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Autonomous

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Autonomous

By: Annalee Newitz
Narrated by: Jennifer Ikeda
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About this listen

Winner of the 2018 LAMBDA Award for SFF.

Shortlisted for The Nebula Award 2018.

Shortlisted for The Locus Award for Best Debut 2018.

Earth, 2144. Jack is an anti-patent scientist turned drug pirate, traversing the world in a submarine as a pharmaceutical Robin Hood, fabricating cheap medicines for those 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 is an unlikely pair: Eliasz, a brooding military agent, and his indentured 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 understands.

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)2018 Little, Brown Book Group Cyberpunk Fantasy Fiction Science Fiction

Critic Reviews

"Autonomous is to biotech and AI what Neuromancer was to the internet." (Neal Stephenson)
"Something genuinely and thrillingly new." (William Gibson)

"Holy hell. Autonomous is remarkable." (Lauren Beukes)
All stars
Most relevant
Didn't like the beginning at all, I thought it was just the voice, so I also got the physical book...but no...it was both...so have put down the reading/listening to this book for some months....Then I started listening to it again, but only during showers at start, then the story and audio got more and more interesting and irresistible and I couldn't help wanting to know what would happen next. My emotions fluctuated with the characters and their actions. The world setting and concepts were also eye-opening for me as I don't really read much sci-fi books, so I had to re-listen to some parts a few times to understand (and with the help of Google). The audio voice also grew more vibrant down the track. Would love to see this in a quality movie too.

Really interesting, really!!

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The blurb lead me to believe there was a lot more scifi/cyberpunk than there is. The blurb also touched on an unconventional relationship when it turned there was much more than just a touch. Also a lot of gender politics and sexuality commentary. The book I wanted was not what I was sold.

Not what I was after

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This story goes to places you likely won’t expect. It actually made me feel kind of awkward and uncomfortable to consider some of the concepts such as slavery, ownership, big pharma, piracy, sexuality and identity. Pretty big stuff to cover in a futuristic sci-fi like this. It’s at its best when the chase is on for a piece of the puzzle or the hunt for a key bit of info, but really lagged when diving into relationships and or politics. I loved the world that has been built around the idea of ‘grown’ technology and the robots are really distinctly different. It’s thought provoking and stands on its own amongst a flooded market of sci-fi but I can’t say yet whether I actually liked it. He narrator was maybe the weakest part, sounding more like the robots she was reading for than the humans most of the time. I would have preferred more inflection, character and energy..it just felt really flat. Still..someone else might appreciate it?
It’s overall a good story and everything but I wouldn’t say it’s been a favourite.

Different.

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Thoroughly enjoyed this story! In-depth world creation but still easy to follow. The characters were all loveable and I found myself torn, wanting them all to achieve their goals.

Fantastic

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The overall concept and story was really good however it did feel at one point to be very forced heteronormative, especially the part where they assign a gender to the robot even though it is explained that gender is not needed. It just feels like it was for the sole purpose of making them a straight couple. The story would’ve felt a lot more compelling. Had they kept the robot genderless?

Forced heteronormality

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