Amy Peterson is a von Neumann machine—a self-replicating humanoid robot. For the past five years, she has been grown slowly as part of a mixed organic/synthetic family. She knows very little about her android mother’s past, so when her grandmother arrives and attacks them, young Amy wastes no time: she eats her alive.
Now she’s on the run, carrying her malfunctioning granny as a partition on her memory drive. She’s growing quickly, and learning too. Like the fact that in her, and her alone, the failsafe that stops all robots from harming humans has stopped working.… Which means that everyone wants a piece of her, some to use her as a weapon, others to destroy her.
“Ashby’s debut is a fantastic adventure story that carries a sly philosophical payload about power and privilege, gender and race. It is often profound, and it is never boring.” —Cory Doctorow
“vN might just be the most piercing interrogation of humanoid AI since Asimov kicked it all off with the Three Laws.” —Peter Watts
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"Looking for something different? This book starts with a now classic trope of science fiction: a world of humans and robots (in this case, "organics" and "von Neumann machines") living cooperatively and then shatters it into something wonderfully and breathtakingly new. With a fast paced, action packed plot, as well as a fascinating and well developed near future setting; this book does nothing but succeed on a structural level. What I loved about this story is that Ashby drops the reader right in the middle of some of the uglier implications of a world full of AI and forces us to confront the resulting moral quagmire. The origin story of the robots is a stroke of twisted brilliance. The best ideas at the heart of the story are reminiscent of Le Guin or Herbert in the complexity of their scope and Ashby's insights are profound. However, this is both an achievement and a failing, because the book, for whatever reason, isn't up to the task of exploring its own themes at the depth warranted. In final analysis, the story succeeds at the level of a good screenplay, but it has the bones of a potential new classic. Nevertheless, this is a spectacularly entertaining debut. Madeline Ashby is undoubtedly a writer to watch. If this book is any indication she's destined to create great things."
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Teresa (4 out of 5 stars)