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azrah786's review against another edition
4.0
[This review can also be found on my BLOG]
**I read this book as a judge for the third annual Self Published Science Fiction Competition (SPSFC), this review is solely my own and does not reflect the opinions of the whole team**
CW: violence, murder, death, discussions of suicide/self-harm, infertility/pregnancy
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The book basically follows an Automaton who has been awoken after 5 thousand years of being in statis in order to deal with an Anomaly that has arisen on Earth. Through the guidance of a holographic AI, the Automaton XR-345x is led on a quest to uncover the history of the world, from the creation of the Automata, to their fall out with humanity all the way through to humanity’s ascension to a digital consciousness. Only there is a timer to the directive as a rebel Automaton group is hunting XR down to stop it.
This had the feel of a classic sci-fi novel but the story itself is fresh and I really liked the way the narrative was formatted in segments of connected accounts – like a collation of short stories – that lead you through the book. The opening chapters easily hook you in and Young’s writing continues to keep you engaged throughout.
Each of the aforementioned segments focuses on a different moment in history and a different set of characters (though there is a very clever connection) which was a little confusing at first but the further I read the more I realised how well it worked.
The characterisation in general was good though and there is a great balance of humour and emotion which made it easy to get invested in what was going to happen just as much as XR was as it was revisiting the past.
I really enjoyed following the socio-political commentary around AI and humanity and how it was shifting and changing through time. I do feel like sometimes the story dragged a little and this often came down to when the narrator was monologuing fragments of history. These parts provided really interesting context but felt slightly info dumpy. That being said the need to know all of the details and how the events linked up kept me reading just as much as the suspense of the chase from XR’s adversaries and this mysterious Anomaly.
I did manage to catch on to some of the twists and reveals by the end but this didn’t deter my overall enjoyment of the book!
**I read this book as a judge for the third annual Self Published Science Fiction Competition (SPSFC), this review is solely my own and does not reflect the opinions of the whole team**
CW: violence, murder, death, discussions of suicide/self-harm, infertility/pregnancy
--
The book basically follows an Automaton who has been awoken after 5 thousand years of being in statis in order to deal with an Anomaly that has arisen on Earth. Through the guidance of a holographic AI, the Automaton XR-345x is led on a quest to uncover the history of the world, from the creation of the Automata, to their fall out with humanity all the way through to humanity’s ascension to a digital consciousness. Only there is a timer to the directive as a rebel Automaton group is hunting XR down to stop it.
This had the feel of a classic sci-fi novel but the story itself is fresh and I really liked the way the narrative was formatted in segments of connected accounts – like a collation of short stories – that lead you through the book. The opening chapters easily hook you in and Young’s writing continues to keep you engaged throughout.
Each of the aforementioned segments focuses on a different moment in history and a different set of characters (though there is a very clever connection) which was a little confusing at first but the further I read the more I realised how well it worked.
The characterisation in general was good though and there is a great balance of humour and emotion which made it easy to get invested in what was going to happen just as much as XR was as it was revisiting the past.
I really enjoyed following the socio-political commentary around AI and humanity and how it was shifting and changing through time. I do feel like sometimes the story dragged a little and this often came down to when the narrator was monologuing fragments of history. These parts provided really interesting context but felt slightly info dumpy. That being said the need to know all of the details and how the events linked up kept me reading just as much as the suspense of the chase from XR’s adversaries and this mysterious Anomaly.
I did manage to catch on to some of the twists and reveals by the end but this didn’t deter my overall enjoyment of the book!
Content Warnings
Moderate: Violence, Murder, Suicidal thoughts, Self harm, Infertility, Death, and Pregnancy
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