Nick reviewed Paradise -1 by David Wellington (Red Space, #1)
Like slowly going insane in space, with no one to hear you scream but a psycho AI
4 stars
A cinematic, action-packed, deep-space horror that explores familiar sci-fi and AI tropes in a unique way, and with striking imagery.
The scene was set here quickly and intriguingly. While a little slow at the start, it picks up a little more than halfway through. The slow build of the psych horror elements balanced by the light-hearted camaraderie between crew-members, of both organic and artificial intelligence, gives off a Wolf-359 feel. There's some things going wrong, but it's manageable and things don't seem too hopeless... yet.
Then it picks up and it's suddenly giving Dead Space, only with hard-light holograms, AI avatars, and robots instead of your usual fleshy mutations. (There were also a few instances that made me think of StarCraft, like when it was described how construction vehicles could be 3D-printed in 15 minutes to help get a colony going. Ummmm, we require additional pylons!)
The writing …
A cinematic, action-packed, deep-space horror that explores familiar sci-fi and AI tropes in a unique way, and with striking imagery.
The scene was set here quickly and intriguingly. While a little slow at the start, it picks up a little more than halfway through. The slow build of the psych horror elements balanced by the light-hearted camaraderie between crew-members, of both organic and artificial intelligence, gives off a Wolf-359 feel. There's some things going wrong, but it's manageable and things don't seem too hopeless... yet.
Then it picks up and it's suddenly giving Dead Space, only with hard-light holograms, AI avatars, and robots instead of your usual fleshy mutations. (There were also a few instances that made me think of StarCraft, like when it was described how construction vehicles could be 3D-printed in 15 minutes to help get a colony going. Ummmm, we require additional pylons!)
The writing style here was excessively detailed in its description, but that's not to say the descriptive elements weren't beautiful. It's what made this thing so cinematic and easy to visualize in the first place. There are many memorable images throughout, like early on when we get the first hint that there's something up with the AIs and we see the spooky blue light of an avatar as it walks through an otherwise dark and deserted spaceship.
Actually, there was a pretty good range representing the ways artificial intelligence might manifest: holograms, 3D printed robots, voices or text just part of a machine. There's even little devices that fit around the wrist like inconspicuous accessories. Add to these your usual existential/philosophical considerations of what it is to be human and feel emotions. How might an AI develop emotions or experience sensations like hunger? How might it deal with those feelings? (And it was this part that reminded me of The Orphans podcast.)
Finally, the memetic virus the characters are up against, spreading through consciousness, AI or not, reminds me of The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall. Though not quite as meta, the plot has some heavy existentialism that gets close.
Thank you to Netgalley and Hachette for a free digital copy of the audiobook in exchange for my honest feedback!
