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A review by ruqiyah
Serengeti by J.B. Rockwell
3.0
Okay, two points to make. First, read that blurb. Isn't it brilliant? Isn't it fantastic? I had images of some sort of creepy sci-fi, people invading a ship while the ship is trying to get them out, like haunted house stuff but sci-fi with AI! I love AI!
The specific premise described in that blurb is an event that takes place two-thirds of the way through the book and is about ten pages long. This is not a book about that.
Second, I love space AI books. The last set I read was Ann Leckie's Ancillary books and Serengeti is at a disadvantage because this is a very different sort of AI. Which is to say you could replace Serengeti the AI with a lady in a little office off in a corner of the spaceship and I don't think the book would lose anything. It's an almost frustratingly human AI, who freaks out and gets distracted and is endlessly affectionate. That's not the book's fault - it's consistent and clear in its depiction of AI, it's just not my kind of AI. I don't read books about robots to read about robots blushing and giggling and being cutesy.
If I hadn't gone into this book hoping for something like Ancillary meets House of Leaves I probably would have liked it more, and I do think the blurb unfairly misrepresents it.
The specific premise described in that blurb is an event that takes place two-thirds of the way through the book and is about ten pages long. This is not a book about that.
Second, I love space AI books. The last set I read was Ann Leckie's Ancillary books and Serengeti is at a disadvantage because this is a very different sort of AI. Which is to say you could replace Serengeti the AI with a lady in a little office off in a corner of the spaceship and I don't think the book would lose anything. It's an almost frustratingly human AI, who freaks out and gets distracted and is endlessly affectionate. That's not the book's fault - it's consistent and clear in its depiction of AI, it's just not my kind of AI. I don't read books about robots to read about robots blushing and giggling and being cutesy.
If I hadn't gone into this book hoping for something like Ancillary meets House of Leaves I probably would have liked it more, and I do think the blurb unfairly misrepresents it.