Review by kari_f - Of Monsters and Mainframes

kari_f 's review for:

Of Monsters and Mainframes by Barbara Truelove

4.0

adventurous funny tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

You might read the title and/or blurb and think that a book about a space ship AI interacting with mythological beings like vampires and mummies might be fairly ridiculous and downright absurd. And to be fair, you’d be right, in a downright delightful way! And along with the quirky silliness comes some excellent storytelling, delightful found family, and sci-fi hijinx.

I was hooked from the first page, which I needed to use a binary translator to read. We start off with a mystery: a space ship AI realizing all of the humans on board are no longer alive. This is the start of conversation between the ship AI and the medical bay AI, as well as what some might consider a curse and others might just view as interstellar bad luck.

Through several voyages between Earth and Alpha Centauri B Habitation 004, we get more of the AI personalities, meet new and wonderful side characters, and experience more space related shenanigans. We also dive into deeper topics like self-worth, identity, and the meaning of our existence. One reason I love sci-fi is that we often get to grapple with aspects of humanity by means of nonhuman characters, and this book did so while also keeping the tone light and absurd in the best sort of way. I mean, where else can you ponder the meaning of life while solving yet another space murder at the hands of a creature that should only exist in stories?

I loved this unique melding of myth and science fiction, and I’m so interested to see what else Barbara Truelove has brewing in that creative brain!

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Content Warnings