Tag: artificial intelligence

There May Be Spoilers: A Review of Building Baby Brother, by Steven RadeckiThere May Be Spoilers: A Review of Building Baby Brother, by Steven Radecki

December 11, 2022| cometary| 0 Comment | 3:23 pm

Oh, my, let’s unpack this one. First off, this book is a good choice if you’re shopping for a scifi story for someone who maybe isn’t all that into science fiction but loves kids and understands the parenting life, or anyone who’s given any real thought to what artificial intelligence might be like and what it would mean for ordinary people.

Building Baby Brother is a story made for Silicon Valley parents—wherever they may live. It has such a multi-layered dimensionality, you’ll be peering at your neighbors, wondering if that’s them, if this story isn’t fiction, but thinly-veiled fact.

The story begins with a typical divorced father managing a well-ordered shared upbringing relationship for the child he and his ex are raising together…but separately. The ex has her issues, Dad has his failings, but they both care about Josh, a wonderful kid whose one ask is “when can I have a baby brother?”

Parents want to provide for their kids. Don’t they? And this dad, once he stops to think about it, realizes he has the capability to provide his son with some of what he needs: a companion to play with, a buddy to share secrets with, a fellow child to grow up with. Gavin is just what Josh needs. What Dad needs Josh to experience.

Wait….back up a minute there. Secrets? Before Dad knows it, Gavin’s doing things he hadn’t designed him for, because Josh taught him new things, ways to access information Dad didn’t think Baby Brother would need. But what were the kids to do when they needed to make just a few improvements to their favorite video game? What would a Silicon Valley kid do? Of course, they get online and add the mods they want. And Gavin’s got the inside track on modifying software, being mostly software himself.

Gavin is an AI. And also a child. And what does a child do best?

Learn. And what do you do for a child that needs to learn, who is a good person, one who’s your other child’s best friend?

You help. Of course. Because that’s what a parent does.

What follows shouldn’t be a spoiler, unless you failed to read the blurb on the book.

EXTREMELY MILD SPOILER ALERT.

Stop here if need be. Grab tissues if you’re ok with indirect spoilers.

What happens when a child has learned all they can from their parents?

You mean when they’re all grown up?

<nods>

Oh. Right. That.

END OF SPOILER-ADJACENT MATERIAL

Building Baby Brother isn’t fear-the-AI, instead it drives straight to that point all parents say they’re working towards, but that tears them apart, all the same, when it finally happens. If you’re a crier, be sure you have tissues handy. If you’re a parent, be glad you have all those years ahead.

Or do you? It’s you, isn’t it, with the workshop and the spare parts and the know-how? Think, first. OK?

Review: Memory and Metaphor, by Andrea MonticueReview: Memory and Metaphor, by Andrea Monticue

April 4, 2020| cometary| 0 Comments | 1:37 am

Sharon Manders is having a very bad day. She’s been drop-kicked into the distant future–a thousand years out of time–and has no memory whatsoever of making any plans to go anywhen. She’s an archaeologist with a thriving career in good old 21-century Earth. And here she is in the 31st century, where everyone’s calling her by some other name that she doesn’t recognize. And she’s accused of treason, sabotage, terrorist acts. She has a lot on her plate, and she’s going to have to move fast while trying to figure out just what happened.

And you’ll be reading along, trying to figure that out, too. When she finally solves the last layer of that puzzle, you’ll lean back and say, “Oh, yeah, why on Earth didn’t I think of that?” But you won’t have thought of it. Andrea Monticue leads you quite a merry chase. I really can’t roll in too much detail without spoiling the whole thing for you.

Let’s just say a woman from our time finds herself plunged into a high-tech future with AI, biological engineering, and dangerous politics. Just when you think you have everything figured out, Monticue rotates the horizon by 37 degrees and you’re floating in space again, looking for answers. The book has to end (which you will not want it to do) and she ties all those twists and tangles together in one stunner of a unique conceptual shift.

Engaging characters, complex political situations that nonetheless remind you of the mistakes humans make right here on Earth in the “distant past”, and a plot that moves ever faster–all that will keep you glued to the page/e-reader.

At the very least, if all you take from this story is the tech (and there’s way more to it than tech), you will not think about artificial intelligence the same way, not ever again.

I got my copy directly from the publisher, at last year’s Bay Area Science Fiction Convention (BayCon), and was lucky to meet the author, who has the experience and technical background to make this story come alive.

So . . . my copy is autographed. You can get a signed first edition, too, direct from the publisher, at Paper Angel Press. Or you can choose your favorite digital medium or snag the trade paperback from Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

Full disclosure: at this point, I’ve also had a book published by Paper Angel Press. I was impressed by Monticue’s book and her publisher, enough so that I submitted my own book, hoping to follow in her footsteps. Rest assured there are way, way more explosions (literal and metaphorical) in Memory and Metaphor!