Autonomous: A Novel

298 pages

Published Sept. 19, 2017 by Tor Books.

ISBN:
978-0-7653-9209-1
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4 stars (47 reviews)

When anything can be owned, how can we be free

Earth, 2144. Jack is an anti-patent scientist turned drug pirate, traversing the world in a submarine as a pharmaceutical Robin Hood, fabricating cheap scrips for poor people who can’t otherwise afford them. But her latest drug hack has left a trail of lethal overdoses as people become addicted to their work, doing repetitive tasks until they become unsafe or insane.

Hot on her trail, an unlikely pair: Eliasz, a brooding military agent, and his robotic partner, Paladin. As they race to stop information about the sinister origins of Jack’s drug from getting out, they begin to form an uncommonly close bond that neither of them fully understand.

And underlying it all is one fundamental question: Is freedom possible in a culture where everything, even people, can be owned?

7 editions

Eher enttäuschend als cyberpunk Meilenstein

2 stars

Content warning Spoiler für die Sex-mit-Abhängigen Storyline

A new favorite

5 stars

Hard to believe this book is six years old; the author works a lot of very relatable and still timely concerns into her characters. I thoroughly enjoyed the themes of interconnectedness and corporatism, and the characters' searches for meanings and identities all converging was reminiscent of The Wizard Of Oz. I enjoyed the senses of urgency and purpose, and appreciated how the author described intimacy (always difficult to convey in a pleasing way). This work could make an excellent film, and I hope the author continues to create many similar worlds for us to enjoy.

Autonomous more human than AI

5 stars

Of course an author has less say on the cover blurbs of a book, but I don't consider this book the Neuromancer of biotech and AI. For me it's about a balance of autonomy and conformance, and where your balance as an individual is centred. The mix of absolutes and different perspectives makes it worth reading, although somehow the characters can feel a bit shallow, just missing some depth. For me some of the instant click with the main characters is missing, but this builds up over time.

A review from Goodreads

5 stars

Fascinating sci-fi that discusses Artificial Intelligence, bio-hacking, patents, human-bot relationships, and piracy. It had that Asimov’s feel making me wonder about robots programming and how they could develop consciousness and feelings. I felt empathy for all the characters even the evil ones! Although there’s no good versus evil. It’s more like everybody’s doing what they believe is right and the arguments are all valid.

Review of 'Autonomous: A Novel' on 'Storygraph'

No rating

why does the 50 year old woman MC call a 20 year old asian man who she clearly thinks of as a kid as looking like a "yaoi character? and then having sex with him despite acknowledging that this was inappropriate but a big deal doesn't seem to have ever been made of it? also, less importantly, why the ridiculous "pulled some 420 out of her pocket" how-do-you-do-fellow-kids shit?

Strange and enjoyable

4 stars

Fun action packed story, lots happening, but also a very dark dystopia. The way tech is woven into the story is really interesting, well researched and full of accurate little details. The structure of the story is cool, with the two main focal characters in direct opposition. It creates empathy with the "villains" - who have a very weird plot.

Review of 'Autonomous: A Novel' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

Wow this was amazing. One of the best books I have read this year.


So this story follows Jack, a pharma pirate who is being chased down by the company she pirated drugs from after dumping a load of an exact copy of a new drug called Zacuity on the market causing a lot of people to die from a flaw in the drug which causes extreme addition to work.

She runs around the world trying to create a fix for the addition, and tries not to get killed by the agents that are trying to stop her. She's Bi (yay!) and pretty cool.

Half the story focuses on Jack and her cadre of friends who help her achieve this, and the other half on the agents, Eliasz and Paladin who're chasing her.

Some context. In this universe AIs are real in the form of (mostly) humaniod robots. Robots are …

Review of 'Autonomous' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

This is a difficult review to write. Autonomous is a very well written and smart book. This book presented many ideas that made me question some of my own opinions and how we are steering the future. This is a book I will be recommending to many people based on that.
Unfortunately, I just didn't enjoy the story. I feel that this book is so important though that I still gave it 4 stars.

Review of 'Autonomous: A Novel' on Goodreads

2 stars

I am a touch disappointed by this book. I was looking forward to reading it, especially considering the praise received from [a:William Gibson|9226|William Gibson|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1373826214p2/9226.jpg] and [a:Neal Stephenson|545|Neal Stephenson|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1430920344p2/545.jpg]. It simply did not live up to my expectations.
The overall story is good, the characters are good, and it raises some good questions.

Review of 'Autonomous' on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

It was okay but didn't blow my mind! I found the Adventures in Near Future Patent Law tedious and the ending unsatisfying. I thought it was setting itself up for some deeper exploration of the notion of autonomy (among other things), but it didn't ultimately follow through.

The writing style betrays the author's background in science journalism, with little immersiveness or emotional connection to the characters. On the whole it takes itself far too seriously and almost feels like even the author wasn't all that interested in her own characters or story.

There's also some LGBT(?) stuff that didn't sit at all right with me, which is confusing since I know the author is part of the queer community, but like... I don't really see how to read it in a way that doesn't reinforce some pretty bad homophobic/transphobic stereotypes.

What most disappointed me, in the end, was that the …

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