branch_c 's review for:

These Prisoning Hills by Christopher Rowe

3.0

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Interesting setting and creative premise; there’s some promising exploration of what it might mean for an AI to take charge of a geographical area and engage in battle with humans.  But this book is too short to satisfactorily expand on this premise.  It mostly centers on Marcia’s feelings about her part in the situation, both in the present and the past.  But the tone of her internal musing is strangely flat, and none of the other characters comes across as significant enough to be interesting.  The writing is solid and evocative, but I found the story to be lacking and inconclusive.