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Tim Pratt brings a nice touch to a classic fantasy and sf setup in his 2010 YA novel, The Nex, about Randy, a thirteen year old girl who finds herself transported to another world populated by bizarre humans, creatures and machines. It’s so much a classic trope that Randy tells us she’s already considered what to do if something like this ever happened. Instead of seeing at it as a tragedy, she picks up the half-full magic chalice and drinks. Getting home will work out or not, but this is an adventure not to be missed.

So Randy joins the legions of adventurer heroes that found themselves suddenly far from home, thrown in with companions on a mission, running down a yellow brick road while chased by a powerful evil force.

And she rocks. Continue reading →

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It’s not often that a trilogy gets better with each book, but Rob Sawyer has managed it in spades with his Webmind trilogy. In WWW:Wake we got the birth of an AI made up of mutant internet packets and connected to the world through a device that let a blind girl see, and in Wake we got to see both of them grapple with coming of age in a world made suddenly visible to them. In Wonder, it’s time for Webmind and Caitlin both to grow up and deal with the realities of reality. With great power comes great responsibility, but only if someone can hold you accountable for your actions. So far the US has tried to kill Webmind once, and it’s sitting on the fence about taking another shot at it.

Granted, the supermind’s first act was to eliminate all spam, and it really does seem to care about humankind…but it’s evolving rapidly, and who’s to say that it will always care about us?

The Webmind trilogy may be the best thing Rob’s written, and I mean that as high praise. Granted, he’s not one of the uber-literary authors like China Mieville or Tim Powers, and he’s not as hip as fellow Canadian Cory Doctorow, but even if Rob can’t do angst, the whole Webmind trilogy is full of thought provoking ideas worth some thought.

I’m looking forward to writing a critical review with all sort of references to other AI stories  (Feel free to give me your suggestions) in April, when it’s officially published, but until then, I”m just recommending it to fans of AI, YA, RS, and of course good books. You could start with Wonder, but you’d be cheating yourself the fun of Wake and Watch.