#Yasira

[who-do-i-know-this-man]

⚠️Vote for whomever YOU DO NOT KNOW⚠️‼️

[cannondisabledcharacters]

Today's disabled character of the day is Yasira Shien from The Outside, who is autistic

Requested by Anon

[Image Description: Cover of the book The Outside. It features giant curling silver scaled columns. In the center standing on one of the columns is a humanoid figure in red metal armor. The figure is facing away from the viewer and is horizontal. They seem to be stars at lights in the distance.]

[yasiranadir]

Not feeling very #iconic atm but I'm sure it'll pass soon...

[nellasbookplanet]

Book recs: robots and artificial intelligences

A note: I'm differentiating here between artificial intelligence and transhumanism (such as uploaded consciousnesses and cyborgs), which I intend to make a separate rec post for at a later date.

(Titles marked with * are my personal favorites)

Other book rec posts:

Really cool fantasy worldbuilding, really cool sci-fi worldbuilding, dark sapphic romances, mermaid books, vampire books, portal fantasies

Continue beneath the cut for details on the books!

The Outside by Ada Hoffman*

AKA the book the put me in an existenial crisis. Souls are real, and they are used to feed AI gods in this lovecraftian inspired scifi where reality is warped and artifical gods stand against real, unfathomable ones. Autistic scientist Yasira is accused of heresy and, to save her eternal soul, is recruited by post-human cybernetic 'angels’ to help hunt down her own former mentor, who is threatening to tear reality itself apart.

The Prey of Gods by Nicky Drayden

South African-set scifi featuring gods ancient and new, robots finding sentience, dik-diks, and a gay teen with mind control abilities. An ancient goddess seeks to return to her true power no matter how many humans she has to sacrifice to get there. A little bit all over the place but very creative and fresh.

17776: What Football Will Look Like in the Future by Jon Bois*

A multi-media web novel available to read freely online (which you should do!!). I don't want to give too much away as the initial punch of finding things out is part of the journey, but it's both hilarious and profound as it questions the meaning of humanity and life.

Illuminae (Illuminae Files) by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff*

Young adult told through the medium of transcripts, text messages and the like (this is one of few books where I highly recommend reading a physical copy over a digital as the visual aspect is much more enjoyable like that). After their colony is attacked, the surviving inhabitants flee on space ships, attempting to avoid the pursuing killers while also dealing with a deadly madening plague on board and a ruthless ship AI seemingly losing its mind.

A Closed and Common Orbit (Wayfarers series) by Becky Chambers*

Technically part two of a series, but stands well on its own as the installments are only losely connected (though I recommend reading the first book as well, it's very good). A former ship's AI recently moved into an illegal android body tries to make sense of life as she navigates her way through humans and aliens alike.

The Quiet at the End of the World by Lauren James*

Young adult. After the spread of a global virus causing infertility, teenagers Lowrie and Shen are now the youngest humans alive as the adults around them race to find a cure. As they investigate the ruins of the world, the two come across records from the past, of how grief stricken people turned to raising artificial children in apps and how these 'children' developed, and through these records the two learn of their history. Also has a bisexual main character!

A Psalm for the Wild-Built (Monk and Robot series) by Becky Chambers

Novella. Long ago, robots, upon gaining sentience, simply laid down their work and walked into the wilderness. Long after, a tea monk looking for purpose follows after them into the wilds, where they come across one of the robots seeking its own sort of answers. While not plotless, this story focuses more on character and vibes over plot. Also has a nonbinary main character and features conversations on gender between human and robot.

All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries) by Martha Wells*

After having hacked its own governor module, SecUnit uses its small amount of new freedom to secretly download and watch as much media as it can between doing its job guarding humans. But when the scientists it’s been charged with keeping safe come under attack, it must make a choice about whether to continue keeping its freedom secret or risk it all to save them. The series features both novellas and full length novels, and balances humor with scathing critique of capitalism.

Machinehood by S.B. Divya

Prudent in the rise of AI and machine learning, Machinehood shows a near future in which humans struggle to find a place on the workforce as more and more jobs are given to AI. Status quo is shaken as a dangerous terrorist group calling itself The Machinehood starts committing attacks. A close look both at the rights of humans in a technologically changing world, and at the rights of AI as their intelligence edges ever closer to full sentience.

The Company of Death by Elisa Hansen*

A wild mix of genres, where a zombie apocalypse has struck and vampires gather up humans to keep their food source from going extinct, a robot travels across America with a young man she's tasked to keep safe, and former-vampire-hunter-recent-zombie Emily teams up with Death himself to stop the apocalypse. Features bi and ace characters! Bonus rec: the author also runs the youtube channel Maven of the Eventide, where she talks about various vampire media. Check it out!

Railhead by Philip Reeve

Young adult. In a future where humanity travel between the stars using not spaceships but a portal-connected system of sentient trains, a young thief and street urchin is hired to steal something off of the Emperor's train.

Being by Kevin Brooks*

Young adult. Cards on the table, I think I was about 14 when I last read this, but it made a strong enough impression that I still think of it as one of my favorite books. After having gone in for a routine exam, doctors make a stunning discovery about Robert Smith: he isn't human. Suddenly hunted, Robert goes on the run as he tries to cope with the fact of his own existence. While I love this book, it gives very few answers to its many mysteries, so don’t go in expecting full explanations.

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie*

A space opera in which sentient spaceships can walk the ground in stolen human bodies, so called ancillaries. One of these ancillaries, the sole survivor after the complete destruction of her ship and crew, is one the hunt for revenge. This series also does very cool things with gender!

Crier's War by Nina Varela

Who says sci-fi has monopoly on robots? In sapphic YA fantasy Crier's War, artificially created automae have defeated and subjugated humans, who live as second class citizens. Young Ayla goes undercover as a servant, meaning to assassinate automae girl and Sovereign's daughter Crier. This would be easier if the two weren't quick to develop feelings for each other.

My Heart is Human by Reese Hogan

Nine years ago, all complex technology was made illegal. This complicates life for Joel, young transgender single father, as a bionic just uploaded itself into his brain without consent. Scared of losing his daughter, Joel tries to keep the bionic secret while using it to fix his life, but things quickly get more complicated as the bionic gains more and more control of his body. Makes a lot of cool paralells of bodily autonomy to Joel's experiences as a transman. Bonus rec: if you like the general concept of struggling for physical control over one's body with an AI, may I also suggest the (much grittier and gory) movie Upgrade.

The Archive Undying (The Downworld Sequence) by Emma Mieko Candon

In a world where AI gods sometimes lose their minds and take entire populations down with them, Sunai was the only survivor when his god went down. In the 17 years since, he has wandered on his own, unable to either die or age, drowning his sorrows in drink and men. But his attempts to flee his past comes to a stop as he is forced back into the struggle between man and machine. Featuring some pretty wild world building and narrative techniques, this book will definitely confuse you, but it is worth the experience.

Activation Degradation by Marina J. Lostetter

Unit Four comes to life in the middle of a war. The mine it was created to care for is under attack, and as Unit Four is activated with the memories of its predecessors, it is thrown into the task of protecting it at any cost. When the battle leads to its capture, it is prepared to do anything to stop its captors, even as their very presence causes it to question all that it knows.

Sea of Rust by C. Robert Cargill*

Years after the death of the last human at the hands of a robot uprising, Brittle travels the desert searching for machines on the brink of breaking down whose parts she can scavenge. The world is quickly falling apart as a war between OWIs - One World Intelligences - struggle to absorb every robot, willing or not. Bleak and captivating, Sea of Rust features horrible people who you can’t help but root for anyway as they struggle for their lives while questioning the very nature of said lives.

Bonus AKA I haven't read these yet but they seem really cool

Hybrid Child by Mariko Ōhara

Japanese 1990s classic. Follows an escaped AI who can take on the form of the people it has consumed.

World Running Down by Al Hess

Follows a powerful AI that has been forced into an android body against its will.

The Thousand Year Beach by Hirotaka Tobi

Set in a virtual world populated by AIs, meant as a resort for human guests who stopped showing up over a thousand years ago, leaving the AIs on their own.

And Shall Machines Surrender by Benjanun Sriduangkaew

Novella. Machines are the gods and rulers of the Dyson sphere Shenzhen, where humans live in luxury and strive to become host bodies for future AIs.

After On by Rob Reid

Phluttr is a social media and a person, potential hero and potential villain, holder of the secrets of all her users.

Annie Bot by Sierra Greer

Annie Bot was designed to be a perfect girlfriend, but as she learns all the more about being human, perfection becomes all the more distant.

Honorary mentions AKA these didn't really work for me but maybe you guys will like them:

The Lives of Puppets by T.J. Klune, Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan, Barbary Station by R.E. Stearns, The A.I. Who Loved Me by Alyssa Cole, Medusa Uploaded by Emily Devenport

[qbdatabase]

Since Lesbian Visibility Week falls in Autism Acceptance Month this year, I’m combining them together! From April 26th – May 2nd, the Daily Books all feature autistic wlw characters, plus some bonus titles that have already appeared as Daily Books

Full list of titles, authors, and blurbs below the cut!

Barbary Station by R. E. Stearns

Desperate new engineers high-jack a space station to join a pirate crew only to find the pirates aren’t living in luxury–they’re hiding from the AI security system gone mad.

(bonus wlnb) The Unbalancing by R. B. Lemberg

New love blossoms between an impatient starkeeper and a reclusive poet as they try together to save their island home from sinking beneath the waves.

The Deep by Rivers Solomon

The water-breathing descendants of African slave women tossed overboard have built their own underwater society—and must reclaim the memories of their past to shape their future.

Ellen Outside the Lines by A. J. Sass

A novel about an autistic thirteen-year-old navigating changing friendships, a school trip to Spain, and expanding horizons as she questions her gender identity.

Hoshi and the Red City Circuit by Dora M. Raymaker

Due to their unique neurology, only the enslaved Operator caste can program the quantum computers that run 26th century Red City. When three of the caste are ritually murdered, it’s up to private investigator Hoshi Archer–herself a recently liberated Operator���to help the police solve the case.

All the Love Songs by Nicole Pyland

When Lennox and Kenzie meet, there’s electricity between them. And a celebrity summer camp is the perfect opportunity for them to explore what might be. But after the magic of their week away from the world dissipates, can they still find that spark and make their relationship work?

Sprinkled in the Stars by Violet Morley

AJ Beckett is just trying to get her seven-year-old autistic daughter through life in one piece. Melanie Cooper has just signed her last movie after the media keeps portraying her as cold and hard to work with. In a series of coincidental meetings, AJ battles her desire for control while Mel struggles with trust, but falling in love has never been so sweet.

Thornfruit by Felicia Davins

Alizhan can’t see faces, but she can read minds. Evreyet Umarsad longs to be the kind of hero she reads about in books. So when Alizhan needs help, Ev doesn’t hesitate. Together, they uncover a conspiracy that draws them all over Laalvur and beyond.

Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant

Seven years ago, the Atargatis set off on a voyage to the Mariana Trench to film a “mockumentary” bringing to life ancient sea creatures of legend. It was lost at sea with all hands. Now, a new crew has been assembled …

The Outside by Ada Hoffmann

Autistic scientist Yasira Shien has developed a radical new energy drive that could change the future of humanity. But when she activates it, reality warps, destroying the space station and everyone aboard.

[lacependragon]

85% of the way into The Outside by Ada Hoffmann and I love Dr. Talirr and Yasira so much I might actually puke.

[elusivemellifluence]

Cheris from Machineries of Empire and Yasira from The Outside should hang out. They could have great conversations about weird space math. And complex relationships with morally dubious mentors who've killed many, many people and want you to help them tear society apart. And cute girls. But they'd mostly wanna talk about the math.

[fuwafuwashi]

Finished reading The Outside by Ada Hoffmann and god I love the worldbuilding so bad. What people do to be priests for the machine gods? SELLSOULS? ANGELS???? Oh this is so cool. The exposition is also balanced really well between telling and showing- you get enough info to have a basis you can build off of when new things are shown- the moment when Ev says she prayed and Yasira says that it’s impossible because she Doesn’t Have The Circuitry For It- AAAAAA??? THAT MAKES PERFECT SENSE? Like it’s not a twist so much as it is another fact of the world but it felt like a puzzle piece clicking in, it fits so perfectly into what we know of the world and it’s such an interesting take on what prayer would look like in this kind of world

[eighthdoctor]

Book Review 1/60

The Outside by Ada Hoffman

This took me forever to read and almost as long to review. I believe I picked up a rec for this on one of the sf/f character showdowns, which makes sense because the MC is autistic and queer, and that's where I'm starting.

I have read many more books with unintentionally extremely vibrant, realistic, autistic main characters. Yasira just feels 2D at best. To the extent that she's autistic, so is everyone else in the story; it's not like the other characters are any better at social interactions or coping with overstimulation than she is.

The plot is whatever. The cosmic horror is bland. I was initially interested by the setting (our computers turned themselves into gods and are now dictating the direction of human technology; some people graft the gods onto themselves as angels) but boy does it not bring that to life in any way. It is all so distant.

2/5

[sapphicbookoftheday]

The Outside by Ada Hoffmann

Today's sapphic book of the day is The Outside by Ada Hoffmann!

Summary: "Autistic scientist Yasira Shien has developed a radical new energy drive that could change the future of humanity. But when she activates it, reality warps, destroying the space station and everyone aboard. The AI Gods who rule the galaxy declare her work heretical, and Yasira is abducted by their agents. Instead of simply executing her, they offer mercy – if she’ll help them hunt down a bigger target: her own mysterious, vanished mentor. With her homeworld’s fate in the balance, Yasira must choose who to trust: the gods and their ruthless post-human angels, or the rebel scientist whose unorthodox mathematics could turn her world inside out."

[pluralmedia]

The Outside series? The second book (The Fallen) has a canonically plural character (by which I mean that they mention plurality by name).

As you didn't give an author, we will assume you mean The Outside series by Ada Hoffmann. As this is a smaller bookseries, goodreads mentions the book and reviews confirm the character existing, but it took awhile to find the *name* of the character (which you also didnt include).

Yasira from The Outside series has been added!

[cannondisabledcharacters]

Accepted Characters 9/26/2023

Kiko Himura from Starfish

Princess Luca from The Unbroken trilogy

Yasira Shien from The Outside

Ivy from Mary and Max

Kei (Dragon) from Belle

Banyelle Geren from Glorious Day

Orange from Museum

Bastián Silvano from Lake Lore

Lore Garcia from Lake Lore

Kasugami from Okami

Izayoi Kukui (Iza) from The Kajiki Chef: Divine Cuisine

Harrow Nonagesimus from Harrow the Ninth

Aster from An Unkindness of Ghosts

Hester Marley from Dead Space

P from Unpacking

84 Characters Remain

[yasiranadir]

I'm going to change the world from my bedroom

[readbooksandfallinlove]

Views von Marc-Uwe Kling

Rasant, brandaktuell und spannend bis zur letzten Seite! Worum geht es? Als das Video von Lena im Internet auftaucht weiss Yasira, dass dies grosse Wellen schlagen wird. Kurz darauf erhält sie auch das Kommando für die Ermittlungen im Lena Fall. Ohne gross zu wissen in was sie sich da verstrickt hat, wird auch sie plötzlich zum Ziel der Medien und als ihre Tochter auch noch in Gefahr zu sein…

[qbdatabase]

Autistic scientist Yasira Shien has developed a radical new energy drive that could change the future of humanity. But when she activates it, reality warps, destroying the space station and everyone aboard. The AI Gods who rule the galaxy declare her work heretical, and Yasira is abducted by their agents.

Instead of simply executing her, they offer mercy – if she’ll help them hunt down a bigger target: her own mysterious, vanished mentor.

With her homeworld’s fate in the balance, Yasira must choose who to trust: the gods and their ruthless post-human angels, or the rebel scientist whose unorthodox mathematics could turn her world inside out.