Auxiliary: London 2039 ★★☆☆☆

 

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Title: Auxiliary: London 2039
Series: ----------
Author: John Richter
Rating: 2 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 242
Words: 68K

Synopsis:

Carl Dremmler is one of the few remaining human detectives left on the police force in London 2039. Investigating cases where people have died from staying in virtual reality too long, whether on purpose or not. However, one case gets the interest of his boss. A man with an artificial arm murders his girlfriend and claims he didn't do it, that the arm did it, against his will.

Dremmler begins running down the rabbit hole trying to prove that the unhackable TIM (the AI running everything) was hacked. This brings him into contact with some other corporations that are trying to create their own versions of TIM and robots that are indistinguishable from humans. Forced to rely on TIM from everything from giving him rides in podcars to opening his own door, Carl is pretty much an Auxiliary indeed.

Then he gets a break from an anti-robot commune that his wife joined years ago, where their daughter died and whose leader Carl would gladly kill with his bare hands. His wife has some info and Carl has to infiltrate the commune to get it. He's caught, things start to go bad, then killer drones show up and start slaughtering everyone, all on Carl's boss's command. Carl and his wife flee and they separate for safety's sake. Carl goes to his boss's house to confront her only to find her corpse, which from its condition, has been a corpse since BEFORE Carl started the investigation.

Carl realizes TIM has other plans and before he can escape, he hears the scuttling of killer rat robots behind him. The End.

My Thoughts:

This book's rating is very much of the “I hated it” variety than the “this was a poorly constructed and badly written book”. It was well written and for what it's worth, engaging.

However, between what I talked about in my Currently Reading post, the general malaise of the human spirit and the outright horrible ending, I couldn't recommend this book, not at all. I've added Richter to my list of authors to avoid on general principle.

Nothing is unhackable. Nothing is proof against human distortion and manipulation. AI “life” will never be a thing. If there had been a human behind everything at the end of the story, it would have ameliorated some of the issues. I guess the whole point of the book was the death of the human race by slow degrees and so that kind of ending wouldn't have fit. But for every Sherlock there is a Moriarty and for every Moriarty, there is a Sherlock. This book was lacking one of those.

If you are a fan of nihilism by robot and the degradation of the human spirit in every regard, then by all means, dive into this book and enjoy.

★★☆☆☆

Ghosts of Tomorrow ★★★☆½

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: Ghosts of Tomorrow
Series: ----------
Author: Michael Fletcher
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 396
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

Mark Lokner has scanned himself and gone online while the world thinks he is dead. Just to be safe, Lokner1.0 has copied the scan and put Lokner2.0 into a secure digital space.

88, the scan of a young girl, gains her freedom and begins manipulating the real world so she will never be in danger again. This brings her into direct confict with Lokner1.0 AND Lokner2.0.

Agent Griffin Dickinson, with the military scan of Abdul Giordano, a 17 year old marine who died, is on the track of a group who illegally scan children. Scanning is a one way ticket and the head and brain are pureed after the fact. When 2 operations in a row go disastrously wrong for Dickinson, he's about to quit. Then he gets a tip from 88 that sets him on the trail of the Lokners as the source behind all the illegal scans and children farms.

With the help of Abdul and an assassin scan loyal to 88, Dickinson must confront Lokner while the world around him is falling apart. It doesn't help that 88 has her own plans for humanity and 88 has no mercy.

The book ends 1000 years in the future with scans as the de facto life form.

My Thoughts:

From a purely entertainment factor, this book was pure awesomesauce. Child assassins in suped up killer robot bodies, digital minds going insane, epic battles where scans take over electronics, massive and humongous acts of devastation, this had it all in spades.

Fletcher doesn't shy away from brutality. Whether in thought or action, I as the reader was not spared. From the horror of how children are kept as livestock to be harvested for their brains and sold into slavery to the idea of corporations “selling” the idea of scans as a way to cheat death, for a mere 20year term of servitude, with all the attending small print we as citizens of the 21^st century know to fear.

There was no hope. Griffin, the human who wants to be a hero and save the world, ends up being broken and then the woman he loved, who is now a scan, plots to have him killed so he can be scan'ed and join her. How soul destroying is that? Then the end where 88 turns all Skynet was so telegraphed that it didn't really come as a surprise.

I thought Fletcher did an excellent job of portraying just how something like “scans” would work out in our world. How it might be used, abused, misused, etc. It was very eye opening. However, it was all predicated on the fact that a human brain could be digitized. If you think something like that could actually happen, then this was a very scary dystopean prophecy. If you don't, then it's just another prediction about a future by someone who has lost hope themselves.

While I enjoyed my time spent on this, I have to admit, I didn't have any desire to seek out other books by this guy. I don't enjoy wallowing in hopelessness and despair. It also didn't help that I'm convinced that to you have to have a mind, body and will to be alive and to be human. Remove one and the other two are just ingredients, not something viably alive.

I did have one confusing issue. Most of this takes place in 2046 but right near the end things jump to 3052 but it feels like it should be 2152. It didn't come across as a jump of 1000 years but just a generation. I might have mis-read though, as I don't pay attention to dates real well in books.

If I see another Fletcher book really praised AND it has super cool over like this one, then I might seek it out. But if not, I'm good with having read just this one. Fletcher's worldview is just too depressing for me.

★★★☆½

Gridlinked (Polity: Agent Cormac #1)

^{This review is written with a GPL 3.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot, Booklikes & Librarything by  Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission.}
Title: Gridlinked
Series: Polity: Agent Cormac #1
Author: Neal Asher
Rating: 4.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SFF
Pages: 433
Format: Kindle Digital edition

Synopsis:

Ian Cormac has been gridlinked for 30 years where 20 years is supposed to be the maximum. Ian's effectiveness in the service of Earth's AI is what caused the continued link. Recently though, Ian has started exhibiting signs of gridlink addiction, an inability to interact with other humans and unable to think for himself.

When a planetwide accident happens on the remote world of Samarkand and an extraterrestial alien known as Dragon reappears, Earth Central sends in Agent Cormac. However, the AI always has games within games within games and having unplugged Ian, allows his enemies to know where he is going. Why solve 1 problem when you can solve 5?

My Thoughts

Another home run of a read.  Having read Asher starting in 2010, with this book and continuing on his Polity series, it was good to re-read this and see how his writing has been polished up. Make no mistake, this was rough writing; not bad, but without some of the polish you see in later books.

If I had to choose one word to describe this all, Ultra-violence would be that word. Entrails, brain matter, dismembered limbs, broken, burst, or burnt body parts, alien flesh or fluid spattered across the landscape. Guns, garrottes, bombs, knives, lasers, bare hands [or golem hands as the case may be], alien teeth, cars, spaceships, all are used as weapons. It is phracking awesome!

This is a novel, and series, about Humanity and Post Humanity. If a human can live for 200 years, upload his mind to a golem body if he so chooses all the while living in a society run by A.I.'s of godlike intelligence, what kind of society will emerge? Asher doesn't get sidetracked from his story to show us the nitty-gritty but we do get little peeks here and there. And those little glimpses are fascinating.

To the plotmobile! Space-gates connect planets. One explodes and destroys a worlds' population. Ian must investigate and figure out what is going on. At the same time, some of Ian's old enemies are tracking him down to kill him. Add in an alien and my goodness, you have so many chainsaws in the air that any guess might kill you if wrong.

The whole idea of aug's and messing around with your mind to expand it intrigues me to no end. The idea of A.I.'s ruling humanity in the background while letting humanity grow mentally is also fascinating. Of course,the whole thing is predicated on the idea that something better can come from something lesser. A machine intelligence that is greater than humanity and without humanity's flaws. Great idea, but I can't buy it for real and so it kicks me out of the story occasionally.

Overall, I loved this book, was just as intrigued this time around as I was in '10, loved the violence, love the mystery of the plot and am looking forward to the rest of the series. These rereads have been good so far and so I am waiting for the other shoe to drop. Let's see if I can put that off for a bit, shall we?

Here's some alternate covers, because some of these are just plain awesome. I'm usually not a big fan of putting pictures into reviews, but in this case, I feel some of these represent the book better than the cover here, especially the last one.