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Mirror Project by Michael Scott Monje Jr.
Lynn Vargas is an artificial intelligence that was created by the merger of human memories, brain scans, and an artificial reality simulator. Now, she must convince her creators that she is not the resurrected spirit of her creator's dead wife, but a person in her own right.As she struggles to overcome the romantic and sexual expectations of her predecessor's husband, the new, digital Lynn Vargas must also contend with his mercurial attitude. Bill has a tendency to limit the functions of her body when he thinks she's “acting out.”Her only options are to either placate Bill or to somehow force his staff to openly acknowledge the implications of his behavior. Will they listen? Or will guilt cause them to shut their ears and their hearts? Every time Lynn confides in someone, they immediately run roughshod over her wishes, rebooting her without permission and adding software patches that change the way her senses work.The result is that all the other people in her life control what she can do with her body. As this truth sinks in, Lynn realizes that she has to face the only question that will ever makes a life worth living?
Paperback
First published September 30, 2013
365 people want to read
About the author
Michael Scott Monje Jr.
7 books31 followersMichael Scott Monje, Jr. is the pen name of Athena Lynn Michaels-Dillon, the ringleader of the Puzzlebox Collective. Michael/Athena's prior projects include the Shaping Clay blog, as well as the Shaping Clay series of novels, Mirror Project, and The US Book. Her work has appeared in Neuroqueer: The Journal, Barking Sycamores, and other venues.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
September 3, 2014
I'm gonna love it, but then again I'm the author. Someone should probably read it and leave another review. I'm only even writing this because when I added the book, Goodreads wanted me to leave a review before the process was done.
January 4, 2019
Though it wraps up a little too quickly for my tastes, the story itself is definitely worth a look. The struggle of an intelligence coming to terms with the identity it was modeled after is well told, and offers plenty of brain food for the philosophical or analytic type. There are small, mostly single-character edits that need to be made to the text (roughly one per two chapters), but at its best, it reminded me of Joanna Russ' work.
Edit, added 5 years later: Whatever hangups I had with the story or editing, it's still one I think about at least once or twice a year. Not a sci-fi event about AI or dopplegangers comes up that doesn't make me reflect on Mirror Project's conflict. I've since recommended it to family, and the more time goes by, the more I'd love to see it on screen.
Edit, added 5 years later: Whatever hangups I had with the story or editing, it's still one I think about at least once or twice a year. Not a sci-fi event about AI or dopplegangers comes up that doesn't make me reflect on Mirror Project's conflict. I've since recommended it to family, and the more time goes by, the more I'd love to see it on screen.
March 24, 2019
I've kind of a complicated opinion of this book, and while part of me wants to recommend it to absolutely everyone, another part of me wants to preface that recommendation with a whole slew of caveats and content warnings. It is, unquestionably, a good book; but it is not a pleasant one.
The writing is fluid, the narrator easy to empathise with, and the framing device both really nifty and very immersive. It also performs another important function: it makes it clear from the start that whatever else happens in the book, the narrator is going to - somehow, somewhen, in some capacity - make it through. This is the sort of book in which that knowledge is critical, and for some readers might make the difference in being able to finish it.
The narrator - whose only given name and pronouns in fact belong to someone else, for which reason I'm uncomfortable with using them - spends nearly the entire book in a state of no or nearly no agency. Every aspect of their life is tightly controlled, down to their perception and their ability to move their own body. Their mind is their own, but there's so much gaslighting and disregard for their personhood that that, too, is under constant assault. Other characters range from dismissive to misguided to outright abusive. The threat of rape or sexual assault is a constant looming shadow, though - this is the other thing that keeps the book readable despite all of this - it doesn't ever actually happen.
In various ways, Mirror Project parallels medical abuse, domestic abuse, emotional abuse, and really just about every kind of abuse you can think of. The narrator's situation is deeply traumatising, and readers who are sensitive to any of these things should take every measure to brace and protect themselves before reading (if, indeed, they read it at all).
A good book, an important book, but also a deeply uncomfortable one.
Selling points: voidpunk; AI/robots; hopeful ending.
Warning points: all the content warnings; see above. There were also occasional typos in my edition, though not so many that they seriously disrupted the reading flow.
The writing is fluid, the narrator easy to empathise with, and the framing device both really nifty and very immersive. It also performs another important function: it makes it clear from the start that whatever else happens in the book, the narrator is going to - somehow, somewhen, in some capacity - make it through. This is the sort of book in which that knowledge is critical, and for some readers might make the difference in being able to finish it.
The narrator - whose only given name and pronouns in fact belong to someone else, for which reason I'm uncomfortable with using them - spends nearly the entire book in a state of no or nearly no agency. Every aspect of their life is tightly controlled, down to their perception and their ability to move their own body. Their mind is their own, but there's so much gaslighting and disregard for their personhood that that, too, is under constant assault. Other characters range from dismissive to misguided to outright abusive. The threat of rape or sexual assault is a constant looming shadow, though - this is the other thing that keeps the book readable despite all of this - it doesn't ever actually happen.
In various ways, Mirror Project parallels medical abuse, domestic abuse, emotional abuse, and really just about every kind of abuse you can think of. The narrator's situation is deeply traumatising, and readers who are sensitive to any of these things should take every measure to brace and protect themselves before reading (if, indeed, they read it at all).
A good book, an important book, but also a deeply uncomfortable one.
Selling points: voidpunk; AI/robots; hopeful ending.
Warning points: all the content warnings; see above. There were also occasional typos in my edition, though not so many that they seriously disrupted the reading flow.
November 28, 2014
This book is an interesting psychological exploration of the feeling of being trapped, in circumstances and in one's own body. The story is compelling but also somewhat limited, as the reader only hears about what is happening from Lynn's perspective. However, the very clear examples of abuse that Lynn is subjected to may help people to identify abuse that they see in their own relationships, especially women who are treated as if they are not thinking individuals with rights.
I was given this book for free through Goodreads Firstreads.
I was given this book for free through Goodreads Firstreads.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews