Yay, free money and a life of leisure! Except only if you never have children. Sure, a cute little version of you (but not yet so screwed up) sounds fun. But with AI robots taking more jobs, who can reject that “bargain” hoping to afford kids someday?
Stu Reigns does. He’s an idealistic AI programmer and part-time influencer. His demisexual ex-girlfriend, Roxy Zhang, nears perfecting electronic immortality. Add in billionaire banking rascals, and there’s no more certainty — not even “Death and Taxes.”
An old-money Southerner is buying Roxy’s company. This infuriates a sick, rival oligarch — who is about to be rightfully convicted of epic fraud. To escape to this digital eternal life, he compels Stu to steal it.
You’ll never guess all the twists, but maybe the reader peering over your shoulder will.
Immortality Bytes by Daniel Lawrence Abrams was published on September 10, 2024. BooksGoSocial provided a galley for review.
The cover of this novel (by Ricardo Montano Castro) immediately grabbed my attention. Combining that with a title that seemed to be a play on Reality Bites, a 1994 comedy-drama, and I was definitely hooked.
Abrams sets up a world not unlike our own in the year designated by 20NF (which stands for twenty-near-future). The big change is that technology has advanced so far that people live and spend their time differently.
In a bit of a nod to the technology-shift, the author also uses a format where longer narrative "discussions" or "lessons" get relegated to a section of bonus material outside of the main narrative; the e-book version actually utilizes a hyperlink method to allow the reader to jump to those sections and back again should they want to read them at the time the topics are introduced. This is a creative approach I have not seen before and can see how that it could be beneficial. It certainly helps to avoid long sections of information-dumping amidst the main narrative. My only comment on this would have been for the "return link" to appear at the end of each section (to logically jump back after reading) rather than the reader having to scroll back to find it where that bonus material essay started.
The main story itself focuses on seven characters in particular. We are given a scorecard listing of them right before chapter 1 with a half dozen to dozen words for each to give the reader a rough idea of who they are and what they are like. While I prefer to learn about characters as they are introduced, this is another stylistic choice that could again mirror the technology themes (with the names being like a BuzzFeed list of sorts). It does give the reader an advanced warning to a large, varied cast for this tale.
Abrams' commentary and satire has several layers, giving the attentive reader some rewarding thoughts to ponder. For me, this is something I might need to revisit when I'm in a better mental state to appreciate it.
No comments:
Post a Comment