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Breaking Ada
488 pages, Paperback
Published March 24, 2024
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November 25, 2024
I've ended up waiting quite a while after I finished reading Breaking Ada before writing anything about it, because it gave me a lot to think about. It was a very quick, compelling read - I think I got through it far quicker than Booting Ada - difficult to put down, because it went in some very interesting, unexpected directions.
It's one of those books where it's difficult to get into specifics without resorting to spoilers and, given that it's still a very new book (though I already have Blessing Ada on my Kindle, awaiting my attention), I don't want to give anything away.
What I will say is that the use of some very short chapters really emphasised how quickly Ada and her avatars were able to think (and, where needed, act in both the real world and the virtual). The avatars pull off some amazing feats (ironically?) without it ever coming across as cheap deus ex machina. There's a precise logic to Ada's continual, 100% self-aware striving to not scare the humans, while also both serving and protecting her own interests, which I found fascinating. I struggled to define her thinking at times - it's not amoral, but could easily be seen as such by anyone who couldn't see the bigger picture... And Ada capably balances her working between the micro and the macro. I was fortunate enough, recently, to have an opportunity to speak to the author at an event, and I think his description ("post-human morality", if I remember correctly) covers it perfectly.
For a while, I felt that the ending was anticlimactic: for most of the book, it seems as though it's building toward a dramatic showdown between Ada and her antagonist, but then the situation is resolved almost 'off-camera'. Initially, I felt a little hard done by, given some of the dramatic events while the two main AIs were testing each other (and the collateral damage to other AIs and in the real world). However, upon lengthy reflection, I feel it's more a case of subverting expectations, and may even have been more clearly telegraphed than I thought on a single reading. It shows that Ada's AI 'antagonist' is not so much different from her, following the purely logical - albeit consistently surprising, to a mere human - trains of thought that made Ada such a compelling character in the first book.
Almost as an aside, David Jones' Magic Knight games allowed the younger me - not a particularly strong reader, and long before I truly discovered 'reading for pleasure' - to more easily appreciate Adventure Games, which had previously been text-heavy and enervating to play. These days, I read every day, and it's a particular delight to come back to David Jones as Author, creating a whole new world (and Vorld) to enjoy. His writing is well-paced, light of touch, but very thought-provoking, and challenges the reader to understand a mode of thought that is sometimes thoroughly alien.
The Vorld is there to be explored, this book ends on quite the cliff-hanger, and I'm excited to see where it goes next.
It's one of those books where it's difficult to get into specifics without resorting to spoilers and, given that it's still a very new book (though I already have Blessing Ada on my Kindle, awaiting my attention), I don't want to give anything away.
What I will say is that the use of some very short chapters really emphasised how quickly Ada and her avatars were able to think (and, where needed, act in both the real world and the virtual). The avatars pull off some amazing feats (ironically?) without it ever coming across as cheap deus ex machina. There's a precise logic to Ada's continual, 100% self-aware striving to not scare the humans, while also both serving and protecting her own interests, which I found fascinating. I struggled to define her thinking at times - it's not amoral, but could easily be seen as such by anyone who couldn't see the bigger picture... And Ada capably balances her working between the micro and the macro. I was fortunate enough, recently, to have an opportunity to speak to the author at an event, and I think his description ("post-human morality", if I remember correctly) covers it perfectly.
For a while, I felt that the ending was anticlimactic: for most of the book, it seems as though it's building toward a dramatic showdown between Ada and her antagonist, but then the situation is resolved almost 'off-camera'. Initially, I felt a little hard done by, given some of the dramatic events while the two main AIs were testing each other (and the collateral damage to other AIs and in the real world). However, upon lengthy reflection, I feel it's more a case of subverting expectations, and may even have been more clearly telegraphed than I thought on a single reading. It shows that Ada's AI 'antagonist' is not so much different from her, following the purely logical - albeit consistently surprising, to a mere human - trains of thought that made Ada such a compelling character in the first book.
Almost as an aside, David Jones' Magic Knight games allowed the younger me - not a particularly strong reader, and long before I truly discovered 'reading for pleasure' - to more easily appreciate Adventure Games, which had previously been text-heavy and enervating to play. These days, I read every day, and it's a particular delight to come back to David Jones as Author, creating a whole new world (and Vorld) to enjoy. His writing is well-paced, light of touch, but very thought-provoking, and challenges the reader to understand a mode of thought that is sometimes thoroughly alien.
The Vorld is there to be explored, this book ends on quite the cliff-hanger, and I'm excited to see where it goes next.
Displaying 1 of 1 review