Reviews with content warning for Slavery - Autonomous

This opens an interesting discussion into where strict pharmacy patents can lead, and the idea of what is private property and who has the rights to it. It shows many ways a revolution can be conceptualized and enacted, as well as the downfalls and dangers. The indenture culture in this world is fascinating and horrifying, where if AI can be indentured for the cost of their creation, well then people can be too. This makes Threezed and Med an incredible foil to one another. I don't think Paladin has completely thought through her choices in the end, and I believe the loyalty programming did affect her decision making after autonomy. She's being fetishized and she subconsciously recognizes this through Eliasz not understanding or wanting to understand bots outside of anthropomorphizing her.

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garbagebarge69's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

If you took the

man/robot sexual romance

out, the book would be cut in half.

Not saying that plot is bad, or that it doesn't fit contextually; just like, how

much exposition do we need dedicated to a solider getting descriptively horny for a robot?

And not like, a human-looking robot. Like a robot built with all the passionate humanity of a Jeep Cherokee.

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imjustadow's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.25

This is such a complicated review to write.

On the one hand, I loved Jack. Bisexual, anti-corporate, emancipator pirate lady? I'm all in, say less. Her life and experiences were very enjoyable to read and I really enjoyed her interactions with the other characters in her insane life.

But GOD, the stuff with Eliasz just kind of ruined everything for me. I don't like the way his "relationship" with Paladin played out starting from THAT chapter (if you've read it, you know which one I'm talking about). The fact that it was never resolved really made having any sympathy at all for Eliasz' quest to stop Jack next to impossible

Eliasz, at the end of the day, is a deeply homophobic cop who has no issue whatsoever with killing people to get what he wants. And more disgusting than that, he feels all of his actions are justified by him "following the law." He mentions that his time hunting down child traffickers was hell and that now that he was in patent law everything was simple and black and white, but that's such a one-dimensional state for a character to begin in, and never grow from as a person.

I loved the worldbuilding, the concept is fascinating, but I really ultimately did not enjoy this book, and I really really wanted to

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meg_thebrave's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

This is a book I’m sitting on and thinking about for a long, long while. As soon as I thought I’d figured out which character to root for, something would shift and I’d question that character’s actions. A sometimes violent, complex, and really well done story.

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dchaploeb's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

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sisdl's review against another edition

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adventurous dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.0

I have a lot of opinions about this book. Just to sum it up, this book contains homophobia, transphobia, sexual coercion, and manipulation. It is painted as being "just a normal thing", that does not need to be discussed or even seen as toxic or even dangerous behavior.

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samdalefox's review against another edition

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adventurous medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.25

Future dystopia, bisexual, pirate, social justice activist, hi-tech low-life(?) society. This is a tricky one to rate. I loved the premise and themes. I loved all the constituent parts individually, but they just never meshed together as a whole for me. The whole world felt jumbled, the individual storylines felt superficial, and even the characters themselves felt flat. I can't say for sure this was poorly written since I still enjoyed reading it, but I really feel that this book had more potential and somehow it let itself down. I wanted more!

There are HUGE topics introduced such as intellectual property rights and access to medicines, slavery/indenture, autonomy, robotic intelligence, corporate capitalism, and climate change and none are sufficiently explored. The novel simply needed to be longer with more depth to give us time to immerse ourselves in the jargon-overfilled world and actually get to know these characters and feel the lives they are living and the consequences of their actions. The whole thing came across more superficial that intended, especially considering the moral arguments around literally any one of the topics listed above. Even the goddamn romances were superficial. I found the ending pleasing in some areas, anticlimatic overall, and a bit confusing

why did the story end focussing upon Paladin and Eliasz instead of Jack?

.

Andystone's review sums it up:

"...The plot follows two different sets of characters, switching off every chapter until the climax where they meet… for all of one page. There was no discussion, no one learned anything and nothing was solved. By the time I got through 80% of the story, I worried that there wouldn’t be enough time to do something compelling to give a reason for the trials and tribulations of the previous couple hundred pages. Sadly, those worries were well founded...."

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