Autonomous

A Novel

paperback, 304 pages

Published Sept. 4, 2018 by Tor Books.

ISBN:
978-0-7653-9208-4
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4 stars (9 reviews)

Autonomous features a rakish female pharmaceutical pirate named Jack who traverses the world in her own submarine. A notorious anti-patent scientist who has styled herself as a Robin Hood heroine fighting to bring cheap drugs to the poor, Jack’s latest drug is leaving a trail of lethal overdoses across what used to be North America—a drug that compels people to become addicted to their work.

On Jack’s trail are an unlikely pair: an emotionally shut-down military agent and his partner, Paladin, a young military robot, who fall in love against all expectations. Autonomous alternates between the activities of Jack and her co-conspirators, and Elias and Paladin, as they all race to stop a bizarre drug epidemic that is tearing apart lives, causing trains to crash, and flooding New York City.

6 editions

Eher enttäuschend als cyberpunk Meilenstein

2 stars

Content warning Spoiler für die Sex-mit-Abhängigen Storyline

A new favorite

5 stars

Hard to believe this book is six years old; the author works a lot of very relatable and still timely concerns into her characters. I thoroughly enjoyed the themes of interconnectedness and corporatism, and the characters' searches for meanings and identities all converging was reminiscent of The Wizard Of Oz. I enjoyed the senses of urgency and purpose, and appreciated how the author described intimacy (always difficult to convey in a pleasing way). This work could make an excellent film, and I hope the author continues to create many similar worlds for us to enjoy.

Autonomous more human than AI

5 stars

Of course an author has less say on the cover blurbs of a book, but I don't consider this book the Neuromancer of biotech and AI. For me it's about a balance of autonomy and conformance, and where your balance as an individual is centred. The mix of absolutes and different perspectives makes it worth reading, although somehow the characters can feel a bit shallow, just missing some depth. For me some of the instant click with the main characters is missing, but this builds up over time.

Review of 'Autonomous: A Novel' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

It took me a long time to finish this book, well over a year, even though I really liked the first part of it where the key players are introduced. The worldbuilding here is thorough and ambitious, with much of civilization pushed up towards the poles owing to climate change, corporations which are the global power players, and an understanding of what is normal and expected for humans and for bots. I had a harder time focusing in on the settings and some of the characters, maybe because they were both somewhat alien to me and in some ways not different enough from the way places and people seem in our own world with our own current preoccupations. The depiction of how bots think and feel was the most interesting part to me. I don't know if I'm qualified to say a lot about the way the author develops an …

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4 stars
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5 stars
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4 stars