Hardcover, 303 pages
English language
Published Sept. 19, 2017 by Tor Books.
Autonomous features a rakish female pharmaceutical pirate named Jack who traverses the world in her own submarine. A notorious anti-patent scientist who has styled herself as a Robin Hood heroine fighting to bring cheap drugs to the poor, Jack’s latest drug is leaving a trail of lethal overdoses across what used to be North America—a drug that compels people to become addicted to their work.
On Jack’s trail are an unlikely pair: an emotionally shut-down military agent and his partner, Paladin, a young military robot, who fall in love against all expectations. Autonomous alternates between the activities of Jack and her co-conspirators, and Elias and Paladin, as they all race to stop a bizarre drug epidemic that is tearing apart lives, causing trains to crash, and flooding New York City.
Ne, ze by me to uplne nudilo, ale cekal sem od toho prece jen trosku vic. Nekdy dej letel uplne nesmyslnym tempem. V pohode se to dalo roztahnout na vetsi/delsi format. Napadu spousty, ale jednim uchem tam a druhym zas ven. Trosku skoda, tema hodne chytlavy. A zaver je kapitola sama o sobe, no prvotina se pozna.
Loved The Terraformers, so picked up Autonomous. I liked the former more, but it was such a high bar that Autonomous was still excellent. Different, though related themes. Terraformers is environmental where Autonomous is health care / pharmaceutical, but both tell deeply compelling future narratives about attempts to create survival and thriving in the face of terrible, dystopian, and yet believable futures. Appreciate wrestling with parallels between human freedoms and post-human freedoms, with both taking place in the context of capitalism that is recognizable today... On to Newitz's next work.
There's some scientific explanation but it's needed for the story, so it's well done. You also get to emotionally bond with the characters, which is rare in the 'harder' sci-fi. Very enjoyable.
The book was entertaining in its speculation, but I could have done without the anti-Black and anti-Indigenous aspects. I would love for a full series based on Bug and Actin, though!
Overall a good story. Too slow-paced and dry for my tastes (Hence 3-stars).
Sporadically gory. I thought there'd be more consequences to the violence. But, very thought provoking themes and characters. A good insider's view of academia. The plot really extrapolates well on current economic paradigms. (And maybe part of that is the lack of consequences for violence.)
It's very similar to most of Doctorow's novels, in both a good and a bad way; it still relies on magical 3D printers and still has this sort of legalistic monomania (though a different sort of imaginary property), but I do go for that stuff. I think the discussion on autonomy, freedom and privacy feels fresh, though I felt it really took off around 100-150 pages in or so.
There are some very solarpunk scenes as well, though I don't think you can call the book solarpunk.
Decent debut novel about a dystopian future where pharmaceutical pirate Jack reverse engineers patented drugs to distribute cheaply to those desperately in need but unable to afford them. Fine so far, until the work-enhancement drug she reverse engineers turns out to be fatally flawed, a fact which the pharma company has been covering up. As Jack's copy of the drug causes serious fatalities, Jack rushes to find a cure while Big Pharma hire hit man Eliasz and robot sidekick Paladin to find and eliminate her in order to cover up the fact their drug is fatally flawed.
Sounds good so far, right? Overall it's a very interesting world and plot line, and I enjoyed the read. However, I found the character development rather awkwardly done and I never really felt really wrapped up with any of them. I probably liked Paladin best, but there's a plot thread where Paladin (a …
Decent debut novel about a dystopian future where pharmaceutical pirate Jack reverse engineers patented drugs to distribute cheaply to those desperately in need but unable to afford them. Fine so far, until the work-enhancement drug she reverse engineers turns out to be fatally flawed, a fact which the pharma company has been covering up. As Jack's copy of the drug causes serious fatalities, Jack rushes to find a cure while Big Pharma hire hit man Eliasz and robot sidekick Paladin to find and eliminate her in order to cover up the fact their drug is fatally flawed.
Sounds good so far, right? Overall it's a very interesting world and plot line, and I enjoyed the read. However, I found the character development rather awkwardly done and I never really felt really wrapped up with any of them. I probably liked Paladin best, but there's a plot thread where Paladin (a completely genderless robot) keeps having a gender identify forced upon it by humans and I didn't feel this was handled well AT ALL. The outright homophobia of Eliasz is never directly addressed or improved at all, and Paladin seems inexplicably accepting of being treated in ways that it frequently acknowledges to itself are completely incorrect and inapplicable.
There was also a potentially interesting side plot about how the emancipation of AI robots (who are manufactured with a period of indenture to pay off the costs) led to the corollary that if intelligent robots could be indentured then so could humans, creating an industry of essentially indentured human slavery. This was touched on in a few places but I thought it could have led to much more interesting details and ended up being a fairly irrelevant side thread of the story that didn't really go anywhere.
The conclusion was also a bit disappointing as there's a lead up to a big confrontation, which then isn't very clearly described, and then we simply find out in retrospective exposition what happened and how it neatly resolved all the hanging plot threads. It felt very abrupt and very deus ex machina. So, can't really give this a 5 overall but it was still full of interesting ideas and an interesting setting, and is an interesting debut novel.
Cool and interesting view of what a world looks like in which we can totally modify our bodies and the difference between organic life and synthetic life becomes more and more obscured.
The world setting is great.
I only rated it 4 stars because the rhythm of the story is a bit off and kinda slow.
вельми добре читання (або слухання в моєму випадку — я слухав аудіокнижку, позичену онлайн в бібліотеці banq у монреалі, але то окрема історія). оповідь досліджує одразу дві великих і непростих теми: куди веде нас сучасний стан системи ліцензування та право власності на все, і «чи сняться андроїдам електричні вівці» — причому цю другу тему авторка зуміла розкрити, на мою думку, якщо не краще, то принаймні яскравіше і цікавіше для пересічного читача, без діківської претензії на місце серед класиків. підсумок: якщо подобаються літературні розвідки корі докторова про свободи і несвободи в майбутньому, напружена серія "rifters" пітера вотса, фільм "чаппі" — читати "autonomous" негайно!
I like the concept, but execution was too sloppy. Characters were flat, too many flashbacks, predictable plot and dialogue, and development of key ideas was superficial. Not good as sci-fi, and not good as a story, so why bother?
Good story dealing with identity and biotech piracy.
Fast-paced drugpunk novel that questions the limits of consciousness and feelings.
