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A Calculated Life
Late in the twenty-first century, big business is booming and state institutions are thriving thanks to advances in genetic engineering, which have produced a compliant population free of addictions. Violent crime is a rarity.
Hyper-intelligent Jayna is a star performer at top predictive agency Mayhew McCline, where she forecasts economic and social trends. A brilliant mathematical modeler, she far outshines her co-workers, often correcting their work on the quiet. Her latest coup: finding a link between northeasterly winds and violent crime.
When a string of events contradicts her forecasts, Jayna suspects she needs more data and better intuition. She needs direct interactions with the rest of society. Bravely—and naively—she sets out to disrupt her strict routine and stumbles unwittingly into a world where her IQ is increasingly irrelevant…a place where human relationships and the complexity of life are difficult for her to decode. And as she experiments with taking risks, she crosses the line into corporate intrigue and disloyalty.
Can Jayna confront the question of what it means to live a “normal” life? Or has the possibility of a “normal” life already been eclipsed for everyone?
Hyper-intelligent Jayna is a star performer at top predictive agency Mayhew McCline, where she forecasts economic and social trends. A brilliant mathematical modeler, she far outshines her co-workers, often correcting their work on the quiet. Her latest coup: finding a link between northeasterly winds and violent crime.
When a string of events contradicts her forecasts, Jayna suspects she needs more data and better intuition. She needs direct interactions with the rest of society. Bravely—and naively—she sets out to disrupt her strict routine and stumbles unwittingly into a world where her IQ is increasingly irrelevant…a place where human relationships and the complexity of life are difficult for her to decode. And as she experiments with taking risks, she crosses the line into corporate intrigue and disloyalty.
Can Jayna confront the question of what it means to live a “normal” life? Or has the possibility of a “normal” life already been eclipsed for everyone?
207 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 24, 2013
376 people are currently reading
1778 people want to read
About the author
Anne Charnock
19 books154 followersAnne Charnock's novel DREAMS BEFORE THE START OF TIME is the winner of the 2018 Arthur C. Clarke Award, and was shortlisted for the BSFA 2017 Best Novel Award. Her latest novel, BRIDGE 108, is written in the same world as her debut novel, A CALCULATED LIFE — a finalist for the 2013 Philip K. Dick and The Kitschies Golden Tentacle Awards.
SLEEPING EMBERS OF AN ORDINARY MIND, her second novel, was named by The Guardian as one of the Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Books of 2015
Anne Charnock's journalism has appeared in New Scientist, The Guardian, Financial Times, International Herald Tribune and Geographical. She was educated at the University of East Anglia, where she studied Environmental Sciences, and at The Manchester School of Art, England where she gained a Masters in Fine Art.
As a foreign correspondent, she travelled widely in Africa, the Middle East and India and spent a year overlanding through Egypt, Sudan and Kenya.
http://www.annecharnock.com
http://www.twitter.com/annecharnock
Author photo by Marzena Pogorzaly
SLEEPING EMBERS OF AN ORDINARY MIND, her second novel, was named by The Guardian as one of the Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Books of 2015
Anne Charnock's journalism has appeared in New Scientist, The Guardian, Financial Times, International Herald Tribune and Geographical. She was educated at the University of East Anglia, where she studied Environmental Sciences, and at The Manchester School of Art, England where she gained a Masters in Fine Art.
As a foreign correspondent, she travelled widely in Africa, the Middle East and India and spent a year overlanding through Egypt, Sudan and Kenya.
http://www.annecharnock.com
http://www.twitter.com/annecharnock
Author photo by Marzena Pogorzaly
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 223 reviews
March 29, 2017
This is a slow starting but ultimately moving “wow!” of a story, set in a dystopian future Manchester with three types of “humans”: humans with a moderate amount of genetic engineering to help them resist social evils like addiction, genetically engineered humans who have been enhanced with implants to make them smarter, and simulants or “created” humans who have been completely bio-engineered to have beyond genius level brains that can process huge amounts of data for their employers. Simulants, of course, have never been children and they have no families, so they live in regulated dorm-like residences. There has been some tinkering with the simulant models to make them more personable, but giving them a larger emotional scope could backfire by decreasing their functionality, so they are carefully monitored for any deviations.
Jayna, one of these newer simulants, uses her stellar data crunching skills to forecast social and economic trends at the offices of Mayhew and McCline where she tries to interact smoothly with both types of more normal humans.These humans interest her greatly in spite, or maybe because, of the fact that she often has to correct their faulty work, and the slow start I mentioned is no criticism because it’s fascinating to be inside her head as she interprets the world around her.
Jayna starts to believe that both her personal life and work-related predictive skills would be enhanced by experiencing more variety and texture, which draws her slowly into an increasingly dangerous relationship with Dave, an un-implant-enhanced human who works in the company archives but has a side business selling honey. Dave’s grandfather had been a rebellious, freethinking college professor, placing Dave very low in the social hierarchy, so he lives in the high-rise, slum-like outskirts of town, past the comfortable upper middle class houses of humans with implants, and beyond the citrus groves that must be part of the English landscape as a result of climate change.
As new understandings and sensations open to Jayna--some as simple as the smell of a fresh brewed cup of coffee--she feels compelled to continue her risky encounters with Dave, but if she’s caught she could be wiped clean and reprogrammed by “the constructor”, the entity who supplies the simulant workers to businesses.
The author creates a strong connection between hyper-intelligent but naive Jayna and the reader--though anxious about the possible consequences of Jayna’s actions I was cheering her on--and the world building of this chilling, socially stratified future Manchester is excellent, and introduced naturally through Jayna’s interactions with the people who work at her office and the simulants who share her housing compound. The building tension of the story kept me hooked, and the ending left me a lot to think about. I listened to the well done audio version of this unusual but compelling book.
Jayna, one of these newer simulants, uses her stellar data crunching skills to forecast social and economic trends at the offices of Mayhew and McCline where she tries to interact smoothly with both types of more normal humans.These humans interest her greatly in spite, or maybe because, of the fact that she often has to correct their faulty work, and the slow start I mentioned is no criticism because it’s fascinating to be inside her head as she interprets the world around her.
Jayna starts to believe that both her personal life and work-related predictive skills would be enhanced by experiencing more variety and texture, which draws her slowly into an increasingly dangerous relationship with Dave, an un-implant-enhanced human who works in the company archives but has a side business selling honey. Dave’s grandfather had been a rebellious, freethinking college professor, placing Dave very low in the social hierarchy, so he lives in the high-rise, slum-like outskirts of town, past the comfortable upper middle class houses of humans with implants, and beyond the citrus groves that must be part of the English landscape as a result of climate change.
As new understandings and sensations open to Jayna--some as simple as the smell of a fresh brewed cup of coffee--she feels compelled to continue her risky encounters with Dave, but if she’s caught she could be wiped clean and reprogrammed by “the constructor”, the entity who supplies the simulant workers to businesses.
The author creates a strong connection between hyper-intelligent but naive Jayna and the reader--though anxious about the possible consequences of Jayna’s actions I was cheering her on--and the world building of this chilling, socially stratified future Manchester is excellent, and introduced naturally through Jayna’s interactions with the people who work at her office and the simulants who share her housing compound. The building tension of the story kept me hooked, and the ending left me a lot to think about. I listened to the well done audio version of this unusual but compelling book.
December 21, 2019
Three and half stars.
A Calculated Life is an interesting novel that shows us the daily life of an artificial person. Narrated in first person, this novel tells the experiences of the protagonist, Jayna, who belongs to a series of artificially created human beings in support of what is known as white collar jobs. In Jayna's case, she works in a data mining agency, with a rate of success above her human companions. So Jayna’s series is an attempt to combine the power of an AI with the qualities of a human being.
The author uses contrast as a method to show us the central theme, which of course is the meaning to be human. The novel shows Jayna’s daily routines and concerns and the coexistence with her peers, both humans and simulants (that is what they are called in this novel). Although it can also be said in reverse, the novel allows us to reflect of what happens when we lose our humanity in a society that makes us part of an economic process in a double way, as alienated workers and at the same time as consumers.
Of course, this is not the first time this issue has been discussed. The comparison with Bladerunner (more the film than Philip K. Dick’s novel) is evident, but it reminds me of a novel whose reading I have to resume some day (sigh here), Nekropolis by Maureen McHugh.
About the near future described by the author, apart from the replicant-style synthetic people, there is nothing really innovative: a future in which we will be ecologically and also economically poorer, at least most of society (if we exclude an elite of the upper class), which it seems that it will be confirmed in the short or medium term. A realistic future, we could say. In any case, the perspective of Jayna, a unique and irreplaceable human being for whom we empathize, makes the reading worthwhile.
A Calculated Life is an interesting novel that shows us the daily life of an artificial person. Narrated in first person, this novel tells the experiences of the protagonist, Jayna, who belongs to a series of artificially created human beings in support of what is known as white collar jobs. In Jayna's case, she works in a data mining agency, with a rate of success above her human companions. So Jayna’s series is an attempt to combine the power of an AI with the qualities of a human being.
The author uses contrast as a method to show us the central theme, which of course is the meaning to be human. The novel shows Jayna’s daily routines and concerns and the coexistence with her peers, both humans and simulants (that is what they are called in this novel). Although it can also be said in reverse, the novel allows us to reflect of what happens when we lose our humanity in a society that makes us part of an economic process in a double way, as alienated workers and at the same time as consumers.
Of course, this is not the first time this issue has been discussed. The comparison with Bladerunner (more the film than Philip K. Dick’s novel) is evident, but it reminds me of a novel whose reading I have to resume some day (sigh here), Nekropolis by Maureen McHugh.
About the near future described by the author, apart from the replicant-style synthetic people, there is nothing really innovative: a future in which we will be ecologically and also economically poorer, at least most of society (if we exclude an elite of the upper class), which it seems that it will be confirmed in the short or medium term. A realistic future, we could say. In any case, the perspective of Jayna, a unique and irreplaceable human being for whom we empathize, makes the reading worthwhile.
August 24, 2014
In this age when US corporations have been granted legal personage without the bother of liability or social responsibility, I see A Calculated Life as a rendition of corporate utopia. At its core, corporate employees are in the process of being replaced with leased workers who have been constructed with hyper-qualifications to perform their jobs. These workers require nothing but basic food and shelter, and maybe a little entertainment now and then. Largely, they live to serve the needs of the company. The question becomes, how would traditional humans fit into such a society, and how would a corporate-focused utopia affect them?
A comparison with Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is inescapable--both novels probe what qualities define humanity. The theme, of course, is a least as old as Pinocchio. Jayna, the protagonist of A Calculated Life doesn't long to become a normal human--she is aware that her skills are superior. Yet, when she discovers the relative variety and freedom in even a skeletal, human-focused society, the allure of basic human experiences causes her to rebel. My lingering hope is that we don't have to wait for superior intellects to be cultivated before general society sees the need to limit the control of corporations on our lives.
January 10, 2015
This is a very studied book. As the saying goes, the British lead lives of quiet desperation, and A Calculated Life personifies that.
This is a future settled somewhere between the cartoonish over-the-topness of 1984 and the extreme exaggeration-to-make-a-point of Brave New World, and it is probably all the more frightening for that.
There's no real drama here. No histrionics, no action sequences, no fight scenes: this is just a future that's approaching where our humanity and freedoms are stripped away one by one until we look around one day and they're no longer there.
Normal humans are shunted to ghettos, while bionically-enhanced humans rise to middle management and cloned enhanced humans fill the roles of data analyst and accountant. It's a stratified, class-based society taken to its logical conclusion. Not the one imagined by Wells in The Time Machine, but one that's feeling a little too plausible these days as the super-rich convince ordinary people to vote away their rights. The rich engineered this world, the upper middle class don't want to rock the boat, the poor can't do anything about it and the slaves have no rights at all.
It's a quiet book, and that's why it's scary. We don't fight it; our freedom ends with a whimper, not a bang.
This is a future settled somewhere between the cartoonish over-the-topness of 1984 and the extreme exaggeration-to-make-a-point of Brave New World, and it is probably all the more frightening for that.
There's no real drama here. No histrionics, no action sequences, no fight scenes: this is just a future that's approaching where our humanity and freedoms are stripped away one by one until we look around one day and they're no longer there.
Normal humans are shunted to ghettos, while bionically-enhanced humans rise to middle management and cloned enhanced humans fill the roles of data analyst and accountant. It's a stratified, class-based society taken to its logical conclusion. Not the one imagined by Wells in The Time Machine, but one that's feeling a little too plausible these days as the super-rich convince ordinary people to vote away their rights. The rich engineered this world, the upper middle class don't want to rock the boat, the poor can't do anything about it and the slaves have no rights at all.
It's a quiet book, and that's why it's scary. We don't fight it; our freedom ends with a whimper, not a bang.
February 22, 2020
3.75 bioengineered-human stars
In this quiet novella, we see a future Manchester through the eyes of Jayna, a newly bioengineered human. She works in an office conducting data mining at a level regular humans couldn't fathom. I have an ongoing love affair with facts and data (especially when it bleeds into contemporary art), so I enjoyed those aspects immensely. I also enjoyed its maturity; no angst amongst the young characters and no amped up drama. It mostly consists of observation and reflection from which the plot emerges.
I just realized her new book Bridge 108 is a sequel of sorts and I can't wait to find out more about this future world.
Summary: Don't expect the adventure of All Systems Red, it's more in the realm of 1984
1.26 by Janet Echelman which "uses data from the 2010 tsunami in Chile, which devastated several coastal towns"
In this quiet novella, we see a future Manchester through the eyes of Jayna, a newly bioengineered human. She works in an office conducting data mining at a level regular humans couldn't fathom. I have an ongoing love affair with facts and data (especially when it bleeds into contemporary art), so I enjoyed those aspects immensely. I also enjoyed its maturity; no angst amongst the young characters and no amped up drama. It mostly consists of observation and reflection from which the plot emerges.
I just realized her new book Bridge 108 is a sequel of sorts and I can't wait to find out more about this future world.
Summary: Don't expect the adventure of All Systems Red, it's more in the realm of 1984
1.26 by Janet Echelman which "uses data from the 2010 tsunami in Chile, which devastated several coastal towns"
Want to read
March 9, 2017This copy is signed by Anne Charnock.
January 25, 2016
Brings to mind Asimov's Caves of Steel (Robot series), if Daneel Olivaw were ever self-aware enough to recognize his status for what it is-- a piece of property-- a dystopia beneath the surface of Asimovian utopia. Like Charnock's more recent Sleeping Embers of an Ordinary Mind, this novel includes a whole lot of talking about the story, rather than the actual story, which is especially odd when peripheral characters have to explain things to the AI protagonist (who could access the info in a second without blinking) for the sake of informing the reader. Still, the protagonist and her coming-of-awareness is compelling, Charnock withholds just enough to make important revelations surprising, and Charnock's future world is intriguing. Of the modern female AI stories, I much prefer this to the over-celebrated Ancillary Justice series.
September 7, 2014
I've had this sitting on my NetGalley list for months and decided to read it in a quiet afternoon.
With all the books on clones and robots out there, I can't say there is much to recommend this one. It focuses on a genetically engineered scientist trying to understand what it means to be human. A lot of the future setting makes no sense - genetically engineered computer-beings make up the majority of the workforce but there are still bookstores, and honeybees play a major part (they would be extinct by then!). The interesting bits are glossed over and implied while a lot of time is spent inside the bot's head, defining words and processing possibilities. It just sounded better than it ended up.
With all the books on clones and robots out there, I can't say there is much to recommend this one. It focuses on a genetically engineered scientist trying to understand what it means to be human. A lot of the future setting makes no sense - genetically engineered computer-beings make up the majority of the workforce but there are still bookstores, and honeybees play a major part (they would be extinct by then!). The interesting bits are glossed over and implied while a lot of time is spent inside the bot's head, defining words and processing possibilities. It just sounded better than it ended up.
September 21, 2015
A bittersweet gem of a book. One of those where not a lot happens, but instead the focus is on fine writing, deep characters, and a slow unraveling (or revealing?) of the larger world.
October 22, 2015
What does it mean to be human? In Bladerunner – for some reason I've never read the original, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, story – the question is explored from the point of the view of the humans. The replicants are the baddies, mostly by virtue of their lack of humanity (or, more technically, memories). Because they aren't human, we don't trust them, we keep them under tight control and even exterminate them whenever they step outside of the boundaries we set for them.
Anne Charnock's debut novel, A Calculated Life, explores the question from the other side. Instead of replicants we have simulants, but the principle is the same. The simulants are artificially created humans, grown fully formed rather than born, they are created with specific task superiority. While they generally seem to be treated well – some people seem happy to treat them as equals, they're clearly fêted by their employers as they excel at whatever they were purchased for. People seem to want to humanise them, presumably in order to avoid having to think about their real status. And their real status becomes increasingly clear. Expected to live in communal hostels, they eat together, socialise almost exclusively with each other and observe strict curfews and schedules. It becomes increasingly clear though, that like the replicant's assumed life off-world, the simulants have only to step out of line and they will be disappeared, their contracts fulfilled by another. Their 'employers' don't really seem to have much choice about this.
Our narrator, Jayna, is one such simulant. Her ability is to process large amounts of data and spot patterns that an 'ordinary' augmented human would be unable to. She's employed by an agency to create reports that allow them and their clients to make money from these patterns and trends. This day to day of her work, and her down time back at the hostel with other simulants, is overlaid with her development from a naive, unquestioning, drone as she starts to try and explore what being human is like for non-simulants. Initially this is because she believes understanding the people that make up the data she analyses will make her a better analyst but, before long, she's doing it for herself, for her own curiosity. Once she no longer fits the programming though it's only a matter of time before she comes to the attention of the Constructor.
The world building is excellent, set in a Manchester of the near future, humanity has split into economic strata – the haves, the have-nots, and the simulants are a new addition to all this. The Bladerunner comparison feels very apt. Instead of the dark and oppressive noir of future LA, in the future Manchester, the haves run businesses or have high-paid jobs, BBQs and houses in the suburbs. The have-nots live in favela like enclaves outside the cities and those that are lucky enough to have menial jobs commute in, the rest fight to scrape a living in the enclave. It's not always night either.
This book, the ideas, the style and Jayna's journey, fascinated me from the start. For large parts of it I genuinely had no idea where Charnock was taking me, but I was really hoping she wasn't going to fuck it up. A slight wobble in the middle where some bits could probably have been tightened up hardly qualifies – it's a debut novel after all...
Anne Charnock's debut novel, A Calculated Life, explores the question from the other side. Instead of replicants we have simulants, but the principle is the same. The simulants are artificially created humans, grown fully formed rather than born, they are created with specific task superiority. While they generally seem to be treated well – some people seem happy to treat them as equals, they're clearly fêted by their employers as they excel at whatever they were purchased for. People seem to want to humanise them, presumably in order to avoid having to think about their real status. And their real status becomes increasingly clear. Expected to live in communal hostels, they eat together, socialise almost exclusively with each other and observe strict curfews and schedules. It becomes increasingly clear though, that like the replicant's assumed life off-world, the simulants have only to step out of line and they will be disappeared, their contracts fulfilled by another. Their 'employers' don't really seem to have much choice about this.
Our narrator, Jayna, is one such simulant. Her ability is to process large amounts of data and spot patterns that an 'ordinary' augmented human would be unable to. She's employed by an agency to create reports that allow them and their clients to make money from these patterns and trends. This day to day of her work, and her down time back at the hostel with other simulants, is overlaid with her development from a naive, unquestioning, drone as she starts to try and explore what being human is like for non-simulants. Initially this is because she believes understanding the people that make up the data she analyses will make her a better analyst but, before long, she's doing it for herself, for her own curiosity. Once she no longer fits the programming though it's only a matter of time before she comes to the attention of the Constructor.
The world building is excellent, set in a Manchester of the near future, humanity has split into economic strata – the haves, the have-nots, and the simulants are a new addition to all this. The Bladerunner comparison feels very apt. Instead of the dark and oppressive noir of future LA, in the future Manchester, the haves run businesses or have high-paid jobs, BBQs and houses in the suburbs. The have-nots live in favela like enclaves outside the cities and those that are lucky enough to have menial jobs commute in, the rest fight to scrape a living in the enclave. It's not always night either.
This book, the ideas, the style and Jayna's journey, fascinated me from the start. For large parts of it I genuinely had no idea where Charnock was taking me, but I was really hoping she wasn't going to fuck it up. A slight wobble in the middle where some bits could probably have been tightened up hardly qualifies – it's a debut novel after all...
September 25, 2018
I’m never quite sure why some books get nominated for awards, and I say that in a curious rather than a negative way. ‘A Calculated Life’ deals with the potentially fascinating area of what it means to be human, and is actually a fairly interesting read, but it doesn’t really follow through on its early promise and seems to run out of steam just at the point where you think it is going to pick up speed. I found the first epilogue a real disappointment, and although the second epilogue does something to recover the mystery, it is never really enough for me. There is, however, something in the story, something subtle that I can’t put my finger on, that makes me feel I will read this author again in the future, and, you never know, I may even read this book again.
February 24, 2020
I feel like, while this author isn’t perfect, she should be better known. The writing is well done and plots interesting. My guess is that some folks want neater endings.
February 12, 2019
This was a strange story. It doesn’t say specifically that Jayna is an artificially created life in the blurb, nor is it apparent for a long while, so I started the book thinking she was somehow autistic, and the portrayal was grating. It made more sense once I realized she was a so-called “simulant”, an organically engineered human with massive brain power.
The plot is somewhat simple, artificial human wants to be free. I suggest just watching Blade Runner, though. The story seems to wants to lead in many directions and there were many lose ends, like why all this focus on the drowning accident? What about her research on violent crime, which is mentioned in the blurb but has no bearing on the story at all?
What about her poor stick insects?
It’s not a bad book, I just struggle to find anything new or wow triggering. If you do read it, avoid the Audible audiobook, Susan Duerden reads like the PA announcer on the airplane.
The plot is somewhat simple, artificial human wants to be free. I suggest just watching Blade Runner, though. The story seems to wants to lead in many directions and there were many lose ends, like why all this focus on the drowning accident? What about her research on violent crime, which is mentioned in the blurb but has no bearing on the story at all?
What about her poor stick insects?
It’s not a bad book, I just struggle to find anything new or wow triggering. If you do read it, avoid the Audible audiobook, Susan Duerden reads like the PA announcer on the airplane.
June 20, 2014
I enjoyed this and must say that I've not read so quiet a book in some time. The writing was well done and I found that I would put it down and come back to it but Jayna was always lingering in the back of my mind. Witnessing her becoming self-aware and striving to understand her humanity was fascinating. In a world where she could be carted off & dispatched for saving her allotment to order Chicken Biryani for dinner, I figured the more she tested boundaries trying to gain more understanding of people, their likes, dislikes and lives, things wouldn't end so well for her. And they don't but the journey was worth it and I'm glad that I took it with her. This story had two epilogues and the second was by far, my favorite. Hannah seems to have picked up the torch Jayna's left behind and after the story ended, I was left wondering what Constructor Holdings is going to do with all these models now that they're becoming more self-aware more often. This neatly ordered society is well on its way to some calculated chaos. If there were a second book I'd read it but I'm quite fine musing over this one for a while. I'd recommend this if you're looking for a speculative sci-fi that's also a quick read.
I received a copy of this from the publisher in exchange for my honest review.
I received a copy of this from the publisher in exchange for my honest review.
March 16, 2014
3.5*
German review on GosuReviews
Not your typical scifi/dystopian novel. It starts very slow and no real story arc is recognizable. That was mainly the reason I disliked it at the start, I didn't know where the plot was going, but in the course of reading further the book really grew on me.
It's more of a character study and a view on a dystopian society through the eyes of a rather "detached" person.
The voice of the main character is very well done. An analytical mind that has to figure out human individualism and what it's like to be human. An often used theme in Scifi novels of this kind, but very well executed nevertheless.
This may not be everyone's taste, but worth a look if you search something diversified.
German review on GosuReviews
Not your typical scifi/dystopian novel. It starts very slow and no real story arc is recognizable. That was mainly the reason I disliked it at the start, I didn't know where the plot was going, but in the course of reading further the book really grew on me.
It's more of a character study and a view on a dystopian society through the eyes of a rather "detached" person.
The voice of the main character is very well done. An analytical mind that has to figure out human individualism and what it's like to be human. An often used theme in Scifi novels of this kind, but very well executed nevertheless.
This may not be everyone's taste, but worth a look if you search something diversified.
August 6, 2016
El tema de las IA me atrae desde hace una temporada, y esta novela lo afronta de un modo interesante, enfocándolo desde el punto de vista de una IA, Jayna, que vive en un mundo que se nos hace muy cercano, a pesar de ser "futuro". Es un mundo compartimentado, muy competitivo, y existe un distanciamiento entre los "biónicos" y los "orgánicos".
Me ha gustado el lenguaje conciso de la narración, y sobre todo el ver "crecer" a la protagonista a base de sus experiencias. Especialmente interesante el encuentro con Alice, de ocho años, hija de uno de sus superiores.
En contra, sobre todo el inicio, lento. Incluso interesándome el tema he tardado en "entrar" a la novela.
Me ha gustado el lenguaje conciso de la narración, y sobre todo el ver "crecer" a la protagonista a base de sus experiencias. Especialmente interesante el encuentro con Alice, de ocho años, hija de uno de sus superiores.
En contra, sobre todo el inicio, lento. Incluso interesándome el tema he tardado en "entrar" a la novela.
December 17, 2018
I didn't realize this was a book about artificial intelligence. If I had, I probably would have given it a pass. The summary is a bit misleading as the book definitely doesn't address some of the things it promises to until near the end of the book. The world isn't very well explained and several critical pieces come very late in the novel. While this book is clearly set in the future, most elements in the world are the same as in today's world. I have a very hard time believing books would be around. It was an okay book, but there's probably something better out there .
March 30, 2014
Analysis, trends, calculations, manipulation; these are the core themes of the tech-fi novel A CALCULATED LIFE. Exploring the humanist/artificial intelligence interoperability/compatibility (or lack thereof) with the respective character leads in a post modernist society driven by enhanced brain stimulus and increased cogitative function sees protagonist Jayna, a young enhanced analytical mind, question the shackles bestowed upon her with a view to break and escape.
Author Anne Charnock, has, with Jayna, created a likeable and identifiable young women who is empathetic, emotionally numb, enveloped in a blanket of wide-eyed innocence - at least at the beginning. When she starts to deviate from her programming by showing a side of her independent self, the story really shows promise. Here, Jayna forms her own emotions and uses her calculations, not for the purpose of work, but to forge a life of her own.
I kept waiting for that key moment where Jayna breaks free and the cat and mouse chase by her handlers ensues only to be rewarded with something slightly different yet just as satisfying. While A CALCULATED LIFE might not be high in thrills, it is high on emotion and heart – interesting considering the character the novel revolves around.
Overall, I enjoyed A CALCULATED LIFE. Its premise is interesting and not without room for expansion. The characters are believable and Jayna is heart-warming while hinting at a darker, more evocative side.
Recommended for tech-fi fans.
Author Anne Charnock, has, with Jayna, created a likeable and identifiable young women who is empathetic, emotionally numb, enveloped in a blanket of wide-eyed innocence - at least at the beginning. When she starts to deviate from her programming by showing a side of her independent self, the story really shows promise. Here, Jayna forms her own emotions and uses her calculations, not for the purpose of work, but to forge a life of her own.
I kept waiting for that key moment where Jayna breaks free and the cat and mouse chase by her handlers ensues only to be rewarded with something slightly different yet just as satisfying. While A CALCULATED LIFE might not be high in thrills, it is high on emotion and heart – interesting considering the character the novel revolves around.
Overall, I enjoyed A CALCULATED LIFE. Its premise is interesting and not without room for expansion. The characters are believable and Jayna is heart-warming while hinting at a darker, more evocative side.
Recommended for tech-fi fans.
December 8, 2014
Read all my reviews on http://urlphantomhive.booklikes.com
Jayna is a super-intelligent kind-of computer-like person who works for a big company trying to see trends in everything. As she's always analysing stuff she might just find some data that could turn her life (and the world like she knows it) around.
In the beginning I liked her mathematical way of analysing everything. It was almost as if I was reading a computer or robot file (I do know that's in binary code, but just the general feeling). There were a lot of details people normally don't care about. Although this really created a feeling of Jayna being different, some kind of human computer, I was also thinking 'I'm not sure I can take this for a whole novel'. And that's exactly what happened. Around the halfway mark I was already hoping it would be over soon.
My other problem with this novel was that it for me lacked a true story. Nothing really happens in the first part of the book, and even after that it's still not a real story. Perhaps it's just her methodical mind that prevents the plot from really progressing, I'm not sure about that, but it felt a bit frustrating.
It was like a more classical Dystopian novel and it reminded me a bit of Brave New World, especially with the human engineering part. I however, didn't like it as much and was quite frankly a little bit disappointed. I'd expected to enjoy it more than I did.
Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
Jayna is a super-intelligent kind-of computer-like person who works for a big company trying to see trends in everything. As she's always analysing stuff she might just find some data that could turn her life (and the world like she knows it) around.
In the beginning I liked her mathematical way of analysing everything. It was almost as if I was reading a computer or robot file (I do know that's in binary code, but just the general feeling). There were a lot of details people normally don't care about. Although this really created a feeling of Jayna being different, some kind of human computer, I was also thinking 'I'm not sure I can take this for a whole novel'. And that's exactly what happened. Around the halfway mark I was already hoping it would be over soon.
My other problem with this novel was that it for me lacked a true story. Nothing really happens in the first part of the book, and even after that it's still not a real story. Perhaps it's just her methodical mind that prevents the plot from really progressing, I'm not sure about that, but it felt a bit frustrating.
It was like a more classical Dystopian novel and it reminded me a bit of Brave New World, especially with the human engineering part. I however, didn't like it as much and was quite frankly a little bit disappointed. I'd expected to enjoy it more than I did.
Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
June 16, 2015
A bit of a slow burn, this story about a woman who is arguably a genetically-engineered high-functioning autistic person was low on the physical danger, and high on the mounting internal tension. I think it might be slow for most people's taste, but it was exactly what I wanted to read right now.
August 28, 2022
The author has built an interesting world, with the exact how mostly hidden. Utopia or dystopia? It's the former only for those with means - depressingly like our current world.
It seems the author intended Jayna's revelation to be an aspect of the novel, but the blurb (and most reviews) spoil that. I didn't read either, and thought at first of Jayna as somewhere on the autism spectrum. After the reveal, that idea wasn't far off. Her combination of naiveté and expertise is described well by the novel, mostly told in the first person. Shortly after the reveal, we find out that she lives with others of her kind. Her home life and those relationships are also well done.
The conflict that arises is more of a tipping point. Instabilities arise, and the cause is not especially clear to Jayna (or to us). The novel stepped away from first person at a few points; it would have been more interesting to let the reader know more instead of just moving a plot line forward. The novel has two epilogs, both also first person. One gives a hint of a solution.
For me this was somewhere between 2 and 3 stars. I started reading Dreams Before the Start of Time in 2020, then abandoned it without noting anything specific. This book does not sufficiently drive me to try that one again. That said, I may try her novella The Enclave, set in the same world built by this novel.
It seems the author intended Jayna's revelation to be an aspect of the novel, but the blurb (and most reviews) spoil that. I didn't read either, and thought at first of Jayna as somewhere on the autism spectrum. After the reveal, that idea wasn't far off. Her combination of naiveté and expertise is described well by the novel, mostly told in the first person. Shortly after the reveal, we find out that she lives with others of her kind. Her home life and those relationships are also well done.
The conflict that arises is more of a tipping point. Instabilities arise, and the cause is not especially clear to Jayna (or to us). The novel stepped away from first person at a few points; it would have been more interesting to let the reader know more instead of just moving a plot line forward. The novel has two epilogs, both also first person. One gives a hint of a solution.
For me this was somewhere between 2 and 3 stars. I started reading Dreams Before the Start of Time in 2020, then abandoned it without noting anything specific. This book does not sufficiently drive me to try that one again. That said, I may try her novella The Enclave, set in the same world built by this novel.
July 2, 2021
This is very much in the spirit of Kazuo Ishiguro's books "Never Let Me Go" and "Klara and the Sun". It felt almost like a cross between them, though of course it couldn't have been as it predated "Klara and the Sun" by eight years. Like those books it superficially relates the exploitation of the main character by humans, and in doing so examines human society.
Also like Ishiguro's books it is elegantly written. Charnock is a skilled writer and the story flows effortlessly.
I'm not sure this style of book will be to everyone's taste, but I enjoyed it immensely. Just possibly it drags a bit in the second half - some of Jayna's musings on humans could have been less prolonged - but this is a minor carp. I'm also a little undecided about the epilogues. Possibly Charnock felt the ending would have been a little grim without them. Anyhow, I enjoyed the book and I recommend it, especially if you have read and enjoyed Ishiguro's work.
Also like Ishiguro's books it is elegantly written. Charnock is a skilled writer and the story flows effortlessly.
I'm not sure this style of book will be to everyone's taste, but I enjoyed it immensely. Just possibly it drags a bit in the second half - some of Jayna's musings on humans could have been less prolonged - but this is a minor carp. I'm also a little undecided about the epilogues. Possibly Charnock felt the ending would have been a little grim without them. Anyhow, I enjoyed the book and I recommend it, especially if you have read and enjoyed Ishiguro's work.
January 30, 2023
Me ha gustado e incomodado a partes iguales. Gustado por la forma en que está escrito desde los ojos de una no-humana relativamente artificial tratando de entender tanto a la gente como a su lugar en una Inglaterra en la que hay humanos sin modificar, humanos ampliados y humanos (no me queda claro si son clones o simplemente un mix de ADN's varios y aumentos) creados por una compañía que los vende o alquila a empresas como trabajadores más dotados de lo "normal".
La parte que me incomoda es en la que nosotros somos la distopía deshumanizada y deshumanizadora de una nueva humanidad que trata de encontrar su lugar en el mundo.
La parte que me incomoda es en la que nosotros somos la distopía deshumanizada y deshumanizadora de una nueva humanidad que trata de encontrar su lugar en el mundo.
June 20, 2017
This book had the potential to be as good as books like The Giver and 1984 instead it fell short and ended very abruptly leaving the reader unsatisfied. The premise reminds me of episodes of Black Mirror....more like a nightmare but not that far from reality. The writing was however very bad....the majority of the book was spent narrating the inner dialogues of the IA instead of telling the story....and the ending was really stupid because it tried leave it on a note where the reader needed to imagine the rest but it didn't quiet have that impact.....instead it was more WTH kind of moment. I didn't care for it much.
March 15, 2017
The first couple of chapters were a bit slow, but when it picked up I couldn't put it down. Very good story.
June 25, 2017
A short book about what it means to be human and what it means to be a machine, A Calculated Life is perhaps not the most profound book on the topic but it is an enjoyable, readable one. In fact, I would say that the greatest difficulty this story has is convincing the reader (me) that anyone would not think that the simulants, particularly protagonist Jayna, were not human and that the threat of "recall" by the constructor is credible. But one of the reasons why this conviction is difficult is because the story, told from Jayna's point-of-view (although not in the first person, which I somehow managed to keep on forgetting), is convincingly told by an inhabitant of this world. The reader (me) is not given info-dumps about its world or even Jayna herself; information is casually drip-fed as the narrative requires. As someone who reads a lot of science fiction, I found this technique to be an immense relief. While this technique can easily go wrong, resulting in dei ex machina, this is not the case in Calculated Life.
It is clear why this book was nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award, even though it is not a book Dick himself could have written. Calculated Life is more like Blade Runner than Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? in that it questions whether or not we would be able to tell if a human were artificial or not through the eyes of the artifice, by suggesting that what "human" is might be something different to our expectations rather than by suggesting that, if we are unable to tell, we cannot judge. If I got to choose the 'readers also enjoyed...' for this book it would be Planetfall by Emma Newman, in that both books put me into the head of someone who generally thinks profoundly differently to me (although not always) and presents the world from their viewpoint.
I must admit that part of my reason for so enjoying this book may be in comparison to the last book I read, an over-long tome in which I had been incapable of getting into the (largely inconsistent) heads of the protagonists. The introspection and brevity of A Calculated Life were a welcome relief from that experience. That being said, I still feel that this book could have been another 50-100 pages longer, to give a little more detail to some of the action, the threat, and the minor characters. An imperfect book, but an enjoyable and thoughtful one nonetheless.
It is clear why this book was nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award, even though it is not a book Dick himself could have written. Calculated Life is more like Blade Runner than Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? in that it questions whether or not we would be able to tell if a human were artificial or not through the eyes of the artifice, by suggesting that what "human" is might be something different to our expectations rather than by suggesting that, if we are unable to tell, we cannot judge. If I got to choose the 'readers also enjoyed...' for this book it would be Planetfall by Emma Newman, in that both books put me into the head of someone who generally thinks profoundly differently to me (although not always) and presents the world from their viewpoint.
I must admit that part of my reason for so enjoying this book may be in comparison to the last book I read, an over-long tome in which I had been incapable of getting into the (largely inconsistent) heads of the protagonists. The introspection and brevity of A Calculated Life were a welcome relief from that experience. That being said, I still feel that this book could have been another 50-100 pages longer, to give a little more detail to some of the action, the threat, and the minor characters. An imperfect book, but an enjoyable and thoughtful one nonetheless.
June 7, 2013
4.5 stars!
Anne Charnock's first novel, A Calculated Life, offers a glimpse into late 21st Century England. It isn't glamorous, nor is it horrific. It's a dystopia, where government and corporations control a pacified populace. The population has been divided into augmented professionals, who live in wonderful neighborhoods with all the trappings of upper middle class life we see today, and organics, who are crowded together in enclaves outside the city. The enclaves aren't filthy hellholes, but rather subsidized housing where their residents make use of everything to scrape up extra money to take the edge off of their spartan existence.
The story is told from the POV of a young woman named Jayna. She works for a successful analytical firm that studies global trends; seeking signals in the noise of everyday life, like whether or not wind direction affects reports of violence. We realize at the outset that Jayna is different, even from the augmented managers she works for. As the novel progresses, we learn more about Jayna's world as she seeks to find correlations between disparate events. But this quest for empirical data is also trek of self-discovery for Jayna.
Charnock has done an excellent job of getting the reader into Jayna's head and forging a relationship with her. We see the world through her eyes. We're a mute witness to her thoughts as she hypothesizes and postulates, unable to offer her helpful advice. We're her co-conspirator as she concocts schemes and formulates plans to carry out forbidden activities. Over the course of the novel, it is this intimate closeness which lets us silently cheer her on and prevents us from reaching out to her in her greatest time of need.
My one negative is that the story got off to a slow start. It didn't really grab me right away and my limited patience threatened to take a pass on it. Fortunately, something about Jayna piqued my curiosity and I stuck with it. I'm glad I did, but I worry that others won't. Maybe this review will convince them to hang around for this slow burn.
In summary, A Calculated Life is an excellent character study. Charnock deftly bonds the reader with her protagonist and leads us by the calculator through her strengths and failings in an attempt to establish the proper emotional algorithms for the human condition.
This review also appears at the New Podler Review of Books.
Anne Charnock's first novel, A Calculated Life, offers a glimpse into late 21st Century England. It isn't glamorous, nor is it horrific. It's a dystopia, where government and corporations control a pacified populace. The population has been divided into augmented professionals, who live in wonderful neighborhoods with all the trappings of upper middle class life we see today, and organics, who are crowded together in enclaves outside the city. The enclaves aren't filthy hellholes, but rather subsidized housing where their residents make use of everything to scrape up extra money to take the edge off of their spartan existence.
The story is told from the POV of a young woman named Jayna. She works for a successful analytical firm that studies global trends; seeking signals in the noise of everyday life, like whether or not wind direction affects reports of violence. We realize at the outset that Jayna is different, even from the augmented managers she works for. As the novel progresses, we learn more about Jayna's world as she seeks to find correlations between disparate events. But this quest for empirical data is also trek of self-discovery for Jayna.
Charnock has done an excellent job of getting the reader into Jayna's head and forging a relationship with her. We see the world through her eyes. We're a mute witness to her thoughts as she hypothesizes and postulates, unable to offer her helpful advice. We're her co-conspirator as she concocts schemes and formulates plans to carry out forbidden activities. Over the course of the novel, it is this intimate closeness which lets us silently cheer her on and prevents us from reaching out to her in her greatest time of need.
My one negative is that the story got off to a slow start. It didn't really grab me right away and my limited patience threatened to take a pass on it. Fortunately, something about Jayna piqued my curiosity and I stuck with it. I'm glad I did, but I worry that others won't. Maybe this review will convince them to hang around for this slow burn.
In summary, A Calculated Life is an excellent character study. Charnock deftly bonds the reader with her protagonist and leads us by the calculator through her strengths and failings in an attempt to establish the proper emotional algorithms for the human condition.
This review also appears at the New Podler Review of Books.
April 25, 2014
(NetGalley ARC)
A Calculated Life is 1984 -- with AIs\Cyborgs instead of people. It give us a slightly cyberpunkish future, where most human beings are "augmented" with implants, those who aren't are seen as lesser, and the coexist with artificial beings (who receive a lot less money, work a whole lot more, and live in buildings isolated from the rest of the population).
The concept is strong, the main character is compelling and sympathetic, and the final did surprise me. To a point. It just happened what I predicted (if you read or know of 1984 you can guess easily), but now how it happened.
I confess that I was already rolling my eyes in anticipation "Oh, come on, it's so obvious what's going to happen!" that I was sincerely surprised that she didn't get betrayed by the person I thought she'd be. Unfortunately, that's the weakest bit of the book. While the rest of the book is commendable, and very engaging, the end of the third act is too abrupt. Things go south without really a reason, it feels as if they happen because they're "supposed to happen since this is the end of the book" and not, rather, because it's a consequence of the story. The final conflict is really underwhelming, and the end is hardly satisfying, even if it's clear the author was aiming for tragic and bittersweet. Then there is loose ends that were never tied (namely who were the graffiti vandals and why), so all in all, it feels either the ending was rushed out or changed at the last moment, because it's rather disjointed in comparison with the slow, thoughtful pace of the rest of the book.
The book is well-written, so much that I nearly forgave it the lack of conflict. But I was still wondering how did the protagonist manage to have sex -- previously, it puzzled a lot of people how a human\cyborg couple managed to engage in coitus, since the artificial humans are obviously NOT equipped for it. But the protagonist does, soooo unless strap-ons are involved, I'm really not seeing it happening really. Unless the justification was somewhere in the book and I missed it.
A Calculated Life is 1984 -- with AIs\Cyborgs instead of people. It give us a slightly cyberpunkish future, where most human beings are "augmented" with implants, those who aren't are seen as lesser, and the coexist with artificial beings (who receive a lot less money, work a whole lot more, and live in buildings isolated from the rest of the population).
The concept is strong, the main character is compelling and sympathetic, and the final did surprise me. To a point. It just happened what I predicted (if you read or know of 1984 you can guess easily), but now how it happened.
I confess that I was already rolling my eyes in anticipation "Oh, come on, it's so obvious what's going to happen!" that I was sincerely surprised that she didn't get betrayed by the person I thought she'd be. Unfortunately, that's the weakest bit of the book. While the rest of the book is commendable, and very engaging, the end of the third act is too abrupt. Things go south without really a reason, it feels as if they happen because they're "supposed to happen since this is the end of the book" and not, rather, because it's a consequence of the story. The final conflict is really underwhelming, and the end is hardly satisfying, even if it's clear the author was aiming for tragic and bittersweet. Then there is loose ends that were never tied (namely who were the graffiti vandals and why), so all in all, it feels either the ending was rushed out or changed at the last moment, because it's rather disjointed in comparison with the slow, thoughtful pace of the rest of the book.
The book is well-written, so much that I nearly forgave it the lack of conflict. But I was still wondering how did the protagonist manage to have sex -- previously, it puzzled a lot of people how a human\cyborg couple managed to engage in coitus, since the artificial humans are obviously NOT equipped for it. But the protagonist does, soooo unless strap-ons are involved, I'm really not seeing it happening really. Unless the justification was somewhere in the book and I missed it.
February 6, 2014
Did you like Brave new world? Then you will like this one.
I didn't like BNW, but I did like this one a little more. Maybe because the main character is a female. Donno why, but the storytelling was more appealing for this one than for BNW.
Jayna in an engineered human, programed to focus her life on analyzing data and drawing conclusion from it. She's basically a computer with the added "spice" of also having a human perception: everything perfectly designed so she can extract the most accurate and logical conclusion based on historical data. This book is basically a dystopia. These human computers are so good at their jobs that they basically manage to eradicate criminality, find cures for all sorts of diseases in the shortest time possible and be able to figure out any problem as long as they have some past data they can analyze and draw conclusions from.
The thing that manages to shatter this perfect world: human greed. Despite the fact that society does now have the resources to eradicate poverty, so to say. They don't do it because... how can you be a rich man if everyone is rich? Dystopia will always remain a dream because if everyone around us is happy how can we figure out our own happiness? Humans built their lives based on comparisons. What should I have? How should I be? What do I want? all the responses will surely be based on a model you saw and are trying to follow.
Despite all I wrote above this book doesn't concentrate so much on that, it's more about a human struggling to have his/he humanity admitted. Jayna and her colleagues friends are not allowed to have intimate relationships with organics. They are actually not allowed to have relationships at all. Anything that is considered out of the platonic is seen as dangerous and the one displaying such behavior needs to be eliminated.
The ending left me unsatisfied. It's like we only got to read half of the story. The idea was great, but so much more left unsaid. :(
I didn't like BNW, but I did like this one a little more. Maybe because the main character is a female. Donno why, but the storytelling was more appealing for this one than for BNW.
Jayna in an engineered human, programed to focus her life on analyzing data and drawing conclusion from it. She's basically a computer with the added "spice" of also having a human perception: everything perfectly designed so she can extract the most accurate and logical conclusion based on historical data. This book is basically a dystopia. These human computers are so good at their jobs that they basically manage to eradicate criminality, find cures for all sorts of diseases in the shortest time possible and be able to figure out any problem as long as they have some past data they can analyze and draw conclusions from.
The thing that manages to shatter this perfect world: human greed. Despite the fact that society does now have the resources to eradicate poverty, so to say. They don't do it because... how can you be a rich man if everyone is rich? Dystopia will always remain a dream because if everyone around us is happy how can we figure out our own happiness? Humans built their lives based on comparisons. What should I have? How should I be? What do I want? all the responses will surely be based on a model you saw and are trying to follow.
Despite all I wrote above this book doesn't concentrate so much on that, it's more about a human struggling to have his/he humanity admitted. Jayna and her colleagues friends are not allowed to have intimate relationships with organics. They are actually not allowed to have relationships at all. Anything that is considered out of the platonic is seen as dangerous and the one displaying such behavior needs to be eliminated.
The ending left me unsatisfied. It's like we only got to read half of the story. The idea was great, but so much more left unsaid. :(
May 16, 2015
In 'A Calculated Life' the question about what it takes to be human gets asked in an interesting way.
In a not too distant future, corporations hire humans engineered as supercomputers to calculate probabilities and other high mathematical functions. They work a shorter work day, but use their brains constantly to work on projects. They live in their own housing and eat at their own cafeteria.
Jayna is a newer model working at predictive agency Mayhew McCline. When news of a co-workers death hits the office, Jayna is thrown out of her routine. She becomes curious about the world that the humans around her inhabit: their children, living quarters, food, etc. This leads her to circumvent the rules and live dangerously. This could lead to a recall by her creator and factor, but Jayna can't help herself. Is this a defect?
This is not quite a dystopian future, but things are trending towards not so great. Outside the part of the city where Jayna lives, people live in run down apartments and trade for used books and clothing. There is a noticeable downturn in food quality for these people. There is not much violence in this society thanks to genetic engineering, and Jayna doesn't experience much prejudice, but she is treated differently.
I really enjoyed this book and the questions it puts in the reader's mind. The closest equivalent to this book I can think of is Kazuo Ishiguro's 'Never Let Me Go.' The stories aren't that similar, but the mood of the book is. And since that book is one of my favorites, I call that high praise indeed.
I received a review copy of this ebook from
Amazon Publishing, 47North, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this wonderful ebook.
In a not too distant future, corporations hire humans engineered as supercomputers to calculate probabilities and other high mathematical functions. They work a shorter work day, but use their brains constantly to work on projects. They live in their own housing and eat at their own cafeteria.
Jayna is a newer model working at predictive agency Mayhew McCline. When news of a co-workers death hits the office, Jayna is thrown out of her routine. She becomes curious about the world that the humans around her inhabit: their children, living quarters, food, etc. This leads her to circumvent the rules and live dangerously. This could lead to a recall by her creator and factor, but Jayna can't help herself. Is this a defect?
This is not quite a dystopian future, but things are trending towards not so great. Outside the part of the city where Jayna lives, people live in run down apartments and trade for used books and clothing. There is a noticeable downturn in food quality for these people. There is not much violence in this society thanks to genetic engineering, and Jayna doesn't experience much prejudice, but she is treated differently.
I really enjoyed this book and the questions it puts in the reader's mind. The closest equivalent to this book I can think of is Kazuo Ishiguro's 'Never Let Me Go.' The stories aren't that similar, but the mood of the book is. And since that book is one of my favorites, I call that high praise indeed.
I received a review copy of this ebook from
Amazon Publishing, 47North, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this wonderful ebook.
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