#machinehood

[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

[kayforpay]

hey hello people online if you ever have a book suggestion for me, please tell me. I'm trying to read more and trying to find suggestions online makes me want to become illiterate

[cursed-40k-thoughts]

If a skitarii were to find an STC, would the tech priests in charge just yoink the stuff from them or give them an promotion for it? I feel that some tech priests would kill someone to obtain an STC.

Depends massively on the Priests, honestly. The AdMech are not uniform when it comes to things like that. Some might reward the Skitarii. Some would simply take it as their authority allows. Others would absolutely kill anyone attached to it they thought was a liability.

Because, despite all the aspirations of machinehood, Techpriests get really, organically squirrelly around things like politicking and new technology.

[dykedragonrider]

Finished Crymachina and I am so sad that a game that a game with that compelling of characters is attached to the most 4/10 action game I have ever played. It's like if Nier Automata was for formerly religious lesbians. Like. The gameplay is incredibly shallow and there are some important mechanics (backstabs doing more damage being the biggest example imo) that really feel like they shoulda been telegraphed better, you can just one button through the entire game, the scaling is fucked for damage and ExP, there's a lot wrong with it on a pure systemic level. The level design is also bad but in a way that I think adds to the narrative so. I will let that one go. The characters and their relationships are the real meat of this game IMO and that's mostly what I wanna focus on. The game is about lesbians, and they're both tropey and have legitimate depth? The plot takes a backseat for the most part, which is fine. It's not a particularly strong plot but it's good enough where it counts to work for its purposes. I guess first on the agenda is looking at Leben and Enoa, our protagonists? While the story mostly follows Leben, Enoa is the character the game is most *about* in actuality.

Enoa runs the Imitation Garden, AKA Eden. It's the main hub for everything, and she acts as the caretaker of both it and the E.V.E., because it's also where she lives. Having been broken down twice, the game is about her reconstruction and recovery on two levels, and I do think this is something the game's use of the Kabbalah adds to. As you unlock the levels in game, the main "nodes" you access are all named for the different sefirot of the Tree Of Life. As Enoa develops, you progress the Kabbalah. I think the fact that the game's main ending cuts off at Hod does undermine its use a little, but the sefirot of Malkuth, Yesod, and Netzach are also used in ways postgame that are clever, so I'll let it slide. Enoa is deeply caring, putting everyone above herself. She is earnest, incredibly emotional, and seeks to transcend her machinehood. She routinely invalidates herself and her experiences, given the fact she isn't an authentic human, because she has so much love for humanity.

To contrast that, is Leben. The first E.V.E. we get to see, and to some degree our player surrogate, but that's a role passed around and abandoned as needed, she just plays it the most given how she introduces us to the game. Leben is grounded, prone to flights of fancy but then often backtracking them upon realizing the full consequences of her actions. She resents humanity, and adores machines. Notably, Leben, unlike the other E.V.E., wasn't actually born out of Enoa simulating humanity. Leben was, at one point, Propator, but she's also not that person any more.

It's kinda hard to sell the dynamics in this game because well, it's their execution that carries it, but I still wanna paint the best picture I can. Leben and Enoa's relationship is very much them being lovey dovey, partially because they're fresh to it (I don't subscribe to the honeymoon phase as an idea, I think they're just figuring stuff out somewhat still), and partially because they're aware of their circumstances and are living their lives to the fullest despite that. There's a lot of care for one another in it, and their dreams are shared and centered around mutual joy for each other. It's very much a love that's still finding its feet, but the feelings they have do a lot of the heavy lifting.

For starting the other pair, we have Mikoto. A bona fide badass who values her appearance incredibly strongly. Not in a physical or vein way necessarily, she just values being cool a lot. She loves film as a medium, and likes ribbing other people, as well as sardonic jokes. Mikoto also speaks with her actions rather than her words consistently. She doesn't like being emotionally honest in words, despite the fact she also wears her heart on her sleeve. To contrast, Ami is a sweetheart. She's very cute and flowery in all she does, and is completely devoted to her family of the other three girls, but especially Mikoto who she consistently states her adoration for. She's also axe crazy as hell and is represented as an oni in her battle attire. Gap moe out the ass, basically. Ami also has to be wanted. If she can't be useful, she feels like she has no purpose. This, notably, isn't tied to her being in a wheelchair in her past life, but tied to her relationship with her family. Feels like a bare minimum thing but it still feels important to mention.

Ami and Mikoto don't ever label their relationship, but it doesn't matter because what they are is clear enough, maybe a little less to Ami given some of her anxieties, but you can know very easily. They've shared their existences in all the ways that matter, and at that point a label is set dressing. They've promised to spend eternity and a day together. They're like an old couple in how they talk and interact with the pair of Leben and Enoa, and it's super sweet.

Typing this I realize that I can't find the words to say what I want to say about this as well as I want to, because there's just a lot that I feel is done not through being able to communicate it, but the experience of it? Either way, the point is it's good. I just wish that the good relationship dynamics we have weren't attached to a middling action game that only goes on sale for 10% off and costs $60.

[littleeyesofpallas]

MACHINEHOOD SENDAN[マシンフッド宣言]: MACHINEHOOD Declaration

aka Machinehood

[oldgorgoroth]

Due to my ass bombass Being too big for humanity, i have ascended to machinehood

[once-and-future-alaskan]

Me, the only one among my friends who has never made claims of android/cyborg/machinehood: Allied Mastercomputer is my dad.

[storizenmagazine]

Enter the world of Sci-Fi with @sbdivya_author’s Meru. We got a chance to read Machinehood from the author before and we loved it. The writing style, imagination and the plot put together by the author is commendable! ❤️ @hachette_india @bookreviewscafe #bookstagram #books #hachetteindia #scifi #scifibook #scifibooks #scifibookstagram #scifibookcovers #meru #bookrecommendations #bookrecommendation #bookreader #bookreading #bookreaders #bookreaderscommunity #bookread #bookreads #bookreadersofinstagram #storizenmagazine https://www.instagram.com/p/Cov7_OPLv01/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[literary-illuminati]

Books I Read in May

(Because I’m trying to get back on this wagon after missing April.)

18. The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee

This is probably not my favourite piece of pop science writing, but it’s really got to be up there. The history of how cancer’s been understood and treated through the last century is just absolutely morbidly fascinating (my roommate has placed a moratorium on any unsolicited ‘fun facts’ since I started reading this book).

But beyond a) an incredibly visceral understanding of what Leukemia is and b) an appreciation for the public health advances of the early/mid-20th century, my main takeaway was that the book was actually just weirdly hopeful? Like, compared to, well, everything (except consumer electronics) the degree to which cancer treatment’s have actually just kept getting better over the last decades gives you back a bit of the old faith in Progress.

Also just both very readable and downright poetic at points (and just. Incredible title.)

19. Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki

Hugo nominee novel number 2!

I was, honestly, not particularly impressed. Like it’s not bad – really extremely readable, really – but just, eh? 6/10.

It was above all just so very sentimental – believe in yourself! Love conquers all! Happy endings for absolutely everyone! Good bread tastes like home, even if you’re an alien! - which I suppose I’m just allergic to, and so will restrain myself about because it’s just a matter of taste.

Katrina was a good protagonist, entertaining internal monologue, well executed if incredibly predictable arc. But Shizuka and Lan...for the sheer amount of the book their romance took up, it still felt like the romance subplot thrown in as an afterthought in some blockbuster? They fell in love at first sight because the story tells us they do, and then they spend a bunch of scenes together,  so clearly they’re a love for the ages! Never mind the palpable lack of chemistry or real connection between them. (And the less said about the rest of Lan’s family the better, character-wise. Though I mean Shirley was just an embodied cliche but it’s a cliche I like so she gets half-credit).

And yeah I could bitch about this book for ages but that just seems meanspirited (also I already spent like two hours doing so with @toasthaste​) so. The evil violin repairwoman was fun?

20. She Who Became The Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan

Hugo nominee novel number 3!

Or, as the friend who lent me it described it, ‘the one with the lesbian fisting in it’. (This wasn’t an exaggeration. Despite the jokes I was not expecting to get a scene of, like, actual porn 300 pages in.)

Anyway, no, this was good! ‘Low fantasy/mythologized retelling of actual historical events’ is a conceit I really love when it’s pulled off well, and Parker-Chan absolutely pulls it off well. Even if ‘If Anyone Finds Out I’m A Girl I Won’t Be Able To Found The Ming Dynasty!” sounds like something an automatic light novel series generator would split out.

Though really at least half the book’s best scenes are the whole revenge melodrama going on with the Mongol prince and general whose names I’m blanking on and aren’t mentioned in the Wikipedia article or goodreads summary. Just gloriously operatically angst-filled self-loathing and obliviousness and killing the only man you love for the sake of vengeance.

Not that Zhang as a protagonist isn’t great, too. I mean partially I just love the whole trope of ‘scheming, manipulative bastard constantly working every angle they can, who hides it all under an act of humble piety/devotion/loyalty and pretending all their successes are just luck/providence/divine favour, and no one’s quite sure how full of shit they are”. But also, you know, got to love any hero dedicated enough to making their own destiny and carving their own place in the world that they just straight-up murder the ten-year-old messiah to make sure there’s no competition at the top.

21. Hero of Two Worlds May: The Marquis de Lafayette in the Age of Revolution by Mike Duncan

Possibly the most middle-class-American-dad-ish book I will ever read (unless I ever get really into WW2, I guess?). Before reading it I had essentially zero interest in the Marquis de Lafayette in particular, but I really like the Revolutions podcast, and I do love reading about the French Revolution, so.

Honestly after reading the book I’m still not particularly interested in the Marquis de Layfayette – beyond a grudging respect for not changing his political opinions one iota after losing control of the revolution and spending four years in an Austrian dungeon after fleeing the country ahead of the tribunal, I suppose – and on the whole I found the book a lot less interesting than The Storm Before The Storm. Though that’s probably mostly just because I went in already knowing a lot more about the Age of Revolution than I did about the Late Roman Republic. (I did learn a bunch of military minutia about the American Revolution that I assume Americans all get taught in elementary school).

Probably because of that, by far the best parts of the book (imo) were the ones describing life in the Ancien Regime and post-Restoration. The latter, especially – the whole early 19th century milieu of revolutionary secret societies forcibly suppressed by foreign arms is just worldbuilding inspiration catnip, really.

The whole thesis of the early French Revolution section (and it’s repeated often enough that I’m pretty comfortable calling it that) about how the ‘salon revolutionaries’ were only ever able to extract reforms and concessions from the King by using the energy and threat of the angry mobs on the streets and the direct, violent, insurrectionary actions does have a certain unsubtle subtext, also.

22. A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers

Hugo nominee novella number 2!

A book I would not have picked up on my own, honestly – three Wayfarers books have taught me quite clearly that Chambers is not for me, no matter how much normal people seem to love her – but she got nominated twice this year, and a friend already had this borrowed from the library.

I think the best way I can describe this is ‘a solarpunk art book, in prose form’. Like, there’s (exactly two) characters and (ostensibly) a plot, and there are themes (my god does the book want to make sure you know there are themes), but, like, in terms of wordcount and detail and enthusiasm, the animating passion is pretty clearly just detailing the society and physical infrastructure and general feel of day-to-day life in the post-post-apocalyptic solarpunk future. And that’s really very well done! It’s a good prose art book! Personally I don’t really care for the whole rural idyll pastoral aesthetic and the whole implicit ‘life being too easy is bad, actually’ thing, but, like, totally see the appeal.

23. Machinehood by S.B. Divya

And Hugo nominee novel number 3!

This was a slightly odd reading experience, honestly. Like, the best way I can put it is, like, some airport fiction technothriller (Robert Ludlum or whoever) except set a bit farther in the future and also woke? Not, like, didactically so or anything, but the genre and plot formula make it more surprising that the supportive CIA handler is a trans guy or one of the sympathetic showboating mercs/bodyguards is nonbinary or whatever. Or, like, the combat cyborg protagonist whose entire squad got killed in a black ops mission into ScaryMuslimLand when the President pulled the rug out from under them is an atheist latina woman and it’s her (male) partner that is constantly nagging her about staying safe and starting a peaceful life together somewhere new, and etc. Not a complaint about the book in any way, honestly, just really struck me reading it.

But weird politics aside, it was a fun read! The worldbuilding was actually pretty great – near future and familiar enough to seem plausible-ish, but still really alien, and still feeling, like, genuinely future-ish? Also it wove it’s weird supertech politics into a legacy/context of, like, actual modern politics, which I appreciated.

It helps that it’s my favourite sort of future – better than the present in a thousand different ways, but with horrifically dystopian touches here and there that everyone’s long since just shrugged and accepted, and also still just weighed down with the shittiness of life under exploitation and scarcity but, like, somewhat ameliorated. (But really, ‘everyone has access to biotech labs in their kitchens! Which is good, because you need to download the specifications the ministry of health puts up for your daily booster every morning to keep up with all the engineered superbugs” is just a great bit of worldbuilding imo).

Honestly my main actual complaint is that – for all the entire plot of the book is centred around paranoia about the emergence of strong/free-willed AI, and the bad guys treat the bots aboard their space station as persons, it’s just...never really clarified how those bots feel about it/if they feel anything or are too limited to care at all? Like, this is important!

Still, fun read.

[nprbooks]

S.B. Divya’s debut novel is set in a version of the future that seems unsettlingly plausible -- a world where chemical buffs and implants help people survive in an overclocked gig economy. But everything is turned upside down when a mysterious organization called The Machinehood demands change. 

“That Machinehood goes on to upend long-established laws of robotics, question longstanding political machinations, establish a credible voyeurism-based sub-economy, and take us on a thrilling who-done-it through the advent of the singularity are only a few of the novel's accomplishments,” says our critic Fran Wilde -- check out her full review here.

-- Petra

[nevinslibrary]

Weird & Wonderful Wednesday

I was not prepared for this book. I’d read the blurbs and such, but, still. Whew.

It’s set in 2095 where humans take pills, to stay alive, to be better, and to compete against AI in the gig economy. Enter The Machinehood a terrorist group that is attacking those who fund these pills. Oh, and, the people involved in The Machinehood seem to not just be human, but, part human, part machine. Their ultimatum is for all pill production to stop in one week.

And, so, as panic sweeps the world and people start becoming ill because they don’t have their pills, Welga, former ex-special forces, is called back into the government to try and take down the terrorists. Of course, it’s not straightforward who The Machinehood is, what they truly want, etc.

The plot was intriguing, and the characters were all great, but, the one character that I really loved the most was Nithya, Welga’s sister-in-law and a researcher who helps Welga. An intense, but fun novel.

You may like this book If you Liked: The Courier by Gerald Brandt, All Systems Red by Martha Wells, or Roboteer by Alex Lamb

Machinehood by S.B. Divya

[girlsincapes]

Girls in Capes Recommends: March 2021 Fiction Releases

Girls in Capes Recommends: March 2021 Fiction Releases

[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.9.0″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.9.0″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.9.0″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.9.0″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″]We’re relaunching in 2021 with a new monthly fiction release feature! Each month,…

[desdasiwrites]

– S.B. Divya, Machinehood

[bookcoversonly]

Title: Machinehood | Author: S.B. Divya | Publisher: Gallery / Saga Press (2021)

[scifiandscary]

Sci-Fi Biweekly Bulletin: Cosmic Sin, Machinehood, etc.

A selection of Sci-Fi News from around the 'net. And, of course, a finely aged meme or gif Sci-Fi Biweekly Bulletin: Cosmic Sin, Machinehood, etc. #SciFiNewsBulletin #SciFiNews #SciFiBiWeeklyBulletin

From spaceships to alternate history, and other worlds to nanites, science fiction is a fascinating genre of rather amazing depth that many talented writers happily delve into on a daily basis. And we, the curators here at Sci-Fi & Scary, aren’t even going to talk about a tenth of it right now. However, what you will get is a selection of movies, books, and interesting articles from across the…