The story begins in the year 1831 of the Lucretian Era, a very early indication that this novel involves multiple layers of complex worldbuilding. Yamir Varro, the chief neuroscientist at Connectome Labs, has uploaded a copy ofhis brain into the android Y1, who narrates approximately a third of the novel in journallike \u201cLogfiles.\u201d Initially, Y1 longs for the company of Yamir\u2019s wife, who refuses to interact with an android, and he regrets how he treated his college-aged son: \u201cI missed so many of his milestones\u2014losing his first baby tooth, playing his first game of stickball, shaving for the first time\u2014because I was always at work.\u201d Yamir is a pioneer, and his lab is on the verge of a major breakthrough, butthe world\u2019s largest organized religion, The Temple, does not endorse his work. Olma, the Temple\u2019s science and technology supervisor, is tasked with monitoring all emerging research that falls outside the faith\u2019s strictures, and the novel closely follows her progress in its early stages. The tension soon ratchets up as Yamir\u2019s lab is sold by Grady Leos, its owner, to the Temple and the androids are tasked with forced labor on a Martian settlement, as the Temple believes their leader, El, wants humans to eventually populate the red planet. What follows is a power struggle that pits the desires of Y1, Yamir and his family, and Olma against one another in an often thrilling narrative. The thoughtful, depressed android is an intriguing central character throughout. However, his logfiles are often overly and off-puttingly technical\u2014\u201cThe repairs to the ASV3 aren\u2019t going well. Zaltana replaced the leg destroyed by the explosion with one taken from the ASV2, but not every input aligns\u201d\u2014as well as occasionally repetitive. The close third-person narration following Yamir and Olma also relies on frequent scene-setting to remind readers of the stakes involved, which can, at times, become tiresome. Still, the central story and frequent twists will keep engaged readers hooked to the end. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The story begins in the year 1831 of the Lucretian Era, a very early indication that this novel involves multiple layers of complex worldbuilding. Yamir Varro, the chief neuroscientist at Connectome Labs, has uploaded a copy ofhis brain into the android Y1, who narrates approximately a third of the novel in journallike \u201cLogfiles.\u201d Initially, Y1 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":2206,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2205"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}