly intelligent - in fact it makes some logical leaps that readers would expect to actually be big reveals/twists well before they could come to pass - but it has little understanding of the possibility of other sentient fully biological beings, of community, of families, and most importantly, of emotions. And so when it feels dismay and sadness when euthanizing Unit 2, it doesn't really know what to do with that, to say nothing of its feelings of the humans. It does understand comradery and sisterhood (as it calls its fellow units "Sisters"), and so seeing that among the humans is understandable, although it doesn't quite get the idea of not being expendable, or of having differing views rather than simply following orders with a handler's voice in one's ear.

But Activation Degradation is not just the story of an artificially created being learning to become human, and is far more than just fun space opera action scenes (although there are a bunch of those too). For as Unit 4 learns more about the "humans", it has to deal with some really complicated ethical dilemmas involving what people really deserve for their past sins, and what to do with systems that are oppressive but a required fixture in society. For this is a story where humanity's journey to the stars was not made with the best of intentions at first....and is slowly going wrong, generations and generations later, where no one who made those decisions is anywhere near alive. It's a story where beings like Unit 4 are created and thrown away so that what is left on Earth can live, and if the system is destroyed, it will cause havoc for so many others. Do the humans who left Earth wrongly deserve to go back? Do the beings left behind have the right to use what remains? And what does it mean to have free will, to have choice, and to love?

Activation Degradation reads really quickly and works really well as a result, being a strong space opera novel with all the above themes, and it's hard to talk about it more without spoiling (and I've already spoiled quite a bit about the setting at least). The book doesn't take the obvious twists as you'd expect and ends in a really satisfying fashion that wraps everything up. And well, there's more that could be done in this universe, so if Lostetter wants to return to it, I'll gladly come back.

This is being pitched as “the Murderbot Diaries makes first contact“ because this robot has sentience and inner conflict. So I’m here to tell you that you should forget this sales pitch; you’ll enjoy the book better if you don’t have the idea that this is Murderbot, because it just isn’t. But I did enjoy what I read, I think it’s an interesting story. The book starts right away in the combat. Unit Four has just woken up from, well, being reconstituted from parts. After the initial battle ends is when the plot really starts to get interesting, and the inner conflict comes into play. I can’t really give more details than that because it would just be nonstop spoilers. So let’s just say if you like space dramas that have action scenes, but also questions what it is to be a robot versus a human, what it is to be an earthling versus an alien, then I think you would enjoy this book.

Thank you to NetGalley & Avon and Harper Voyager for this advanced reader copy. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Activation Degredation by Marina J. Lostetter is an enthralling and engrossing read with a great plot and characters! Well worth the read

The publishers do this book and its narrator no favors by comparing it to The Murderbot Diaries. I love The Murderbot Diaries, but Murderbot and Unit Four do not have much in common. Murderbot is a snarky, jaded, depressed, and anxious Millennial; Unit Four is a naïve pre-teen that has been homeschooled in a remote village. I found Activation Degradation slow starting, filled with a lot more technobabble than The Murderbot Diaries, and containing a lot less humor.

However, I don’t want to just talk about Activation Degradation in comparison to The Murderbot Diaries. The book I was reminded of most was The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers. Lots of crew interaction with a newcomer. Representation (m/m couple; intersex human, and nonbinary robot, although the robot has “junk,” and a romance with a female crew member seemed to be brewing). I rounded up one full star for the presence of a cat.

I enjoyed the crew interaction and Unit Four’s growth; I was skeptical SPOILER

of the magical space flower and of the evil machines taking over Earth END SPOILER

I enjoyed reading it but am not sure I’ll read a sequel, and i feel quite sure I won’t find myself re-reading it the way I reread The Murderbot Diaries.

I read an advance reader copy of Activation Degradation from Netgalley.

HIGHLIGHTS
~how responsible are we for our ancestors’ mistakes?
~defining ‘alien’ is not nearly as easy as you think
~you don’t get to choose anyone else’s pronouns
~or their family
~magic bees and crystal alien flowers FTW

I’ve been braving more sci fi these days than I used to, and after falling completely in love with Lostetter’s The Helm of Midnight earlier this year (which is fantasy, and you can read my review of it here) I really wanted to check out Activation Degradation.

It was a little bit of a risk, but it paid off!

Although the first thing you need to know is: this is not Murderbot, and it really isn’t anything like Murderbot. Murderbot works in large part because of its main character, that character’s voice, and the general vibe of being So Done with everything (but also secretly being a sweetie). I think it’s very possible to love Murderbot and Activation Degradation (I do) but it’s not because the two are much alike. They both feature cyborgs/organic robots. That’s it. In every other respect they’re completely different. If you’re picking this up because you’re looking for a story like Murderbot, I don’t think this is the book for you.

It’s very hard to talk about what this book is like, and who it’s for, without going into major spoiler territory. Activation Degradation is one of those stories that begins with one premise or set-up – and then rips the carpet out from under you, revealing a completely different story. I don’t know if other readers will see the first big twist coming – I almost never see twists coming, no matter how predictable, so I’m not the best judge of whether they’re genuinely surprising or not – but I didn’t, and I immediately loved what was revealed and how drastically that changed the situation I thought I was reading about.

And the first big twist is only the first big twist. Lostetter upends the gameboard several times over the course of the book; every time I became certain that, okay, now I knew what was going on – that was when another curtain would be whipped back, revealing something completely new that dramatically altered the stakes and who I was supposed to be rooting for. Not so often that I was constantly getting whiplash or anything – but more than enough to keep me on my toes, trusting nothing until the very last pages.

And I’m pretty sure that was intentional; I think it’s a way to help the reader get inside Unit 4’s head. Because it’s experiencing those twists and turns, those upending-of-everything revelations right alongside the reader. We’re not sure who or what to trust any more than it is. Which squarely puts the reader on Unit 4’s side – it’s impossible not to empathise with it when we’re in the exact same boat it’s in.

Activation Degradation starts with a bang and doesn’t really stop; even the moments that seem quieter or less packed with action involve world-changing realisations and decisions going on inside Unit 4. It’s not that the action pauses, so much as that sometimes it’s external – explosions and sirens blaring and aliens attacking the station – and the rest of the time it’s internal – new discoveries and their implications setting off cascading realisations that the world, and even Unit 4 itself, is not as it thought it was.

But what the hell can I tell you without spoilers??? I can tell you that this is very much a book about truth, and how it looks different from different angles; how two truths can contradict and yet both still be true. It’s enormously concerned with agency, and consent, and how informed consent is the only kind that counts. It’s about prejudice and the responsibility we bear for our ancestors’ mistakes and evils – do we, don’t we, how much? It’s about the greater good, and whether it’s acceptable to sacrifice anyone at all for it. It’s about complicity, both thoughtless and intentional. It’s about what makes a person a person, what makes a family, what you’ll give or do to keep that family safe.

It doesn’t have the comedy factor that Murderbot does, but it’s clever and tricksy and surprisingly deep. I enjoyed it a lot, and if you’re looking for sci fi that keeps you guessing until the very end, this is it!

Wow.
Born in battle and expected to take out all enemies threatening its mining operation in Jovian space.
The opening scene shows great technique - mini cliff hangers throughout a running battle. By chapter 4 I was looking to see what awards Lostletter can win. By chapter 5 I just joined the crew and went along for the ride.
Get this book; it's great - Lostletter went yard.

4.5 stars. Lostetter does an excellent job gradually setting up a story where something <i>doesn't feel quite right</i> and parceling out the appropriate answers at just the right pace. The broader worldbuilding is a bit of a tip-of-the-iceberg situation, where a lot is left unexplained, but it's done in a satisfying way, hinting at detail vs. leaving the reader lost as to how such-and-such part of the world makes sense -- our point of view is relatively narrow, so things <i>should</i> remain unknown rather than having some sort of infodump, and we get all the things we need to know for the story to work. I don't know if the marketing blurb comparing it to the Murderbot Diaries makes a lot of sense, aside from both having a robotic main character with a peculiar point of view on things (as a result of being a robot). Maybe I'm just biased against that description because I don't like what I've read of Murderbot, and I liked this book a lot.

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I don't totally understand why it would be a good idea to use semi organic robots who are regularly reconstituted to run things in the space energy operation instead of just good old-fashioned machine robots but....okay.

Accepting that sci-fi doesn't need to make sense to be fun, I thought this was reasonably entertaining, though it took me a while to get into it. The author did a good job making you care about Unit Four while also making it clear that Unit Four isn't human, which is a slick bit of writing. The prose overall was quite skilled, though there were some info dumps.

I recommend this for anyone looking for sci-fi that doesn't feel too space opera ish.

I was utterly captivated by this twisting adventure of Unit Four, a robot who's only a few hours old when its entire existence is thrown off-balance.

Content warnings: include: violence, drugging, non-explicit sex scene between side characters, radiation, death; mentions of: murder, cannibalism, climate change, mass extinction, slavery.

Nothing is at it seems in this book. Every couple chapters both Unit Four's and the reader's view of what is real and true is realigned completely, shifting in such tremendous ways that left me stunned and feel for Unit Four as it experiences all this with no support system to fall back on.

I loved the way the worldbuilding worked that way, even though it wasn't always easy to follow along, especially in the beginning, before Unit Four's vocabulary becomes more similar to the average reader's.
My favourite part was definitely the way the plot twists and deliberately plays with the reader's expectations based on the given information. It's masterfully written from Unit Four's perspective - we only ever see the world through its eyes, and what it finds normal, and I loved both the moments when we could see how outside information changes its view, and the moments when it finally clicked for me what the things it describes mean in our terms, even if it doesn't have a concept to understand them yet.

The cast is rather limited, and truthfully nothing out of the ordinary, but nevertheless a delight to read about. I greatly enjoyed Unit Four, and felt for it constantly, and through its eyes I learned to be intrigued by the other characters as well, and care for them. I also greatly enjoyed the polyamorous and intersex rep.

While Activation Degradation is very different from The Murderbot Diaries that it is likened to, I can see why the two are compared. Unit Four and Murderbot are very different characters (and might not get along very well if they met) but both books are about artifically constructed people stumbling into situations completely outside of their programmed parameters and being forced to adapt and take measures to protect that what is dear to them. I love these sort of POVs, so if you like reading from the views of robots or aliens, this is definitely a book for you.