artificial intelligence | Book Girl & Little Bear

Rose / House by Arkady Martine, narrated by Raquel Beattie

I listened to this science fiction/horror/locked room mystery novella set more than 100 years in the future, in a California desert. Architect Basit Deniau left Rose House for his last creation. His remains are now in a large diamond displayed in the house, which has an AI caretaker designated Rose House. Narrator Raquel Beattie does an excellent job with the voices of several humans and the AI. A basement vault in the house has files of architectural and AI designs that are highly desired by other architects and corporations. Unfortunately for them, only Dr. Selene Gisil has access to Rose House. She is a former protégé of Deniau’s who later disagreed with him, but was named archivist after Deniau’s death. Dr. Gisil can stay in Rose House for one week each year. This year, she lasted three days before she called Detective Torres of China Lake Precinct to pick her up. Water theft is the precinct’s most common crime. Torres’ partner, Officer Maritza Smith, gets a call from Rose House stating that a body has been in the house for the past 24 hours. How can she get in? Only Dr. Gisil has access, and she’s out of the country.

Rose House AI is unsettling, even creepy, especially its laugh, and the house is built in a confusing spiral pattern. There are nanites, which can form images, but may also trigger asthma. There are Andorrans (Europeans, not aliens) and, of course, roses. Many roses. This novella, while different from Martine’s longer Teixcalaan science fiction novels, beginning with A Memory Called Empire, is a compelling and memorable read.

Brenda

The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler

This near-future science fiction novel is about first contact, and artificial intelligence. Evrim is the first true android, and is exiled to Con Do, a remote Vietnamese island, whose population had been relocated earlier. Dr. Ha Nguyen is a marine biologist who’s arrived on Con Dao to study a colony of long-lived octopuses. Shapesinger is an octopus, who may be a tool user, and might even write symbols. The octopuses are not entirely benign, and can defend themselves.

Corporations seem to have a lot of control in this future Earth. Artificial intelligence of all types and sizes can pilot a fishing vessel as well as deliver poison darts. There are auto monks who help sea turtles on the beach, and artificial online friends. Eiko and Son are forced labor on one of the fishing vessels, and Son tells stories about creatures from the sea. In real life, octopuses show intelligence but have fairly short, mostly solitary lives. It’s fascinating to read about what might be different if they develop a culture.

This book was not at all a quick read, and rather dark in parts, but I was fascinated by the various characters, and gradually drawn into an immersive, compelling story.

Kim Stanley Robinson also writes cli-fi, or climate fiction, but isn’t as character-focused. There are a number of recent novels featuring octopuses, but I’d suggest the non-fiction The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery.

Brenda