Autonomous by Annalee Newitz

This is the debut novel of Annalee Newitz, who is most well-known for being a founder of io9.com and now is a contributor to Ars Technica.

After a drug she sells turns deadly, pharmaceutical pirate Jack immediately begins research on synthesizing a cure while trying to prove that the company who holds the legal patent knew about the drug's dangerous side effects. Meanwhile, Paladin, a fresh-off-the-line military AI robot is assigned to track down and eliminate Jack. Paladin finds the human it is paired with, a former cop named Eliasz, more fascinating than the mission, however, but is troubled by the knowledge that it is not in control of its own programming.

The novel has very grand ideas and some solid world-building courtesy of Newitz's extensive scientific and technological research. It feels like we are one good global catastrophe away from this as a future but that very realism starts to work against it. The future this paints is one of environmental awareness achieved too late, near-mass extinction, and a return to politely-worded legal slavery. That is fucking depressing.

A girl I was talking to about it said that it really should have been marketed as a YA novel and I have to agree. There's really nothing here that marks this as being strictly adult and Paladin especially seems catered to a teen reader. Also, the ending. No specific spoilers, but it is a kick to the nut sack and not in a fun, fetish-y way. Not even in a "OMG my feels" kind of way. More like a "Are you fucking kidding me with this shit?!" kind of way.

For a debut novel, it's promising but the ending really obliterated all of my goodwill towards this book. Maybe get it for your tween or teenager for Christmas, though. They might have enough innate hope yet to be uplifted by it instead of feeling like its a copout.

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