A Strange and Brilliant Light

by Eli Lee, Tamsin Kennard (Narrator)

Winner of the Writers’ Guild Best First Novel Award!

A riveting, thought-provoking speculative literary novel exploring the impact of the AI revolution through the eyes of three very different young women.

Lal, Janetta and Rose are living in a time of flux. Technological advance has brought huge financial rewards to those with power, but large swathes of the population are losing their jobs to artificial intelligence, or auts, as they're called. Unemployment is high, discontent is rife and rumours are swirling. Many feel robbed - not just of their livelihoods, but of their hopes for the future.

Lal is languishing in her role at a coffee shop and feeling overshadowed by her quietly brilliant sister, Janetta, whose PhD is focused on making auts empathetic. Even Rose, Lal's best friend, has found a sense of purpose in charismatic up-and-coming politician Alek.

When vigilantes break in to the coffee shop and destroy their new coffee-making aut, it sets in motion a chain of events that will pull the three young women in very different directions.

Change is coming - change that will launch humankind into a new era. If Rose, Lal and Janetta can find a way to combine their burgeoning talents, they might just end up setting the course of history.

Genres: Fiction, Science Fiction, LGBT, Dystopia, Artificial Intelligence

Audible Audio

First published July 22, 2021

About the author

Eli Lee was born in Dorset and is now is based in London. As well as writing fiction and non-fiction for a variety of anthologies, magazines and websites, she is fiction editor and contributor to literary journal Minor Literature[s] and has also worked for Strange Horizons. Find her on Twitter at @_elilee.

Reviews

[Janelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

A novel about automation and AI replacing humans in all areas of work. Centred around three women, Rose who works in a Slurpee store, her friend Lal who used to be the store manager and goes to work for Tekna, the parent company that is busy automating all its workers and Lal’s sister, Janetta working on a PhD studying conscious AI. There’s lots of interesting ideas here, but many of them have been done better elsewhere. I think I would’ve preferred the book to be set in the real world somewhere and not a made up place, more obvious social satire for example.(I did get some The Circle vibes later in the book as Lal gets promoted at Tekna). There’s nothing about the type of government or wider society that they live in, though later there is some nods to the way capitalism throws people on the scrapheap so easily in the name of profit. Overall I felt it was too long and the relationships overdone, I found Janetta an unbelievable character particularly. But it’s not bad, I just wanted more.

[Eli Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Can I really give my own novel 5 stars? Afraid so!

A STRANGE AND BRILLIANT LIGHT is a character-driven, literary speculative novel that asks the questions:

-What happens when AI takes more of our jobs, and what will that world look like?
-What politics do we need in this future, and who do we want running things – governments and corporations? Or can we aim for something better?

It's not all politics, though – it explores love, sex and friendship, family and feminism. Above all, it asks about the intricacies of human relationships, and why we make the choices we do.

Novelists I love and am inspired by are: Alice Munro, Elena Ferrante, Ursula Le Guin, Shirley Hazzard, Margaret Atwood, Lauren Groff and Zadie Smith. If you like them, and you want a speculative twist to your fiction, you might just love this...

🤖READING LIST🤖
Non-fiction books that work as context:
Automation and the Future of Work – Aaron Benanav
To Be a Machine : Adventures Among Cyborgs, Utopians, Hackers, and the Futurists Solving the Modest Problem of Death – Mark O'Connell
Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work – Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams

[8stitches 9lives · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Strange and Brilliant Light explores the effects of artificial intelligence on the future of work and our sense of purpose and is a provocative, thought-provoking slice of speculative literary fiction that follows three young women on the threshold of a completely new kind of world. It's a character-driven novel that centres on three decidedly different female characters each from a working-class background - Lal, Jeanetta and Rose - who must tackle the trials, tribulations and realities of perpetual modernity as well as the constant and unnerving threat of AI overtaking everyday humanity. Lal can be cantankerous, bossy and annoying but she dreams in technicolour. She is prone to being a people pleaser and wants the best for her family but underlying issues slip from under her facade from time to time revealing her intense feelings of worthlessness and she has always been the black sheep of the family with her academically gifted sister taking most of the praise from her parents. This nagging inadequacy eats away at her from within when it dawns on her that the capitalist economic system is broken and that we are all slaves chained to our corporate masters.

She often ponders the ramifications of constantly trying to streamline production meaning that soon people will be replaced by robots. Janette, Lal’s talented sibling, also considers the role of AI but she believes they should be created as sentient entities and that they will make the world a better place for us all. They should feel emotion and empathy so that when they evolve into conscious beings they don't attempt to become overlords. Rose is Lal’s best friend, a passionately political woman who’s spent the last decade putting the world to rights in remarkable ways. Lal and Rose have been best friends since childhood, and work together in a coffee shop, but Lal’s ambition drives a wedge between them when she lands a job with Tekna, the corporation behind the system of robotic devices known as “auts” that is putting baristas, waiters and clerks out of a job – soon even human management won’t be required. Meanwhile, Lal’s sister Janetta, a brilliant grad student, may be on the brink of creating conscious, thinking auts. This is a compelling, prescient and completely absorbing novel packed with eloquence and meticulous research.

At its heart it is an exploration of whether we as human beings have the ability to be symbiotic with AI. It's fascinating, powerful yet full of nuance and weaves important ideas into an engrossing novel. It primarily explores the loss of jobs and therefore economic freedom of those who rely on their employment to feed, clothe and shelter their family and exactly what devastation would arise should it become automated. Except it isn't just about automation. Artificial intelligence is a slippery slope, a topic that tugs at you insistently. One day you’re hearing about job losses and the next you’re onto the Singularity. It's an intimate debut that asks some big questions about the way society is heading and a deep dive into the way technology can have both negative and positive effects on those around it and the ramifications and solutions we need to both think about and prepare for when this eventually occurs. Thankfully, the author couldn’t help but salt her version of the future with a bit of utopianism, a reflection of the glowing screens all around us and their endless, untold promise. Highly recommended.

[Ingerid · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, this definitely isn't science fiction. It's literary speculative fiction, with the emphasis on literary.
While it's about the way the AI revolution will change our lives, with 'auts' leaving us jobless and leaving our future open to question, it also dwelt a lot on the characters' inner lives. It explored their love lives, friendships with one another and family relationships, and as I mostly read literary fiction anyway, I loved it. It felt like you could see inside the characters' hearts.

The speculative aspect of it, about AI, was expertly handled. There were questions about AI ethics and philosophy, as well as a look at basic income ('source gain') and what forms of resistance we might take against the rise of AI. This is a book that comes with both heart and mind!

For readers looking to be challenged, and to read emotionally astute speculative fiction along the lines of Margaret Atwood, Naomi Alderman or Emily St. John Mandel, 'A Strange and Brilliant Light' couldn't be better.

[Jonnie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a work literature first and foremost: beautifully written with penetrating exploration of characters and relationships.

Secondarily, it's a work of speculative fiction, posing fascinating hypothetical questions -- including what big tech and AI might look like if it were architected by women.

[charlotte, · Rating 3 out of 5]

On my blog.

Rep: lesbian mc, bi/pan side characters

Galley provided by publisher

You know those books you read, you can tell they’re good, on a level you do like reading them, but you just don’t feel anything about them? This is me with A Strange and Brilliant Light. It’s a good book, and Eli Lee is clearly an accomplished writer.

It’s just then it came up against me.

I think, really, it’s that age-old problem of me reading literary fiction. This was a very thoughtful book, with critiques of capitalism, industry, and productivity, wrapped up in “what happens when we can create truly intelligent artificial intelligence?”. All of which went straight over my head.

Which is why I think you should just ignore my rating of this book, and my review, and pick it up anyway if you think it’s something you’ll enjoy. There’s really not that much else for me to say about this book. It has sympathetic characters that do, in all honesty, make the story pass quicker. But there’s very little that happens. It’s a very cerebral book, in that respect. In fact, the most excitement comes right at the end.

And that’s probably why I struggled to actively like it, really. That, combined with a general dislike of literary fiction.

But, when I say don’t let this put you off, I mean it. It’s a way better book than this review makes it sound.

[Zoe Jankel Sterne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked this novel. The characters were all interesting and thoughtful and I think their relationships were well drawn. It was very enjoyable to read - I liked the depictions of the different regions of Iolra and how they were woven into the story. The second half is pretty pacy and I had to read it all in one go to know what happened at the end.

[Charlotte · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel focuses on Rose, Lal and Janetta who are living during the time of a technological advancement when AI or auts are slowly replacing the human workforce and the story focuses on the women's very different reactions to this.

I really enjoyed this novel; I read a lot of sci-fi and fantasy but this was told from the human perspective and felt much like something g that could actually happen during our lifetime. I particularly liked Rose's character as she felt very real and honest in her views and I was gripped until the very satisfying end!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of the novel in exchange for an honest review

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I expected a near-future sci fi novel when I picked up A Strange and Brilliant Light in the library, but that's not what I found at all. As the setting is an imaginary country with its own history, culture, and language, I classify it as fantasy. Also fantastical is the development of AI and its impact on society, ostensibly the main theme. The main characters are a group of friends and siblings who variously get fired and replaced by AI, work for an AI company, campaign against AI, or research empathy in AI. To begin with the positive, I liked the characterisation and found the writing involving enough.

Unfortunately I do not think the novel has anything useful to say about artificial intelligence, as it's used as a literary motif rather than reflecting upon genuine contemporary concerns. A Strange and Brilliant Light was first published in 2021 yet this is the angle on AI: 'Auts can serve coffee, but they can't write.' Au contraire, in 2023 humans are still needed to serve coffee while generative AI rapidly churns out text. It certainly looks like a lot of so-called knowledge work will be automated long before Starbucks. I think this is a bad idea given the poor quality of generative AI outputs, but it's not like any of the big five tech companies are asking me.

Thus it all feels oddly dated. The ending is also pretty absurd. I found the characters and their relationships diverting enough, as this is essentially relationship-focused literary fiction in a fantasy setting. If you'd like to read a near-future novel that examines AI as it actually is, though, I recommend Zed by Joanna Kavenna. Recent news on large language models being shoehorned into microsoft office, which seems like a clusterfuck waiting to happen, strongly reminded me of Zed's farcical 'bespeaking'.

[R_in_the_valley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a beautiful novel of ideas and relationships. It doesn't underestimate the audience's intelligence, and it combines fascinating ideas – such as that of basic income, or the ethics of AI, or who should own it (corporations or the people) – with wise, funny and true insights about the human heart.

I loved the characters of Rose, Lal and Janetta, though I think Janetta was easily my favourite. She is an AI genius who is devoted to her work, but her world is thrown into chaos after a break-up. To me she was an avoidant personality who had finally let herself experience love, and she cannot handle the heartbreak and pain that comes after it. It's rare to find such a thoughtful look at the human heart in a speculative fiction novel, but Lee is clearly a unique writer.

I also love the world created in the novel. The food felt real and delicious, and the geography of Iolra was beautifully constructed. Both Ulrusa, the town on the beach, and the big city of Mejira, wormed their way into my imagination and I could imagine myself there.

The emphasis on characters and their inner lives, and the philosophical tone might put off many readers who prefer a more plot-driven, action-filled science fiction. But for anyone looking for beautiful, fun speculative fiction about women's lives and our collective future, this is the perfect book.

[Peter Baran · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book of ideas, and as such it doesn't take place in our world. We are pretty reassured early on that whatever world it is set in has Ice Cream, Ice Cream shops and its relationship with automation is probably not that far off the one on Earth. This is a book about the coming of artificial intelligence, and what that will mean to the world of work. There are three main characters, representing three classes, a shop worker (ice cream worker) who is made redundant by automation, a middle manager who is working her way up the corporate ladder making people redundant to make room for automation, and a researcher who is about to crack the code of emotional artificial intelligence. The corporate climber and the out of worker used to be best friends, and the the climber is the sister to the researcher. It would all be a little bit too schematic if Lee hadn't done a good job of fleshing them out and getting into their heads, they are all scared, neurotic, lonely and searching.

There side-plots here also to make this all feel more real. The families have back stories, a history of Union work which may or may not be what it seems. The unemployed woman has a relationship with a firebrand Union leader and discovers he patronises her as well as the rest of the labour movement (this also leads her to be a thinker). The corporate climber is the hardest character to sympathise with, and she is the one left with the (unresolved) moral dilemma at the end, to pass the code for true artificial intelligence to her corporate masters or destroy them. The university research is also bereft, out of love, looking for something about emotions in her work when she has little herself.

As I said this is a book of ideas and some of those ideas are extremely relevant. There is a relatively nuanced discussion of Universal Basic Income, and the idea of who owns artificial intelligence - if it can be owned. The anonymous location and the structure of the book may make it feel a little like a detached place to have those ideas, but in fleshing out its three female leads it becomes as readable for the soap opera as the science fiction. Highly recomended if you like big ideas, the future of labour politics in an automated world or ice-cream.

[Cobi · Rating 5 out of 5]

A truly entrancing read. I love a novel where I'm immediately transported into a setting so clear and distinctly realised. Eli Lee achieves this perfectly. Truly capturing the ennui of the human experience through three very different and very fascinating women, with the background of Artificial Intelligence as a looming metaphor, open to much interpretation.

I devoured this book within days. An absolute must read. Buy it immediately!

[Vivienne · Rating 5 out of 5]

My thanks to Quercus Books/Jo Fletcher Books for a review copy via NetGalley of ‘A Strange and Brilliant Light’ by Eli Lee in exchange for an honest review. As I begin reading on its publication day, I complemented the print edition with its unabridged audiobook edition, narrated by Tamsin Kennard, to allow for an immersive experience.

This is a literary science fiction novel set in the near future. It explores responses to the AI revolution through the perspectives of three women. Of course, robots, androids, and artificial intelligence have long been important themes in SF. We now live in a society in which various forms of AI are increasingly present in our daily lives, including the ‘digital assistants’ in our homes and pockets as well as various software applications.

In this near future technological advances are causing large numbers of people to lose their jobs to auts, as artificial intelligence units are called in the novel. There is a great deal of social discontent as many feel robbed not only of their livelihoods, but of their hopes for the future.

The three main characters are Lai, Janetta, and Rose. At the opening of the novel Lia is the manager of a coffee shop in which its parent company, Tekna, are introducing auts to work alongside the human staff. There are rumours that more auts will be introduced in the near future. In addition, Lai feels constantly overshadowed by her brilliant sister, Janetta, whose Ph.D. is focused on making auts empathetic.

Janetta is extremely focused on her work. Yet following the breakup of her relationship with Malin, the woman who had introduced Janetta to her adventurous side, she is feeling quite vulnerable.

The third woman is Rose, Lal's best friend since childhood, who also works at the coffee shop. . Rose comes from a family with strong ties to trade unions. Her own sense of purpose is awakened by her relationship with Alek, a charismatic up-and-coming politician. As always I am cautious about spoilers though will say that later events in their lives as well as the wider world combine to herald in a new era for humankind.

‘A Strange and Brilliant Light’ is primarily a character-led novel that also considers political and philosophical questions about the nature of AI, its relationship with society and the economy. The scenes in which activists destroy auts reminded me of the actions of the 19th Century Luddites, who protested the Industrial Revolution by breaking into factories and destroying the looms and knitting machines.

I am quite pro-AI and undoubtedly this perception added to my appreciation of the novel. I found that I could relate to all three women in different ways, though Janetta was my favourite, partly due to the nature of her work yet also her personality.

I certainly felt that this was a beautifully written, thought provoking novel. I found it an impressive debut and I will be interested in hearing of Eli Lee’s future projects.

On a side note, I felt that the cover design of a bird perched on the robotic hand was very evocative.

[Nina · Rating 5 out of 5]

As other reviewers have identified, A Strange and Brilliant Light is more literary fiction than sci-fi, but maybe in the same sense Ursula Le Guin is. It seems weird that people get hung up on genre. It's beautifully written and presents a human face to the complex prospect of work in the age of AI and what it means to be alive. Also, I love the cover art!

[Annarella · Rating 5 out of 5]

4,5* rounded to 5.
An interesting book that talks about topics that will be at the centre of the political discussions in the next year.
AI is already here, we met AI when we use chat bot or when our preferences are analysed by algorithm.
It's terrifying and fascinating at the same considering that some AI programs were already to auto correct their code.
This story is about algorithms, data, technical aspects but it also about political solution and the impact on people life.
Lal, Janetta and Rose are three women who share a common past. Lal and Rose were friends, Janetta is Lal's sister.
They shared a lot but their ideas and life view are totally different.
I didn't like Lal as she reminded a number of people I met and who were totally sold to an enterprise philosophy.
I loved Rose and Janetta. Rose is full of life, Janetta is the mind that must come to term with the impacts.
It's thought provoking book, disturbing at times as it talks about a dystopia that could be our future.
This is a debut and I think that author will surely grow into an excel author.
I think that the plot drags a bit or the tone is a bit too preachy.
The last part was exciting, fast paced and I loved it.
It's a thought provoking and gripping speculative fiction, highly recommended.
Many thanks to Jo Fletcher Books and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

[Annemieke / A Dance with Books · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you to Jo Fletcher Books for the review copy in exchange for an honest review. This does not change my opinion in anyway.

If you are looking for an active AI revolution scifi story, best turn around now. A Strange and Beautiful Light is a character driven story that takes a look at the consequences of AI use on people. The moral implications,and what is good and bad.

It makes the book an interesting read with questions about the politics that would be needed around AI use and the effect this will have on the day to day lives of people. What about freedom when the government gives you money? And can we really use AI when we give them a concience? Not only that but we explore the lives of our three female mc's. How does it personally affect them and what role do they play?

I sometimes struggled with this book. It was boring in places, the AI revolution being a backdrop for the lives of these women. Who I unfortunately didn't much care about. And if you don't much like the characters in a character driven book than it falls down a lot with that. I thought I would have liked Lal at the start but she took such a sharp turn as a person and the way she treated those around her. Somewhere she said she was close to her sister when they neither have any idea what is actually happening in each others lives. Rose on the other hand seemed judgemental but grew out to be the character I did like best. She questioned and tried out things. Learned and was active with so many things. Janetta was a wet potato, a smart one at that.

I do wonder if this kind of a plot would have perhaps been more powerful as a shorter story. The point that the author wants to make through these characters and the open ending are great and thought-provoking. But the length took away from some the punch by dwindling in the lives of the women. I also wondered why they were so adement that concious AI would kill them if they couldn't control them when the AI had never given them any reason to think that.

Even so, if these kind of thought provoking books interest you I do think that it is a great one to read.

[Edward · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful, thoughtful approach to the future with AI, literary and artful descriptive prose that stays with you long after finishing

[Sharona · Rating 5 out of 5]

The future of AI is an exhilarating one, from any perspective, and this book captures both those who will be most affected by the possibilities as well as showing a nuanced look at its creators and developers. I was surprised at where I found my affections and loyalties for the characters moving and shifting, at how I could so easily imagine (and inhabit) the world that was so beautifully constructed within the pages, and at the gripping direction the story took. Would recommend this to anybody who enjoys literary sci-fi and the concepts of AI; the ideas have lingered with me long after the last page.

[Theresa Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like a lot of literary novels, the intent can often lie in the unsaid. Literary speculative fiction is a side bar for me; a genre I read selectively but so far have enjoyed quite a bit. A Strange and Brilliant Light is very much a character driven novel, a slow unfolding that seems at times to flounder yet ends up finishing on a note of significant impact that makes all that came before it all the more complex and far reaching.

Each of the women are realistic and relatable, although I liked Janetta the least and Rose the most. Lal, I was in two minds about. Her situation was difficult; when you’re supporting your family, it’s not so easy to be idealistic. Whist this novel had a futuristic feel, it still also felt contemporary, giving the reader a sense of unease and trepidation. Automation is already in our society – virtual assistants are the first port of call for online customer service help lines within corporations nowadays, as just one example. Many aspects of this novel felt impending, particularly the rapid rate of change and the lack of regard for workers in the face of a burgeoning profit margin.

I enjoyed this but recommended it to those who like literary fiction of the sort where much of the story is given over to character introspection. It’s a thought-provoking novel, one that would make for a good book club discussion.

Thanks to the publisher for providing me with a review copy.

[Dan Staniforth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eli Lee's A Strange and Brilliant Light is well written, smart and humane science fiction which asks some big questions and discusses them in the context of a gripping story with interesting and sympathetic characters. I am somewhat confused with her exact definitions of AI, auts, technologically engineered and genetically engineered creatures, as I feel as if the boundary blurs in ways I don't fully understand. This does not undercut how much I enjoyed this book though - it was hard to put down and left me thinking about the questions the characters were posing when I was forced to.. I would have no hesitation in recommending this to fellow readers - those who enjoy sci-fi and those who don't.

[Tanishia Gearing · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really interesting ideas about AI and it's integration into society. Thought the pace was quite slow for the first 2/3, but couldn't put it down after that. Worth a read!

[Otto · Rating 3 out of 5]

It took a while to get through the first half, but after that it just got better and better.

[Claire · Rating 5 out of 5]

"A Strange and Brilliant Light" is easily one of the best books I've read in the last year—I loved that its ideas about automation, capitalism, and the future of work were richly and critically rendered (it felt urgent and smart without ever straying into naked polemic), and that those analytical aspects were balanced by heartfelt storytelling, really human characters, and propulsive plot and energy. Lal, Rose, Janetta—they all felt so real and immediate to me. About halfway through, the plot picks up force and momentum, and from then on it became especially compulsively readable, and hard to put down—I found myself staying up 'til 2 or 3 in the morning because I couldn't bear to put it down. Its conclusion was poignant and satisfying, and overall, it was thought-provoking and a joy to read.

[Nic · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was offered this book as an ARC via Netgalley and I usually try my best to read the whole novel so that I can give a fair review however I gave up on this one around page 170. It took me a while to work out what it was that was leaving me cold and initially put it down to having just finished Klara and the Sun which I had enjoyed.

Initially I was thrown by the headings in the Prologue which state 'One Year Earlier' with each character's name. I felt that this was a little odd as labelling something as a prologue makes me as a reader assume that this comes before the main story and that if necessary the time jump will be made clear in the main body of the story and sure enough on p34 there is a break stating 'Twelve Months Later'. Starting the novel this way immediately left me feeling that I had missed something as the question in the forefront of my mind was "One year earlier than what?" I admit that this is probably just me being overly picky!

Given that the premise of the novel is that automation is taking over many people's jobs the main issue I had with the novel is that I didn't like any of the characters. There were some strange statements given the close third style of narration for most of the novel such as on p96 'Janetta was the best. The others had known this when they entered the doctoral programme, and they were even more sure three years on. They admired her because her brain was subtle and flexible, but they liked her because she carried her learning lightly...She knew most of her peers were no competition...' These statements seem contradictory as someone who knows 'most of her peers were no competition' is hardly carrying her learning lightly. To me is just appears that she is egotistical but likes to think of herself as popular.

There is a lot of posturing and lecturing about 'post-labour movements' (p169) but it comes across as exposition. In the end I came to the conclusion that the reason I couldn't get into the novel was that it felt like it was 'telling' you everything in the antithesis to the immortal quote 'show, don't tell'. Personally I prefer my novels to be thought provoking rather than lecturing.

[N A · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very beautifully written and thoughtful novel looking at the lives of three young women facing a gloomy future. The characters were drawn as if real. Their worries felt understandable and were convincingly portrayed.

The AI was philosophically dealt with, and felt at times more of a backdrop to the girls' lives. This was fine with me! I rarely read science fiction or 'speculative' fiction, and yet this hit the mark for me, being more literary than I expected.

[Harley · Rating 2 out of 5]

In a world where people are losing their jobs to ‘auts’, artificial intelligence that can make your coffee, take your payment and wish you a nice day, Lal, Rose and Janetta face decisions. Lal wants to live in the city, work for one of the biggest automation companies, but at the cost of the friends she lives behind. Rose can see all that could be wrong with increased AI where the corporations reign, even as her friend seems to leave her behind. And Janetta, well her PHD in emotionally intelligent AI may hold the key to a change that is about to unfold before them.

This would make a brilliant novella. Asking difficult questions about morality in new frontiers, where our old moral structures don’t seem to apply and balancing the political with the practical impacts of increased automation, Lee has created a story that feels relevant and poignant for a world on the brink of automating so many parts of our working lives. Pair it with an essay exploring some of the inspirations Lee cites, and I’d say this is a really great piece of writing.

Unfortunately for me, the pace of the novel at the length it is (416 pages) didn’t grip me in the way I wanted. I found myself feeling like I was meandering through the lives of the three women and the ending, which hit in the last 20% of the book at full speed, then came as too much of a quick turnaround for me to feel fully satisfied.

In addition, despite the additional space afforded by the length, I didn’t feel that any of the characters were explored in a way that felt wholly real. I believed the ending, and the writing definitely set me up to get there, but I found the characters difficult to like, and especially the secondary characters, who seemed to exist only as love interests or as ways of exhibiting the automation (look, it’s really happening – this character shows it). There were too many characters who had no redeeming features, and that took me out of feeling this could be reality.

Nonetheless, it’s an important topic to explore and the ideas Lee puts forward here are interesting from a political and philosophical standpoint. If you’re interested in the more real end of the ‘sci-fi’ spectrum, this could be for you.

Thanks Netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Colette · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favourite books of the year

What an enjoyable and thought-provoking book! This book is about three young women, and their relationships with each other and a rapidly-changing society. Each of them is strong, interesting, and complex, with three very different lives, hopes, and dreams. The book feels more like literary fiction which happens to be set in a near-future world, the real focus is on characters' inner lives and relationships. The tension between best friends who have fallen out over one's ambition is both heartbreaking and all-too-realistic, as is the gap between two sisters who have gone down very different paths. Those paths of all three women cross in unexpected moments, creating a sense of possibility, but also anxiety about how things will resolve.

I picked this book up expecting it to be science fiction, and of course there is an element of that-- clever world building, technologies just a bit more advanced than what currently exists, delightful descriptions of foods I would love to try. But the author has managed to pull those unfamiliar elements into a setting that feels contemporary and recognisable as a backdrop for the story of the lives of these three women. I've recommended this book to friends and family, including my mom, who has no interest in science or speculative fiction, and they have universally enjoyed it.

The through line of the question of ethics of AI feels all too current, and I suspect that this book would suit someone interested in a deeper philosophical consideration, but also someone who just wants a compelling story about the lives of three young women finding their ways in the world. I really enjoyed this book, and would encourage you to give it a read.

I think you would enjoy this book if you're a fan of Jane Austen, Sally Rooney, or William Gibson, you should give this book a try (I know that is a slightly odd list, which is a good thing for me!)

[Rebecca Ambrose · Rating 2 out of 5]

The premise of this book really intrigued me - in a future world where AI is becoming prevalent, how will people react and respond and what lengths will we go to to work with / against them?
The story focuses on three women - Lal, Janetta and Rose - whose lives are connected and become both more and less intertwined as the story goes on. Sisters Lal and Janetta are not close but both work within the realms of AI technology, Lal as an employee of a huge AI Tech company and Janetta who is completing her PhD studies in advancing empathetic conscious Artificial intelligence. Rose and Lal have been friends for a long time but their relationship is hurt when Lal leaves to go work for the tech company while Rose's career is put at risk by the very AI 'Auts' that Lal's new employers produce, and who Rose has a huge issue with. So far, so good.
Each woman has her own story, as well as the elements where she is connected to the other protagonists, but none of them felt developed enough for me; huge emotional and relationship decisions seemed to happen in the space of a few sentences, or else were referred to pages later and had me checking back to see what I had missed. As the story went on I so badly wanted to really care about what the women were going through but I struggled. The story also became more convoluted while also being a bit repetitive, and by the end (which was a good, discussion-enabling ending to be fair) I was not really worried about what happened.
I wanted to love this, and there is promise there, but it just was not for me.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC in return for an honest review.

[John-erik · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even though the plot is about the development of artificial intelligence, my favourite thing about this novel is the way that we get to experience that development through three very different, but interconnected perspectives: a true believer in the commercial application of A.I., a scientist trying to make A.I. more empathetic, and a labour rights activist trying to destroy the system. It's heart wrenching because you end up caring about all three characters, even though (wittingly or unwittingly) they are working against each other. It's a powerful story.

[Ale · Rating 2 out of 5]

More like 2.5 stars

I really, really wanted to like this. It has a lot of the big ideas that are very topical: AI, the rise of unfettered capitalism, automation and replacement of humans in the workforce, political activism and the dismantling of systems of oppression. You would think, with such a brilliant and varied approach, that it would actually deliver on even a fraction of those ideas. Unfortunately, for me it just felt a little bit flat.

The story follows three women (Janetta, Lal and Rose), as they come to terms with the rise of automation and the very real ways in which people are losing their jobs to "auts". Lal is languishing in a coffee shop, feeling overshadowed by her sister Janetta's PhD research into creating empathetic auts. Meanwhile, Rose is dealing with the death of her father as she gets involved with the politics of source gain (basically the book's version of universal basic income). When the aut in the coffee shop is attacked by vandals, the lives of all three women are set on a path that could change the future.

I will start with the good parts: the ending is exactly the kind of thing that will spark book club debates and keep people talking about it. It's ambiguous enough that you can interpret Lal's actions in the exact way that align with your politics. There is also some good LGBTQ+ representation in the book (Janetta is a lesbian and one of her partners is bi), without it being the source of conflict within the novel. It was actually refreshing to sort of just have it on the page, no further explanations required. The kernel of the story ("What will happen in a world where automation starts taking over?") isn't one that's a stranger to sci-fi, but it's one that I'm always interested in reading; there are so many different perspectives to be written about and I really wanted Lee to do something interesting here. Truthfully, I think the story reads a lot more like a novella than a full length novel, like there are parts here that seem a bit... stretched out.

It really doesn't help that none of the characters are particularly likeable or interesting. Lal is the most morally ambiguous of the three, a woman caught between her desire to better herself and her feelings of shame about where she comes from. She's annoying and whiny, but she at least poses the most interesting questions in the book: what happens when you're caught between what you want and the machine of capitalism? How much of yourself do you sacrifice to the gods of money and career? How much ideology can you truly live with, when you have to pay bills and help your family? Hers are the struggles that resonated the most with me, because it can be incredibly difficult to maintain a desire for change when you're being ground up daily in the machine of work (and this is all, of course, by design). Rose's search for the real meaning of source gain and freedom is overshadowed by her love affair with Alek and the conflict between her and her brother. At times, she takes almost the authorial voice, when she chastises certain decisions that Naji makes, without necessarily trying to understand him. And Janetta's love life plays way too great a role in the story; she's the one I felt most exasperated by, the one who just felt painfully naive, even though her ideas are the backbone of the sci-fi part of the story. But it feels like Lee digs herself into a hole here and then facilely "solves" everything for Janetta in the end.

I'm not one of those readers who needs a dry, boring sci-fi novel to have all the Science bits, because to me ultimately the draw of sci-fi is always from the human element. Clearly Lee is trying to channel Ursula K. LeGuin or Kazuo Ishiguro in her writing, but sadly she just doesn't have the same penchant for human observations of the former or the literary turn of phrase of the latter. It's like everything is just out of reach and the book suffers from it, especially in terms of pacing and character design. I just couldn't connect to any of them and it feels like when so much of the emotional core depends on these three characters, it's a shame that they feel so flimsy and underdeveloped. This is also not a short novel, so it's not like Lee ran out of time to create a compelling narrative here either!

My other big gripe is the setting itself. It's not really Earth (or if it is, it's unrecognisable), and more importantly it feels... static. There are all these places named and we're told, over and over, how one is a warehouse district, one is the big city, one is super provincial and so on. But they just feel like deal, soulless settings for the characters to meander through. There's nothing here to draw you, nothing like Annarres or Urras from LeGuin's The Dispossessed. There is no feeling of alienation like Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, where you have this near-future setting that feels tantalisingly close. Instead you have Mejira and Iolran and other places like this, where everything feels fake and I struggled to care about the characters who supposedly inhabit those spaces.

To the right reader, I think this would be the perfect novel. To me, it just felt cloying, slow, and that it was trying to be a lot cleverer than it managed to be in the end.

Many thanks to Jo Fletcher Books, Quercus Books and NetGalley for the copy of this book.