Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

Unfortunately, this didn't work for me, even if we're dealing with an intriguing world, an intriguing character and set of circumstances. But in a way, it felt more like the expanded summary of a book than an actual novel. It feels like it either needed 200 more pages to flesh the world and the emotional moments out. Or it needed to be even more streamlined into a simpler tale with fewer moving parts.

As it is, we have two dialogue modes: big exposition dump (on worldbuilding and feelings) and just dismissive first draft placeholder sort of lines, an endless chain of 'doesn't matter', 'who cares', and so on.

From the beginning I had a feeling of retread from the Binti trilogy on the thematic points of identity (who am I if I am part machine?) and discovering a self-sustainable oasis in the desert. Only it was done in three novellas there and Binti's feelings had time to breathe and the relationships were drawn carefully and slowly and the worldbuilding felt fresh and exciting.

I genuinely don't understand the relationship between AO and DNA (beyond the fact that I guess she represents machine and he represents 'traditional' humans?), but they don't work on the page for me as a relationship, it just feels like they have nothing in common (except for... murdering people on the same day and also being hunted for that?). But they also don't feel like characters and just rough approximations of that.

The structure of the book is also strange. Near the beginning we have a transcript of a podcast that doesn't really feel relevant to the theme or the story and a chapter where DNA tells his story in his own voice, but then such formal explorations are dropped.

And then things get super precipitated two thirds of the way in. (view spoiler)[ The Hour Glass is such an interesting location, but everything feels rushed there. We meet Force, AO's ex who has never before been mentioned or foreshadowed, his girlfriend, who can be described as 'nice'. AO had thought that Force killed himself, cause that's what his family had said, but her feelings about this revelation once again are rushed and have no room to breathe, because galloping through the story. It's really a shame cause I would have loved to learn more about The Hour Glass, but at this point I had no more connection or engagement with the characters. AO hadn't known about this place, but DNA, the traditional guy (described as such in text) knew so much about it and just told us in pages and pages of exposition and stunted dialogue. Then Force tells AO that she is special because her mother ate special olives and AO and us don't have enough time to process that either.

It also doesn't feel satisfying that the explanation for the ever-mentioned pomegranate of eyes - though it's beautiful and potent imagery - is 'mom ate olives' and then a man hit her hard on the face and now she can talk to AI. And then her mechanical arm stops working, then she says, but it does work, and then it doesn't work again. (hide spoiler)]

The magical white guy in the desert smoking weed was sort of fun and it seemed like a subversion of the magical Black person trope. I did like a lot of the worldbuilding stuff as concepts, but they never felt truly grounded to me. And the people! The characters didn't feel like people or grounded either. Also Ultimate Corp sounds like a very silly on the nose cheesy sci-fi name. Like Unobtanium.

My conclusion is that this feels awkward, like an earlier draft and a lot of the stuff would have needed more grounding in emotions and the body and room to breathe.