Technothriller marries dark comedy and is seasoned liberally with satire. I’m down. I’m so down. 

One moment, Mal is a free AI, just hanging out in infospace while riding inside a surveillance drone looking for decent pieces of technology to salvage. In the space of minutes, he’s riding inside the brain of an augmented mercenary who’s in charge of caring for a specially-augmented human child while her mother is overseas. 

It’s a stupid war just like every stupid war before it and now Mal finds himself not only in the middle of it, but also invested. 

This doesn’t meet the criteria for a technothriller for me, but I’m finding that to be okay on a personal level. While I could get along just fine with the computer terminology and vernacular, if it were more of a true technothriller I might have been lost. I suspect some readers might end up being lost as it is if they never had the luxury of knowing someone who worked in IT for years and years. 

The dark comedy and satire, though? It hit and it hit hard. I was amused throughout the entire book by the entire cast, but especially Mal. Mal is an AI, so there are limits to his understanding of humans, but he’s definitely his own entity with a vivid imagination, moral compass, and sense of ethics. Watching him grow and learn as this book goes on is infinitely entertaining. 

I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.