Machine
Ratings15
Average rating3.9
When the galaxy's biggest hospital is caught in a whirlwind attack from sources unknown, and creatures of unimaginable variety are in crisis, the workload can get pretty exhausting for a rescue specialist. And to make matters worse, Dr. Jens can't even drink coffee (it offends the senses of most non-humans).This is a complex space-opera with a built-in series of whodunits, a massive cast of characters ranging from a sentient tree to a virus-infected ancient computer intelligence, and technology that can affect consciousness and gravity. It's not what I would call easy reading (even the author admits that the plot gets “labyrinthine” in scope), but it is a lot of fun.Jens - our protagonist - is a fun character to follow. She's a down-to-earth straight-shooter who tries to keep things uncomplicated in a very complicated world. She's devoted to her job, has a lot of baggage from past relationships, and despite being at the cusp of medical innovation a thousand years in the future, she suffers from incurable chronic pain, and is aided by an exoskeleton. She also makes a great first-person narrator. I found it reassuring that as the plot twists start to add up, she felt just as overwhelmed and in need of a nap as I did!There are also a host of artificial intelligences (aka non-biological intelligences) who play a prominent role in the story, and the way the book approaches a world full of AIs is extremely well thought out. I also really enjoyed the introduction of people from “ancient” times who were discovered cryogenically frozen in a long-lost generation ship from centuries ago when people thought the Earth was doomed. The cultural clash between humans separated by centuries of technological and social development was very clever and often funny.Like the book's predecessor, [b:Ancestral Night 26159745 Ancestral Night (White Space, #1) Elizabeth Bear https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1549453849l/26159745.SY75.jpg 41186071], the world feels like a utopic future, but it also challenges whether utopia is something that can be achieved, and asks what we are willing to sacrifice to make a fairer and happier world. But apart from that, one crossover side-character (the super-awesome giant mantis Cheeirilaq) and a few Easter eggs that allude to the previous book, this is completely a stand-alone story.I'd recommend it highly to anyone itching for an engaging modern deep space story, alongside the [b:A Memory Called Empire 37794149 A Memory Called Empire (Teixcalaan, #1) Arkady Martine https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1526486698l/37794149.SY75.jpg 59457173] series.
This book started out so strong with the setup of an interesting mystery on a generation ship floating through space–so much potential for a fun story.
Unfortunately, the author basically throws that setup away and just makes it a tangential part of what felt like a totally slapped together conspiracy story. It turned into a slog, and the plot became really unbelievable and borderline incoherent.
The author herself even says it in the afterword there were “seemingly infinite revisions it took to get the (hopefully entertainingly) Rube Goldbergian plot of this book to hang together correctly”. Unfortunately, I'd disagree with her–the plot of this book does not hang together at all, and “Rube Goldbergian” is not a desirable trait for a novel.