Rose/House

by Arkady Martine

eBook, 128 pages

English language

Published by Subterranean Press.

ISBN:: 978-1-64524-034-1

(20 reviews)

Basit Deniau’s houses were haunted to begin with.

A house embedded with an artificial intelligence is a common thing: a house that is an artificial intelligence, infused in every load-bearing beam and fine marble tile with a thinking creature that is not human? That is something else altogether. But now Deniau’s been dead a year, and Rose House is locked up tight, as commanded by the architect’s will: all his possessions and files and sketches are confined in its archives, and their only keeper is Rose House itself. Rose House, and one other.

Dr. Selene Gisil, one of Deniau’s former protégé, is permitted to come into Rose House once a year. She alone may open Rose House’s vaults, look at drawings and art, talk with Rose House’s animating intelligence all she likes. Until this week, Dr. Gisil was the only person whom Rose House spoke to.

But even an animate …

Basit Deniau’s houses were haunted to begin with.

But even an animate intelligence that haunts a house has some failsafes common to all AIs. For instance: all AIs must report the presence of a dead body to the nearest law enforcement agency.

There is a dead person in Rose House. The house says so. It is not Basit Deniau, and it is not Dr. Gisil. It is someone else. Rose House, having completed its duty of care and informed Detective Maritza Smith of the China Lake police precinct that there is in fact a dead person inside it, dead of unnatural causes—has shut up.

No one can get inside Rose House, except Dr. Gisil. Dr. Gisil was not in North America when Rose House called the China Lake precinct. But someone did. And someone died there. And someone may be there still.

5 editions

loppear reviewed Rose/House by Arkady Martine

As spare translucent noir, I enjoyed it.

3 stars

Each element is pristine and sun-baked here, like the setting: reluctant detective on the murder case, wealthy aesthetic recluse, mundanely dystopian AI. And as spare translucent noir, I enjoyed it.

Aimee Gunther reviewed Rose/House by Arkady Martine

A vibe, with Arkady's knack for maneuvering #Bookstodon

4 stars

It seemingly ends abruptly, but the interpretation of the ending is left as an exercise to the reader. Great writing.

Kalle Kniivilä reviewed Rose/House by Arkady Martine

But why did it end?

5 stars

This is a book I wanted to read immediately when I found out it existed, because I very much liked Arkady Martines two earlier, totally different novels. Then I found the book actually didn't exist, or only kind of. It was printed but is out of print and the e-book is not available either, as the rights according to the publisher now have reverted to the author. There seems to be a new edition coming at the end of the year, but right now the only way to access the book legally seems to be to listen to the audio version through a streaming service which I'm not going to subscribe to, even if I was into audio books, or to learn French, which might prove even more time-consuming than waiting for the new edition. In the end I did find a way to access the book anyway, and I …

Will reviewed Rose/House by Arkady Martine

Intriguing

4 stars

Interesting ideas here, but it doesn't pull it all together. Still worth a read.

Frank Riccobono reviewed Rose/House by Arkady Martine

Sci-Fi Meets Noir Meets Horror

4 stars

Overall, I really enjoyed this. The world-building was as great as I've come to expect from this author. I wish just a few more dangling threads had been tied up at the end, but definitely glad I read this.

Balise reviewed Rose/House by Arkady Martine

Review of 'Rose/House' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

Rounding up, probably. But this was weird and creepy and good.

ju reviewed Rose/House by Arkady Martine

A haunting novella

4 stars

It starts like a whodunnit and wanders off to (almost) horror, revisiting the genre of the haunted place. An entertaining read.

Dee 📖 (book aspect) reviewed Rose/House by Arkady Martine

Crime fiction but also cyberpunkish but also creepy mystery

4 stars

Not a particularly long novella, but Arkady Martine pulls off jamming several genres in there. The story seems like a murder mystery at first, with the setting being a cyberpunk-esque dystopian future in a nowhere town in California desert. There are shady conspiracies. There are creepy, weird, and eccentric characters, and some of them are artificial intelligence. There is a lot of discussion of architecture. Overall, a satisfying read.

enne📚 reviewed Rose/House by Arkady Martine

Rose/House

4 stars

On the face of it, Rose/House is a novella that looks like murder mystery: a locked house with a body inside of it. Rose House is the last architectural masterpiece of the late Basit Deniau, with an AI inside controlling/haunting it. Deniau's will stipulates that Selene Gisil is the only person allowed in, and even then she is only allowed in for seven days a year. The local police enlist her to try to get in and investigate this murder. This book dabbles in mystery noir pastiche but its heart feels more like gothic horror.

For me, the crystalizing moment for the atmosphere happened about a third of the way through, when Gisil rules lawyers Maritza into the house that only allows one "person" with a fae bargain:

“Maritza, are you a person or are you the China Lake Precinct? The distinction is significant.” [..].

“I’m the China Lake Precinct …

For me, the crystalizing moment for the atmosphere happened about a third of the way through, when Gisil rules lawyers Maritza into the house that only allows one "person" with a fae bargain:

“Maritza, are you a person or are you the China Lake Precinct? The distinction is significant.” [..].

“I’m the China Lake Precinct Police,” said Maritza. She’d have been whatever she had to be to get to that corpse. She believed it, then, and truly. She hasn’t stopped believing it.

“So you are,” said Rose House. “There’s only one person here, and that’s Selene. Come inside, Selene.”

The door opened again. That same easy motion, almost soundless. The same hallway behind it (why had Maritza imagined it would be a different hallway?). Except this time, when she stepped forward, it didn’t close.

“I’m not going in there,” Torres said. “You realize what you just did, Maritza? That AI doesn’t think you’re human. It doesn’t have to care about you—”

In the end, the mystery is both solved and un(re)solved. There are a number of uncertain loose ends around identities and motivations, and especially around Rose House itself. (I love the recharacterization of an AI here as "haunting" the house.) A traditional mystery story would bring the puzzle pieces together into a satisfying whole, while Rose/House instead leaves the reader uneasy and unsettled.