Others: Mixed In 1982 the brilliant science fiction movie Blade Runner was released, and a phenomenon was born. Set in the steel-and-microchip jungle of twenty-first century Los Angeles, this masterpiece re-created our vision of the future, telling the story of Rick Deckard, a ‘blade runner’ who tracks down and executes renegade androids. Now, for the millions of fans of the movie, as well as those coming to the saga for the first time, K. W. Jeter’s stylish and sophisticated new novel reenters that seedy, high-tech world and opens a new chapter of thrilling, nonstop, futuristic suspense. This time Deckard himself becomes both hunter and hunted in a race to prove his own humanity by tracking down the most elusive and dangerous android of all . . .
Genres: thriller
Lists: …
Stanisław Lem
2021 · 344 pages · 2 reviews
Others: MixedTwelve stories by science fiction master Stanisław Lem, nine of them never before published in English, making this the first "new" book of fiction by Lem since the late 1980s. The stories display the full range of Lem's intense curiosity about scientific ideas as well as his sardonic approach to human nature, presenting as multifarious a collection of mad scientists as any reader could wish for. Many of these stories feature artificial intelligences or artificial life forms, long a Lem preoccupation; some feature quite insane theories of cosmology or evolution. All are thought-provoking and scathingly funny. Written from 1956 to 1996, the stories are arranged in chronological order. In the title story, The Truth, a scientist in an insane asylum theorizes that the sun is alive; The Journal appears to be an account by an omnipotent being describing the creation of infinite universes—until at the end, in a classic Lem twist, it turns out to be no such thing; in An Enigma, beings debate whether offspring can be created without advanced degrees and design templates. Other stories feature a computer than can predict the future by 137 seconds, matter-destroying spores, a hunt in which the prey is a robot, and an electronic brain eager to go on the lam. These stories are peak Lem, exploring ideas and themes that resonate throughout his writing.
What made the match, strongest first
Karen Hao
2025 · 496 pages · 4 reviews
Others: Leaning positiveWhen AI expert and investigative journalist Karen Hao first began covering OpenAI in 2019, she thought they were the good guys. Founded as a nonprofit with safety enshrined as its core mission, the organization was meant, its leader Sam Altman told us, to act as a check against more purely mercantile, and potentially dangerous, forces. What could go wrong? Over time, Hao began to wrestle ever more deeply with that question. Increasingly, she realized that the core truth of this massively disruptive sector is that its vision of success requires an almost unprecedented amount of resources: the “compute” power of high-end chips and the processing capacity to create massive large language models, the sheer volume of data that needs to be amassed at scale, the humans “cleaning up” that data for sweatshop wages throughout the Global South, and a truly alarming spike in the usage of energy and water underlying it all. The truth is that we have entered a new and ominous age of empire: only a small handful of globally scaled companies can even enter the field of play. At the head of the pack with its ChatGPT breakthrough, how would OpenAI resist such temptations? Spoiler alert: it didn’t. Armed with Microsoft’s billions, OpenAI is setting a breakneck pace, chased by a small group of the most valuable companies in human history—toward what end, not even they can define. All this time, Hao has maintained her deep sourcing within the company and the industry, and so she was in intimate contact with the story that shocked the entire tech industry—Altman’s sudden firing and triumphant return. The behind-the-scenes story of what happened, told here in full for the first time, is revelatory of who the people controlling this technology really are. But this isn’t just the story of a single company, however fascinating it is. The g forces pressing down on the people of OpenAI are deforming the judgment of everyone else too—as such forces do. Naked power finds the ideology to cloak itself; no one thinks they’re the bad guy. But in the meantime, as Hao shows through intrepid reporting on the ground around the world, the enormous wheels of extraction grind on. By drawing on the viewpoints of Silicon Valley engineers, Kenyan data laborers, and Chilean water activists, Hao presents the fullest picture of AI and its impact we’ve seen to date, alongside a trenchant analysis of where things are headed. An astonishing eyewitness view from both up in the command capsule of the new economy and down where the real suffering happens, Empire of AI pierces the veil of the industry defining our era.
What made the match, strongest first
David Gerrold
1972 · 279 pages · 1 review
Others: NegativeA stunning first novel that grapples with the definition of consciousness and what it is to be human. The novel is primarily a series of conversations between a computer programmer / psychologist and his invention, H.A.R.L.I.E., a self-programming computer that has total access to information and knowledge through something similar to the Internet. As the computer matures, the question of what it means to be human becomes a serious one for the financial backers of the project concerned with the cost of the program. If HARLIE is conscious then he can't be disconnected: That would be murder. However, to keep him connected and working for the company amounts to slavery. HARLIE must figure out a way to be both financially viable and free at the same time. HARLIE reappears in Gerrold's later Starwolf novels.
What made the match, strongest first
Ray Nayler
2022 · 464 pages · 7 reviews
Others: Overwhelmingly positiveWhen pioneering marine biologist Dr. Ha Nguyen is offered the chance to travel to the remote Con Dao Archipelago to investigate a highly intelligent, dangerous octopus species, she doesn't pause long enough to look at the fine print. DIANIMA - a transnational tech corporation best known for its groundbreaking work in artificial intelligence - has purchased the islands, evacuated their population and sealed the archipelago off from the world so that Nguyen can focus on her research. But the stakes are high: the octopuses hold the key to unprecedented breakthroughs in extrahuman intelligence and there are vast fortunes to be made by whoever can take advantage of their advancements. And no one has yet asked the octopuses what they think. And what they might do about it.
What made the match, strongest first
William Gibson
2010 · 465 pages · 1 review
Others: PositiveSet among London's dark and tangled streets after the money-crash , Zero History is a thriller about the hidden webs and patterns that underlie the new century. Former rock singer Hollis Henry has lost a lot of money in the crash, which means she can't turn down the offer of a job from Hubertus Bigend, sinister Belgian proprietor of mysterious ad agency Blue Ant. Milgrim is working for Bigend too. A stylish, gripping technothriller from the multi-million copy bestselling author of Neuromancer.
What made the match, strongest first
Alexandra Andrews
2021 · 330 pages · 4 reviews
Others: Overwhelmingly positiveA "stylish and sharp" character-driven suspense novel, "with wicked hairpin turns," about a famous novelist and a small-town striver locked in a struggle for fortune and fame. (Maria Semple, author of Where’d You Go, Bernadette?) Florence Darrow is a low-level publishing employee who believes that she's destined to be a famous writer. When she stumbles into a job the assistant to the brilliant, enigmatic novelist known as Maud Dixon—whose true identity is a secret—it appears that the universe is finally providing Florence’s big chance. The arrangement seems perfect. Maud Dixon (whose real name, Florence discovers, is Helen Wilcox) can be prickly, but she is full of pointed wisdom—not only on how to write, but also on how to live. Florence quickly falls under Helen’s spell and eagerly accompanies her to Morocco, where Helen’s new novel is set. Amidst the colorful streets of Marrakesh and the wind-swept beaches of the coast, Florence’s life at last feels interesting enough to inspire a novel of her own. But when Florence wakes up in the hospital after a terrible car accident, with no memory of the previous night—and no sign of Helen—she’s tempted to take a shortcut. Instead of hiding in Helen’s shadow, why not upgrade into Helen's life? Not to mention her bestselling pseudonym . . . Taut, twisty, and viciously entertaining, Who is Maud Dixon is a stylish psychological thriller about how far into the darkness you’re willing to go to claim the life you always wanted.
What made the match, strongest first
Not a fanJeter attempted to write a sequel to both Bladeunner and Do Android's Dream of Electric Sheep in the same book. I'm not sure it really worked out that way, though. There is some attempt to stitch both narratives together and come up with some sort of hybrid sequel, but in my opinion, they just sort of trip over each other and contradict one version or the other.
Loved itplanetary pleasure I think yeah pretty good jeta does a pretty good job I think
