Annalee Newitz: Autonomous
May. 1st, 2018 06:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bibliogrammaAnnalee Newitz’s novel Autonomous gives us a terrifying picture of a future where patent laws protecting drugs, and the reward of exorbitant pharmaceutical profits, have created a two-tiered society where only the wealthy can afford medical care, and the benefits of performance enhancing drugs, because the cost of those drugs, from vaccines to longevity treatments, is far beyond anything the typical person can afford.
In this world, there are people, like Jack Chen, who reverse engineer essential medicines and distribute them illegally at a fraction of the price charged by the pharmas. They subsidise their work by also distributing other drugs, mood and performance enhancers. They are called pirates, drug-runners, even terrorists by the authorities for whom the pharma companies are major drivers of the economy and supporters of the governments that enforce the abusive patent laws via an international organisation, the International Property Coalition, or IPC.
This is also a world where intelligent robots and cyborgs can become legally autonomous, and where humans can spend their entire life as indentured servants.
Jack has been distributing a generic copy of a drug that’s nit even officially on the market yet - Zacuity. It’s supposed to give the user an enhanced feeling of reward for work accomplished, a kind of performance enhancer. But people using it are developing addictive obsessions and working themselves to death. At first, Jack is afraid that she screwed up when she reverse engineered the drug. But then she realises that the drug itself is deadly, and Xaxy, the company that made, it has hidden the proof. One way or another, Jack knows she’s responsible for the deaths, and she wants to develop a therapy to treat the problem - and make sure everyone knows that the company was prepared to market a potentially additive, deadly drug. Along the way, she teams up with Threezed, a young man who was an indentured servant - until she had to kill his owner - and Med (short for Medea), an autonomous humanoid bot who is a biochemical engineer.
But she’s working against time. Agents of the IPC are after her - a human intelligence officer named Eliasz, and an indentured military bot designated Paladin. They’re authorised to kill drug-runners, and Jack knows she has to work fast to get the cure, and the truth, out before they find and kill her.
In addition to exploring the nightmare of drug patent laws gone wild, Newitz examines issues of identity and autonomy through the robots Paladin and Med, one indentured, one autonomous, and through Threezed, who moves from slavery to freedom thanks to Jack and Med.
This is a strong science fiction debut, well-written, with memorable characters and a fast-moving plot. It drew me in almost from the beginning and held my interest through to the end.
In this world, there are people, like Jack Chen, who reverse engineer essential medicines and distribute them illegally at a fraction of the price charged by the pharmas. They subsidise their work by also distributing other drugs, mood and performance enhancers. They are called pirates, drug-runners, even terrorists by the authorities for whom the pharma companies are major drivers of the economy and supporters of the governments that enforce the abusive patent laws via an international organisation, the International Property Coalition, or IPC.
This is also a world where intelligent robots and cyborgs can become legally autonomous, and where humans can spend their entire life as indentured servants.
Jack has been distributing a generic copy of a drug that’s nit even officially on the market yet - Zacuity. It’s supposed to give the user an enhanced feeling of reward for work accomplished, a kind of performance enhancer. But people using it are developing addictive obsessions and working themselves to death. At first, Jack is afraid that she screwed up when she reverse engineered the drug. But then she realises that the drug itself is deadly, and Xaxy, the company that made, it has hidden the proof. One way or another, Jack knows she’s responsible for the deaths, and she wants to develop a therapy to treat the problem - and make sure everyone knows that the company was prepared to market a potentially additive, deadly drug. Along the way, she teams up with Threezed, a young man who was an indentured servant - until she had to kill his owner - and Med (short for Medea), an autonomous humanoid bot who is a biochemical engineer.
But she’s working against time. Agents of the IPC are after her - a human intelligence officer named Eliasz, and an indentured military bot designated Paladin. They’re authorised to kill drug-runners, and Jack knows she has to work fast to get the cure, and the truth, out before they find and kill her.
In addition to exploring the nightmare of drug patent laws gone wild, Newitz examines issues of identity and autonomy through the robots Paladin and Med, one indentured, one autonomous, and through Threezed, who moves from slavery to freedom thanks to Jack and Med.
This is a strong science fiction debut, well-written, with memorable characters and a fast-moving plot. It drew me in almost from the beginning and held my interest through to the end.