Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Sep 2017
304 pages
Genre: Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Publication Information
The highly anticipated science fiction debut from the founder of io9!
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?
"Starred Review. [A] compelling, original story line acted out by memorable characters ... Lovers of original, thought-provoking sf should not miss this one." - Library Journal
"Starred Review. In a phenomenal debut that's sure to garner significant awards attention, Newitz, cofounder of io9, sends three fascinating characters on an action-packed race against time through a strange yet familiar futuristic landscape." - Publishers Weekly
"A strong and cerebral start if perhaps a little too open-ended." - Kirkus
"Autonomous is to biotech and AI what Neuromancer was to the Internet."- Neal Stephenson
"Something genuinely and thrillingly new in the naturalistic, subjective, paradoxically humanistic but non-anthropomorphic depiction of bot-POV - and all in the service of vivid, solid storytelling." - William Gibson
"Moves fast, with frightening intelligence." - Charles Yu, author of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe
"Annalee Newitz has conjured the rarest, most exciting thing: a future that's truly new ... a terrific novel and a tremendous vision." - Robin Sloan, author of Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore
"Holy hell. Autonomous is remarkable." - Lauren Beukes, bestselling author of Broken Monsters
"Everything you'd hope for from the co-founder of io9 ... Combines the gonzo, corporatized future of Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash with the weird sex of Charlie Stross's Saturn's Children; throws in an action hero that's a biohacker version of Bruce Sterling's Leggy Starlitz, and then saturates it with decades of deep involvement with free software hackers, pop culture, and the leading edge of human sexuality." - Cory Doctorow, New York Times bestselling author of Walkaway.
This information about Autonomous was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: Sarah Deragon
Annalee Newitz is an American journalist, editor, and author of fiction and nonfiction. They are the recipient of a Knight Science Journalism Fellowship from MIT, and have written for Popular Science, The New Yorker, and the Washington Post. They founded the science fiction website io9 and served as Editor-in-Chief from 2008–2015, and then became Editor-in-Chief at Gizmodo and Tech Culture Editor at Ars Technica. Their book Scatter, Adapt, and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction was nominated for the LA Times Book Prize in science. Their first novel, Autonomous, won a Lambda award.
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