Reviews tagging 'Murder'

Autonomous by Annalee Newitz

11 reviews

indeedithappens's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Drug use, and Slavery

Moderate: Mental illness, Self harm, Mass/school shootings, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Police brutality, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Abandonment, Death, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Xenophobia, Addiction, Alcohol, Blood, Confinement, Cursing, Gun violence, Homophobia, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Stalking, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Body horror, Child abuse, Classism, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Torture, Toxic friendship, Trafficking, Bullying, Colonisation, Emotional abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Gaslighting, Grief, Physical abuse, Domestic abuse, Gore, Medical content, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, and Rape

bebidocrimes's review against another edition

mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This opens an interesting discussion into where strict pharmacy patents can lead, and the idea of what is private property and who has the rights to it. It shows many ways a revolution can be conceptualized and enacted, as well as the downfalls and dangers. The indenture culture in this world is fascinating and horrifying, where if AI can be indentured for the cost of their creation, well then people can be too. This makes Threezed and Med an incredible foil to one another. I don't think Paladin has completely thought through her choices in the end, and I believe the loyalty programming did affect her decision making after autonomy. She's being fetishized and she subconsciously recognizes this through Eliasz not understanding or wanting to understand bots outside of anthropomorphizing her.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Police brutality, Death, Gore, Trafficking, Cursing, Blood, Slavery, Addiction, Medical content, Sexual content, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Grief, Gun violence, Torture, Drug abuse, Drug use, and Murder

Moderate: Alcohol, Fire/Fire injury, and Rape

Minor: Pedophilia and Vomit

imjustadow's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.25

This is such a complicated review to write.

On the one hand, I loved Jack. Bisexual, anti-corporate, emancipator pirate lady? I'm all in, say less. Her life and experiences were very enjoyable to read and I really enjoyed her interactions with the other characters in her insane life.

But GOD, the stuff with Eliasz just kind of ruined everything for me. I don't like the way his "relationship" with Paladin played out starting from THAT chapter (if you've read it, you know which one I'm talking about). The fact that it was never resolved really made having any sympathy at all for Eliasz' quest to stop Jack next to impossible

Eliasz, at the end of the day, is a deeply homophobic cop who has no issue whatsoever with killing people to get what he wants. And more disgusting than that, he feels all of his actions are justified by him "following the law." He mentions that his time hunting down child traffickers was hell and that now that he was in patent law everything was simple and black and white, but that's such a one-dimensional state for a character to begin in, and never grow from as a person.

I loved the worldbuilding, the concept is fascinating, but I really ultimately did not enjoy this book, and I really really wanted to

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Transphobia, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Pandemic/Epidemic, Torture, Addiction, Homophobia, Violence, Grief, Medical trauma, Cursing, Blood, Trafficking, Injury/Injury detail, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Sexual assault, Kidnapping, Rape, Slavery, Drug use, Murder, and Sexual content

At the end of the day, I would say that the stuff with Eliasz represents a more realistic depiction of someone with deeply internalized homophobia who never actually improves from that point. And if we're considering how some people in real life are, that's not abnormal. However, to write Eliasz's actions out to be anything other than a villain in the story and then to give him a "happy" ending, it just wasn't for me. The author made choices I wouldn't have, and that is their prerogative. I just really didn't enjoy the choices made for Eliasz

julaun's review against another edition

adventurous dark hopeful tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Rape, and Murder

dchaploeb's review

adventurous dark emotional hopeful reflective fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Police brutality, Slavery, and Trafficking

Moderate: Violence, Torture, and Sexual violence

Minor: Rape

samdalefox's review against another edition

adventurous medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.25

Future dystopia, bisexual, pirate, social justice activist, hi-tech low-life(?) society. This is a tricky one to rate. I loved the premise and themes. I loved all the constituent parts individually, but they just never meshed together as a whole for me. The whole world felt jumbled, the individual storylines felt superficial, and even the characters themselves felt flat. I can't say for sure this was poorly written since I still enjoyed reading it, but I really feel that this book had more potential and somehow it let itself down. I wanted more!

There are HUGE topics introduced such as intellectual property rights and access to medicines, slavery/indenture, autonomy, robotic intelligence, corporate capitalism, and climate change and none are sufficiently explored. The novel simply needed to be longer with more depth to give us time to immerse ourselves in the jargon-overfilled world and actually get to know these characters and feel the lives they are living and the consequences of their actions. The whole thing came across more superficial that intended, especially considering the moral arguments around literally any one of the topics listed above. Even the goddamn romances were superficial. I found the ending pleasing in some areas, anticlimatic overall, and a bit confusing

why did the story end focussing upon Paladin and Eliasz instead of Jack?

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Andystone's review sums it up:

"...The plot follows two different sets of characters, switching off every chapter until the climax where they meet… for all of one page. There was no discussion, no one learned anything and nothing was solved. By the time I got through 80% of the story, I worried that there wouldn’t be enough time to do something compelling to give a reason for the trials and tribulations of the previous couple hundred pages. Sadly, those worries were well founded...."

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Drug use, Homophobia, and Slavery

Minor: Sexual content, Trafficking, Forced institutionalization, Murder, Colonisation, and Violence

quihi's review

adventurous tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Addiction, Child abuse, Murder, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Torture, Adult/minor relationship, Violence, Police brutality, Sexual violence, Injury/Injury detail, Trafficking, and Slavery

Moderate: Homophobia

caseythereader's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Sexual content, Drug abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Child abuse, Death, Grief, Murder, Police brutality, Gore, Gun violence, Torture, Trafficking, Violence, Homophobia, and Slavery

Minor: Rape

charlieleelee's review

adventurous dark tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Police brutality, Rape, Slavery, Torture, Blood, Child abuse, Classism, Drug use, Murder, and Trafficking

renbot's review against another edition

adventurous dark reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

The gender revelations had me very conflicted in the end, and despite the clarification of the robot's feelings toward the concept of gender, as a trans person I had a lot of mixed emotions about the relationship between Eliasz and Paladin. Not sure whether it was good for either of them in the end, though I'm not sure that was the point.

The concept and execution were both incredibly strong, though at times I was taken out of the story by the complexity of the descriptions of the futuristic technology at play in this book's universe.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Violence and Murder

Minor: Homophobia