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tricapra's review against another edition
3.0
Definitely not as slick as Company Town. I don't think I feel I need to read more of this series. I enjoyed some of the world building elements but the whole thing had too much YA flavor for my enjoyment. Also, I was interested as the vN being /other/ than human but Amy just felt like a standard ya protag. Wish the story had focused less on her and more on the cool world Ashby had crafted.
serru's review against another edition
3.0
In the future, anticipating the End of Days, a megachurch pours money into artificial intelligence to develop von Neumann machines ("vN"), a series of self-replicating humanoids meant as companions for those who don't make it into Heaven. When Judgement Day fails to arrive, these human-like robots are left on Earth to live among human beings. They are programmed with a "failsafe"-- a mechanism that makes them unable to withstand seeing a human being hurt, in order to ensure that they will never harm a human.
Amy Peterson is a vN living in a mixed human-vN family. She is a replica (an "iteration") of her vN mother, Charlotte. While normally vN mature to adulthood in a year, Amy's human father has kept her on a strict diet that stunts her growth, keeping her maturation at a human rate. At 5 years old, Amy is highly unusual for a vN, with a child's appearance when most others her age have reached adulthood long ago. While trying to protect her mother from her grandmother Portia, Amy eats her grandma, integrating Portia's synthetic body into her own, which causes an instantaneous growth spurt, pushing her into her adult form. At the same time, Portia's consciousness is absorbed into Amy's own memory banks and Amy discovers her failsafe has failed as well. With her grandmother inside her head, Amy goes on the run as the police and government officials try to track her down.
There is plenty to think about in vN. In terms of scientific and technological progress, author Madeline Ashby is exploring how artificial intelligence might fit (or not fit) into human society. vN are treated as foreign entities by humans, tolerated but not quite accepted with human reactions toward them ranging from the sympathetic to disgust. An interlude in the middle of the book has Amy working at a cosplay restaurant where all the workers are vN and the customers are human. As a waitress, Amy has to wear different outfits (eg. nurse, cowgirl) and is essentially part of the restaurant's entertainment, play-acting a role for humans. I think this is meant to show how, despite their sentience, vN have difficulty finding a place in a human society where many people want to see them as merely robots and machines, placing them in an uncomfortable position between person and object.
Also explored is the relationship between parent and child. At its core, vN is really about family, growing up and belonging, and Ashby draws parallels between the parent-child relationship with the vN ability to self-replicate. A number of vN characters are compared to their "mothers" or "fathers", the vN that they are replicated from, questioning if children can transcend their hereditary influences. Amy's father Jack also serves as an example of how parents can sometimes decide things for their children, in order to ensure a good life for their child, but in reality, this decision can be damaging. By restricting Amy's food so she can grow up at the same rate as a human child, Jack hopes that it will help her intergrate better into human society, but it also hints of child abuse, since while Amy feels no pain at the lack of nourishment, she does mention feeling a constant hunger and emptiness. It is also this hunger that drives her to eat her grandma.
In terms of the plotline, vN is a fairly typical on-the-run/road trip story. The writing is somewhat disjointed, most noticeably in the first half of the book and during action scenes. There are not enough explanations or descriptions for the background and setting so the book is difficult to get into. I would have liked more information on how the world in vN came to be the way it is. A lot of scientific- and technical-sounding terminology is used without only vague allusions to their real meaning and never get fully explained until well into the story. In the second half of the book, the writing flowed more smoothly and the narrative turns toward uncovering Portia's and Charlotte's past, and the book takes on a more typical hero-looking-for-answers storyline. It was enjoyable to follow Amy through her journey as she discovers her own special qualities as a vN and learns the truth about the antagonistic relationship between her mother and grandmother. However, the plot becomes predictable at this point and while vN offers plenty of food for thought, it stays within conventional tropes and plotlines rather than going into more subversive territory. It doesn't challenge the idea of what a robot story is.
Still, there is plenty to like about this book and science fiction fans should definitely check it out. vN is full of fresh and interesting ideas and the steady pace of the plot as well as the many likeable characters will keep readers' attentions. The writing could use some polishing up, but I like that Ashby is well versed in contemporary pop culture, seamlessly weaving references to science fiction, anime and online culture into the narrative. It seems that a sequel will be coming out as well, and I know I will definitely be looking out for that.
I received this book from the publisher via Netgalley.com in exchange for an honest review.
Amy Peterson is a vN living in a mixed human-vN family. She is a replica (an "iteration") of her vN mother, Charlotte. While normally vN mature to adulthood in a year, Amy's human father has kept her on a strict diet that stunts her growth, keeping her maturation at a human rate. At 5 years old, Amy is highly unusual for a vN, with a child's appearance when most others her age have reached adulthood long ago. While trying to protect her mother from her grandmother Portia, Amy eats her grandma, integrating Portia's synthetic body into her own, which causes an instantaneous growth spurt, pushing her into her adult form. At the same time, Portia's consciousness is absorbed into Amy's own memory banks and Amy discovers her failsafe has failed as well. With her grandmother inside her head, Amy goes on the run as the police and government officials try to track her down.
There is plenty to think about in vN. In terms of scientific and technological progress, author Madeline Ashby is exploring how artificial intelligence might fit (or not fit) into human society. vN are treated as foreign entities by humans, tolerated but not quite accepted with human reactions toward them ranging from the sympathetic to disgust. An interlude in the middle of the book has Amy working at a cosplay restaurant where all the workers are vN and the customers are human. As a waitress, Amy has to wear different outfits (eg. nurse, cowgirl) and is essentially part of the restaurant's entertainment, play-acting a role for humans. I think this is meant to show how, despite their sentience, vN have difficulty finding a place in a human society where many people want to see them as merely robots and machines, placing them in an uncomfortable position between person and object.
Also explored is the relationship between parent and child. At its core, vN is really about family, growing up and belonging, and Ashby draws parallels between the parent-child relationship with the vN ability to self-replicate. A number of vN characters are compared to their "mothers" or "fathers", the vN that they are replicated from, questioning if children can transcend their hereditary influences. Amy's father Jack also serves as an example of how parents can sometimes decide things for their children, in order to ensure a good life for their child, but in reality, this decision can be damaging. By restricting Amy's food so she can grow up at the same rate as a human child, Jack hopes that it will help her intergrate better into human society, but it also hints of child abuse, since while Amy feels no pain at the lack of nourishment, she does mention feeling a constant hunger and emptiness. It is also this hunger that drives her to eat her grandma.
In terms of the plotline, vN is a fairly typical on-the-run/road trip story. The writing is somewhat disjointed, most noticeably in the first half of the book and during action scenes. There are not enough explanations or descriptions for the background and setting so the book is difficult to get into. I would have liked more information on how the world in vN came to be the way it is. A lot of scientific- and technical-sounding terminology is used without only vague allusions to their real meaning and never get fully explained until well into the story. In the second half of the book, the writing flowed more smoothly and the narrative turns toward uncovering Portia's and Charlotte's past, and the book takes on a more typical hero-looking-for-answers storyline. It was enjoyable to follow Amy through her journey as she discovers her own special qualities as a vN and learns the truth about the antagonistic relationship between her mother and grandmother. However, the plot becomes predictable at this point and while vN offers plenty of food for thought, it stays within conventional tropes and plotlines rather than going into more subversive territory. It doesn't challenge the idea of what a robot story is.
Still, there is plenty to like about this book and science fiction fans should definitely check it out. vN is full of fresh and interesting ideas and the steady pace of the plot as well as the many likeable characters will keep readers' attentions. The writing could use some polishing up, but I like that Ashby is well versed in contemporary pop culture, seamlessly weaving references to science fiction, anime and online culture into the narrative. It seems that a sequel will be coming out as well, and I know I will definitely be looking out for that.
I received this book from the publisher via Netgalley.com in exchange for an honest review.
ninj's review against another edition
adventurous
medium-paced
3.25
I had high hopes for vN, having read Company Town, and it fell short. That said, the bulk of it in the middle wasn't bad, and some of the ending chapters were ... more hit and miss. Some really interesting bits, and then some, I don't know, filler. The start was also particularly weak. The scene setting, some of the characters, and particularly the dialogue. So I had a very rough start with it, from the child and the granny as the blurb elaborates, until it settled down into the middle section for fairly solidly entertaining roadtrip combined with exploration of the type of von neumonn robots.
ayami's review against another edition
1.0
Interesting ideas but I couldn't make myself care about any of the characters.
There was so many cool directions the story could have gone, but it somehow fizzled out quite early on. The dialogue was formulaic and the plot was predictable. The whole book could do with an extra round of editing to cut out the fillers.
Found myself bored a lot. Read about a half and then skimmed the rest.
There was so many cool directions the story could have gone, but it somehow fizzled out quite early on. The dialogue was formulaic and the plot was predictable. The whole book could do with an extra round of editing to cut out the fillers.
Found myself bored a lot. Read about a half and then skimmed the rest.
patchworkbunny's review against another edition
4.0
Interesting take on artificial intelligence; what does a failsafe to always do what humans want mean when robots become truly sentient? The failsafe makes them love humans, it kills them when they see violence being done to humans.
Sentience is not freedom, Portia said. Real freedom is the ability to say no.
Sentience is not freedom, Portia said. Real freedom is the ability to say no.
thewallflower00's review against another edition
2.0
In the first chapter, a five-year-old child robot eats her estranged grandmother, python-style, and goes from kindergartner to adult in an instant from the additional biomass.
Good opening, and there are some interesting WTF circumstances (like robots were created to fill out the Earth after the rapture) but the rest stagnates. Once again, it's a book where the robots don't act like robots. They act like people. The only difference is they know they were artificially created. But other than that, they eat, they fall in love, they procreate. You can't tell the difference. The interesting things are just background -- they don't come into play with the plot and don't even make plausible sense in the scheme of the world.
The story is about programming as parenting. The problem is it felt more like a summer blockbuster action piece with chase sequences and romances that don't blossom until the end, and for me, those just don't work in a book format. It was a sludge to get through. It's a promising idea, and it does use some tropes like the existence of smart "gray goo" and robots in/as families in new ways. I can see this appealing to those few who liked A.I. and Brazil.
Good opening, and there are some interesting WTF circumstances (like robots were created to fill out the Earth after the rapture) but the rest stagnates. Once again, it's a book where the robots don't act like robots. They act like people. The only difference is they know they were artificially created. But other than that, they eat, they fall in love, they procreate. You can't tell the difference. The interesting things are just background -- they don't come into play with the plot and don't even make plausible sense in the scheme of the world.
The story is about programming as parenting. The problem is it felt more like a summer blockbuster action piece with chase sequences and romances that don't blossom until the end, and for me, those just don't work in a book format. It was a sludge to get through. It's a promising idea, and it does use some tropes like the existence of smart "gray goo" and robots in/as families in new ways. I can see this appealing to those few who liked A.I. and Brazil.
dee9401's review against another edition
4.0
I was looking forward to reading a new scifi book and vN by Madeline Ashby sounded like a good one. I read a few reviews of it (io9, the Guardian and maybe somewhere else) and looked forward to seeing what a new generation had up its sleeve. Most of the stuff I read when I was younger was written in the 50s through the early 80s.
I liked vN and strove to finish it, but I felt the book was a bit too obvious with its message. A little preachy, if you will. Scifi is a great tool for talking about contemporary social concerns while framing it in something more easily digestible. You don't have to bang the reader over the head, but I thought that the situation with Amy, her family, Javier and Junior was just too obvious and in my face. She had a great story and maybe it could have been edited down a little more to distill it.
I'd recommend this and I'll keep my eyes open for more by this new author.
I liked vN and strove to finish it, but I felt the book was a bit too obvious with its message. A little preachy, if you will. Scifi is a great tool for talking about contemporary social concerns while framing it in something more easily digestible. You don't have to bang the reader over the head, but I thought that the situation with Amy, her family, Javier and Junior was just too obvious and in my face. She had a great story and maybe it could have been edited down a little more to distill it.
I'd recommend this and I'll keep my eyes open for more by this new author.