Empezó siendo unas 3 estrellas, me costo adentrarme en el mundo. Pero ha acabado con 4 estrellas porque es un novelón.

Tiene sus fallos, el ritmo quizá no es el mejor y aunque el mundo que crea es fascinante en su construcción, no me ha transmitido tanto como me esperaba. A ratos se sentía confuso.

Igual que algunos personajes me han dejado algo frio, los secundarios lo han compensado con creces.

Me ha enamorado mucho como habla de temas como la identidad, la autonomía y la sexualidad en el futuro. Mezclado con temas políticos como las patentes farmacéuticas y científicas, pero sobretodo como estas pueden moldear nuestros futuros y nuestra salud.

Una novela que enseña como un sistema capitalista mundial puede llevar a extremos inhumanos y como critica la figura de las corporaciones que tienen mas control que los gobiernos y los cuerpos de seguridad.

Una sociedad que podría vivir mucho tiempo pero que es esclavizada para sostener una industria extrema para beneficio de pocos. De que me suena esta última parte? ( )

I really enjoyed this book! And holy cow, Annalee Newitz is brilliant! ( )

Interesting world-building and especially effective storytelling from a robot's POV. But some confusing back-and-forth in the story's timeline prevent me giving this 4 stars. ( )

World depicted here ticks all the boxes for the world out of the horror novel. World set century ahead of our time, divided not across nations but different economical and trading zones, where everything revolves around the cybernetics, biotechnology, and patent control. When I say patent control I do not mean that pirates and illegals selling bootlegged technology will be caught, sentenced, fined or imprisoned. Oh, not this is world where patent is the only thing that matters - pirates tend to kill themselves or die under very weird circumstances (some even multiple times). Only people present when these "accidents" happen - IPC enforcers tasked with protecting mega-corporation interests and patents, in a license-to-kill way.

And this is not even the worst part of this dystopian world. Worst part is that this is world where people are maybe born free, but unless their family does not have means, this is where freedom ends. This is world of masses of people are forced to sell themselves for a period of time (through contracts) - basically they [voluntarily] become slaves - so they can work, get medical help and hope they will ever have something of their own (very very bad vibe with events this and last year). And while legally all these contracts and conditions sound nice on paper, in practice this means slavery for a very long time, so long that some cannot find their way out of it, if for nothing else then because they live short lives.

Besides humans that gate enslaved to corporations there are also robots/AIs and biological artificial entities (both categories are called bots). Being fabricated and not born, bots get indentured for long period (min 10 years) before they are given option to become autonomous. Considering they are treated as property who knows how time management gets manipulated (and I do not mean issues with day-light savings :)).

So as can be seen this is world where everybody talks about freedom and autonomy but in general majority of people are slaves with minimum rights.

There are two story lines here. One where we follow Jack, illegal drugs manufacturer trying to help those at the bottom and her adventures, as she works on correcting huge mistake she made with one of the drugs. Second story line is of Eliasz, IPC human agent and Paladin, IPC armed robot/AI and how they try to find Jack and terminate her illegal activities as requested by one of the drug companies endangered by Jack.


And while chase moves on, with IPC agents tearing through the drug underground and bodies falling right and left, author writes about lots of other things, that might seem unrelated to the main story. Here we are given information on all of the free students, and basically double standards that are always present in young age - rebellion, activism and then (when real life starts) joining the very corporations they rebelled against. We are shown people that are true altruists but aware of how world works so they try to keep their institutes alive [since they can do good] but they also need to keep links to corporations alive. Then come zealots on both sides - radical activists and equally radical enforcers.... and piles of bodies left in their wake. Influence of media, its links with forces to be, social networks and ever present cyberspace monitoring - this book has it all.

Also we are shown how love can grow between biological and non-biological life forms. This was weird, and I was expecting armed bot to say something in lines of "he clogged my missile launcher again" :) I think it could go without physical aspect (I mean..... remember the scene with Cameron Diaz on the windshield in the movie "The Counselor" - weeeeiiiirdd) but OK, even with that story flows OK.

Interestingly, not a single person in the book is actually fighting against enslavement contracts. This may be because majority of characters are free people (Jack, Med, Krish, Frankie, students and various hipster activists, Eliazs). Only indentured persons here are Threezed (character to show terrible effects of slave contracts on children) and Paladin (as a case of autonomy of artificial organisms) - and these two end up as free people. Even as Eliasz walks through Las Vegas slave market and feels sick, he sticks to his own task at hand. Slavery is taken as is, as something that cannot be changed.

So when one takes into account all the talks of students and university researchers it all comes to one thing - lots of hot air and occasional high profile criminal enterprise (not altruistic in nature since drugs here are sold not provided to everyone). And I have to say this is usually how things go in real life because let us not kid ourselves - all those hippies, free sex, love and flowers everywhere in the 1960s became working class people and businessmen and businesswomen in 70's and 80's. Youth is full of rebellion and activism but when reality of life comes in that's when character shows up (and very few want to struggle their whole life, they come to terms with things as they are and in some cases they even become what they abhorred in their youth).

At the end of the story only beacon of light left is Free Lab, as only institution able to provide free drugs and medical help to everyone. Otherwise all the events, all the deaths - they were just a small turbulence that affected only the lives of IPC agents, Jack and her friends. Everyone else? Nope, they did not feel it a bit.


Entire book is a warning on monopolism and rule of technocracy, with majority of people brought down to the level of servitude and inability to live their lives freely. Considering events in last 20-or-so months story strikes too close to home.

Highly recommended. ( )

Really cool concepts and socially progressive writing. The writing style and situation structure may have been developed by an algorithm... The style and structure become so repetitive that everything became predictable and boring despite the novel settings and ambient elements. The length of the book almost seems forced. I stopped feeling engaged after about 45% through. Little changed after that. ( )