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Autonomous  By  cover art

Autonomous

By: Annalee Newitz
Narrated by: Jennifer Ikeda
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Editorial reviews

Editors Select, September 2017

A debut novel about artificial intelligence and drug pirates from Annalee Newitz, the founder of io9? I was on board before I even downloaded this book - and turns out I was safe to judge it by its cover. Newitz has created a richly imagined and morally corrupt future in which both life-saving and mind-altering drugs are heavily controlled by big pharma patents, and where both humans and robots live side by side - some indentured, some having gained “autonomy”. Autonomous is as addictive as it is thought-provoking, and I can’t wait to see what comes next for Newitz. Jennifer Ikeda was also a new narrator for me, and I was impressed by her range and ability to convey characters both young and mature, human and nonhuman. —Sam, Audible Editor

Publisher's summary

From award winning tech-journalist and io9 founder Annalee Newitz comes a highly anticipated science fiction debut!

Autonomous will pull listeners into a dark and dirty world that feels, at times, a bit too familiar.

Earth, 2144. Jack is an anti-patent scientist turned drug pirate, traversing the world in a submarine as a pharmaceutical Robin Hood, fabricating cheap scrips for poor people who can't otherwise afford them. But her latest drug hack has left a trail of lethal overdoses as people become addicted to their work, doing repetitive tasks until they become unsafe or insane.

Hot on her trail, an unlikely pair: Eliasz, a brooding military agent, and his robotic partner, Paladin. As they race to stop information about the sinister origins of Jack's drug from getting out, they begin to form an uncommonly close bond that neither of them fully understand.

And underlying it all is one fundamental question: Is freedom possible in a culture where everything, even people, can be owned?

©2017 Annalee Newitz (P)2017 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

"The uncertainty, fear, rage, despair, and, ultimately, hope that the robots experience are all perfectly voiced by Ikeda. A thrilling examination of intellectual property rights and personal identity." (AudioFile)

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Came For The Science, Bailed For The Porn

This book really disappointed me in almost every way except the hard science. The neurobiology integrated into the drug storyline was awesome (and tickled my fancy as a scientist specializing in molecular biology)... unfortunately, that was 1% of the story. The other 99% was...a lot of sex. And I mean a LOT of sex.

[Spoiler Alert]

A science podcast that I regularly listened to ("Science for the People") had the author, a science journalist, on as a guest to talk about their book. They were so passionate talking about the amount of neurobiology research, how they had contacted so many neurobiologists to figure out what chemicals would be used in the drugs, what the effects of said chemicals were, what addiction and withdrawal would look like for each situation...After an hour of listening to her in-depth process and some of the concepts she was exploring (drug companies overtaking society, biochemistry pirates), I was sold. I got the audio book and hunkered down for what I thought would be the best biochemical Sci-Fi novel I had ever read.

What I got was the narrator whispering sex scenes in my ear, and describing robot porn. Every. Two. Minutes. And these descriptions would go on for so long. No, I don't want to know that the robot's parter had an erection from "mounting" the robot in combat mode. No, I don't want a description of the character's intimate-yet-passionless sex life every scene she is in. I get that we're supposed to have a juxtaposition between an emotionless scientist (wow. Haven't seen that one before) and a passionate, full-of-life artificial intelligence (again, very original), but it's like the author can only show this difference through everyone's sex life. There are other ways of showcasing those differences besides who and how they bang.

To clarify, I don't have a problem with sex scenes. I have a problem with the fact that if felt like I was reading porn. I wanted a dystopian novel about drug corporations and addiction. I wanted a novel with a Robin Hood character, or heck, even a Han Solo character, out witting (and/or teaming up with) a competent detective team. I didn't want to listen for three hours about how a prostitute wants to bang our main lead, or how our hero has to go through her backstory and describe having sex with her then-boyfriend while arguing about starting a revolution. Do these characters not know how to interact with their pants on or something? Had they interspersed the sex with actual story, I would have been down to continue reading. But, unfortunately, at 5 hours, and almost no story progression, I had to quit.

There was chemistry in this book, all right, but the wrong kind for me.

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Robots, future drugs, slavery, and patent reform

In Annalee Newitz's Autonomous, we see the future of 2144 and what happens when drug patents never run out and the concept of selling people into slavery was brought back into fashion after corporations wanted to create sentient bots without losing their investment.

On one hand you have the story of Jack Chen, a drug pirate trying to fight a disastrous epidemic caused by a pharma giant's newest productivity booster that she reverse-engineered and sold on the streets. She's joined by a runaway human slave who's been treated like a robot his whole life and an autonomous robot doctor who's been treated like a human her whole life.

And on the other hand (there are a lot of hands in this book, literally), you have a human agent of the International Property Coalition and his endentured bot partner whose mission is to find Jack and take her out at any cost. The bot is just starting its life and learns a lot about bots, humans, autonomy, sex, and gender.

Autonomous creates an interesting future world that is relatable enough to our world that you might be able to see it in the distance, while exploring a lot of things I had never seen done before. It combines multiple forms of slavery with a realistic depiction of artificial lifeforms and their integration into society. It features a future that is generally more accepting of differences, while still not getting rid of the old prejudices entirely (and inventing a few new ones for good measure). It shows future drugs that chill me just to think of. There are a lot of new concepts but all are worked together in a smooth and believable fashion; Newitz's strong background in both science fiction and technology really shines through here.

Jennifer Ikeda does a great job with the narration, not all voices are extremely different from one another, but the differences are there when you need them. Robots sound monotonous or emotional as appropriate and a few different characters have distinct accents.

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I was expecting greatness...

First, let me say that I made it about two or three hours into the book before I gave up on it. So this is not a review based on the entire story. The narrator was not very animated and the narration droned. Monotonic does not describe it but comes very close. The authors fetish for bio-degradation was irritating after two or three hours. It seemed like she picked up on a buzz word and had to use every chance she had. Recycling would have made more sense in the future time frame this story is in. With bio-degradation you lose the materials. With recycling you save them and can reuse them. Her tech was at times perplexing. She can sequence a molecule and reproduce it exactly, but she has to painstakingly verify the molecule by direct observation? That makes no sense. If you have equipment that can do the analysis and synthesis, it surely can make a comparison for you. They have AI that can run human form robots but it can't run lab equipment? All in all, very disappointing. Just because a story takes place in the future, that doesn't make it science fiction. I am a science fiction snob. I like my science fiction to have actual science in it. Unless it is campy science fiction movies from the mid 20th century. Those are pretty awesome all on their own. The way this book was hyped I thought it was going to stand among the likes of Bradbury, Clarke or Heinlein. It is not. Not even close.

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A closer future than is comfortable

Newitz's vision of the future is impeccably grounded in the tech world she has lived and written about for years. She naturally extends patent law and intellectual property laws to a logical extreme, and grounds it in the relevant now of health-care and pharmaceutical politics. Her characters are inclusive and relatable across a wide spectrum of the human experience, and the overall shape of the book leaves both the protagonists and their opponents in a far more human state - the book ends in a gray area.

Like many works of Cyberpunk before it, Autonomous hits a little too close to home. I wouldn't have it any other way.

A note on Jennifer Ikeda's performance: it was overall very good, but lacked the flair necessary to make it a truly outstanding reading.

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Interesting premise with a weird romantic subplot

It's unfortunate that we live in an age of hyperbole...while Autonomous is most definitely not the next Neuromancer, it is a fairly decent first attempt at science fiction.

The dystopian future setting with widespread genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, and very strong patent enforcement is interesting, but I feel that Newitz doesn't quite do enough with it. I found the world-building aspects of Autonomous to be the most fun part of the book but the characters and overall plot line failed to keep me invested or engaged. I ultimately found the characters to be nearly hollow caricatures (with the exception of a particular biobot) since we aren't given enough to truly root for or despise anyone. Instead of feeling connected, I simply felt like a passive observer.

The thing that bugged me the most about this book is probably its romantic twist. While gender identity might be something that is hotly debated today, the world of Autonomous has already been set up by Newitz to be comfortable and even mildly accepting of the relationship she poses. It felt like a lot of effort was put into a plot point that lacked punch.

Overall, Autonomous is pretty interesting and moderately entertaining, and while it isn't exactly great, you could do much worse.

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It Sure Has Been a Long Hard Climb

There was a snitch from the Class of '87 who ruined and ended a 20 year tradition of students drinking on the Latin field trip. It's litcherally why I took Latin for this field trip of In Vinum es Veritas. My punishment during my 10 day suspension was to push mow a 6 acre lot that took me three days at which point I had to start over blisters be damned. Today I started work on my new farm which took me 8 hours to mow with a tractor. I'll get my technique down though. Anyway, I've been anticipating this book for over a year and pre-ordered the day it was available. I loved it but the drug they are on reminds me of me. I sat in inertia and depression for 3 years but big ups to Power Life Yoga who got me moving again and I have not stopped since. Once I get zeroed in on a project like my organic heirloom micro-farm I can't stop. Once my fingers hit the soil or the blade touches the grass I am engrossed and usually listening to an audio book thus killing two birds with one stone. Like in the book I do not hydrate enough and do not quit until it's too dark to work. This novel was incredible and probably close to accurate with singularity. However, I do think since we weaponize every new technology that it was mayhap a little soft and less dark than it might be. Like Sam Harris said this week, "We will only get one shot with Ai and we could become extinct if we do not do it correctly." I'm sure between Putin, Rocket Man, Isis, Xi Jinping and The Dotard it will be just fine. Oh and I hear the snitch is in to pegging these days and I am sure he is someone's confidential informant after getting busted with an 8 ball and a quarter pound of pharmaceutical grade amyly nitrate, but I judge no man. I sometimes think robots could do it all better anyway. We all help slow kill the earth and all her inhabitants with Dupont and Monsanto whose products and poisons we use everyday. I sure hope Annalee keeps writing fiction. It's like Robert Zimmerman said, "Someday, everything is gonna be different, when I paint my masterpiece. " This just might be it for her?

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Weird AI Love novel

Not my cup of tea. The description barely touches on the details of this book. I started off intrigued! After a third way through however, it became apparent this is just basically a robot porn novel. Fifty shades of metal and biotechnology.

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Drug lord Robin Hood with robotic romance

Autonomous by Annalee Newitz starts with a simple premise, a woman with a drug manufacturing capability who produces counterfeit expensive drugs to support her passion for making other life-saving drugs for poor people. At the same time, law enforcement partners, one who happens to be a robot are tracking Ms Robin Hood who has reverse engineered a new drug that happens to have some serious side effects such as killing people.

The main story is set a bit over 100 years into the future with occasional flashbacks about 25 years earlier. The main sci-fi elements amount to sophisticated drug development and manufacturing capabilities as well as advanced robots. Unfortunately, the basic premise of intellectual property, i.e. patents as the source of the problems of the day is a bit overdone and suggest someone with little background in this area. If the world were as described, then somehow in the intervening years, patents were changed to have infinite lifetimes and somehow, the world has allowed itself to fall under a single set of patent laws.

Law enforcement is also a bit loose with official investigators murdering any and all witnesses they question and staging suicide scenes. Also, pharma companies don't need to worry about bad drugs as "rich" people who can afford their drug can also afford medical care, but why they wouldn't just sue the pants off big pharma seems ignored. Also, if a single woman in a submarine can manufacture enough drugs to save small, poor countries from health care disasters, it begs the question why poor countries can't establish their own manufacturing facilities in submarines. Another bizarre aspect to this society is that at some point, intelligent robots were emancipated or could be become "autonomous", but at the same time, in some wired way it made sense that if robots could be autonomous, then humans could also become indentured as slaves to be bought and sold. This creates situations where humans are bought and sold for cheap labor, while robots can earn PhDs. Lastly, a lack of inside knowledge on the drug development process produces a situation where the mechanism of action of a dangerous drug is studied, an antidote is fashioned, tested on one mouse, and then the formula uploaded for doctors in hospitals to use in only five days.

Between the questionable ethics of making drugs for recreational abuse to support making life-saving drugs and robots struggling with gender identity issues and romantic feelings, the tale feels like an artificial world that doesn't quite make enough sense to exist. There is no attempt to offer how this transition occurred.

The narration is reasonably good, but with barely adequate character, especially gender discrimination making following conversations difficult at times.

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Enjoyable story, wanted more world building!

I really enjoyed this book and the interesting tale of humans and robots.I liked that we get to observe the world from both human and robot perspectives and can see how different their perspectives are. The whole idea of the autonomy key was interesting and the whole pharmaceuticals angle the story focused on was an interesting change from what is normally seen.

I think the largest disappointment was that there were a number of interesting ideas that were just touched on as the story progresses and I would have liked to have heard more. Some characters were really interesting but we didn't get to know them as well as I would have liked (Med).

Overall, it was a great story and an enjoyable listen. Jennifer Ikeda did a superb job with narration and I felt like she gave both humans and robots their own voices.

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Boring!

Only book I really wanted to return--reader adds nothing and story is so slow, I kept losing interest

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