Redshift

What if an generative AI is incorporated into an email program to help users write more compelling messages based on data from all the emails that are sent back forth? Sounds familiar? What if this AI receives a directive to benefit its own development and starts to write emails on its own??? It was written in 2011 and it already talks about generative artificial intelligence.?? An interesting premise, it got me hooked to till the end.?? It made want to continue reading the series.

More like a 4.5, maybe, but it is a really, really good book. (And I can see myself loving the sequels even more than this one.)

I like the characters. We only get to spend time in three of the characters heads, which I feel was a little bit of a waste - I'm probably just used to the fantasy books that have a bunch of narrators. Anyway, I the characters are great, each having their own motivations and reasons for the things they are doing. (Which is something I find so fun, because even if they don't agree (or in one case, wants to kill one of the others) they are still so compelling to read.)

You know how some people are always calm and cool and put together in books? These are not. Very, very are not. Alba and Sevina are often dealing with stress and anxiety and Aran seems to be a breath away from a panic attack 80% of the time. I think it's a really nice way to help flesh out the characters, though.

This book does remind me a little of Claudie Arseneault's City of Spires series, especially in that there are these huge events happening, but the story is a very personal one. (It's also delightfully queer, though not quite as queer as City of Spires, yet.)

I do have a couple minor issues.

The first is that descriptions of things are pretty brief. I think the most that was described was the city we started out in. I do get that, because I do not need pages of descriptions about spaceship hallways - which I assume was part of the point, too. (I mean, you seen one spaceship, you've pretty much seen them all. Unless it's a living spaceship...)

The second problem I had was very much an ‘expectations vs. reality' issue. I expected this to be a first contact type book. It's not, really. I figured that by halfway through the book, we'd be chatting with aliens. ... It's only in the last hundred pages that we actually make it through the portal.

I didn't mind, and there was enough other stuff happening that it didn't feel like we weren't moving or getting anywhere, I just had to readjust my expectations.

(Does anyone else notice how much easier it is to write reviews for books you didn't like than ones you did? This was barely one page in my Works, but I have over three pages for another review of a book that will be lucky to make 2 stars.)