Alpha

Charon #2

by Catherine Asaro

Charon was the most ruthless—and brilliant—criminal of the twenty-first century, a practitioner of illegal robotics and android research. He is dead now, and General Thomas Wharington believes his team of experts has deleted all the electronic copies the megalomaniacal inventor created of himself. However, one major problem Alpha,
the only android survivor of Charon's cybernetic empire. Outwardly indistinguishable from a human woman, Alpha has superhuman strength and speed, and perhaps even more deadly capabilities still unknown. Thomas's superiors want her dismantled and studied, but to Thomas it feels like murder. He stalls for time, a move that could prove disastrous. Alpha escapes from an escape-proof compound, kidnaps Thomas, and takes him to one of Charon's hidden installations. Charon might be dead, but Alpha continues to carry out her late master's orders, and she refuses to elaborate on what those orders entail. Her behavior is becoming more human—or so it seems. Is she developing emotions and a conscience, or is she just learning to counterfeit them as a means of carrying out her enigmatic orders? And do those orders include Thomas's death sentence?

Genres: Science Fiction, Romance, Fiction, Fantasy, Audiobook, Action, Ebooks

368 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published August 1, 2004

About the author

The author of more than twenty-five books, Catherine Asaro is acclaimed for her Ruby Dynasty series, which combines adventure, science, romance and fast-paced action. Her novel The Quantum Rose won the Nebula® Award, as did her novella “The Spacetime Pool.” Among her many other distinctions, she is a multiple winner of the AnLab from Analog magazine and a three time recipient of the RT BOOKClub Award for “Best Science Fiction Novel.” Her most recent novel, Carnelians, came out in October, 2011. An anthology of her short fiction titled Aurora in Four Voices is available from ISFiC Press in hardcover, and her multiple award-winning novella “The City of Cries” is also available as an eBook for Kindle and Nook.

Catherine has two music CD’s out and she is currently working on her third. The first, Diamond Star, is the soundtrack for her novel of the same name, performed with the rock band, Point Valid. She appears as a vocalist at cons, clubs, and other venues in the US and abroad, including recently as the Guest of Honor at the Denmark and New Zealand National Science Fiction Conventions. She performs selections from her work in a multimedia project that mixes literature, dance, and music with Greg Adams as her accompanist. She is also a theoretical physicist with a PhD in Chemical Physics from Harvard, and a jazz and ballet dancer. Visit her at www.facebook.com/Catherine.Asaro

Reviews

[CS · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bullet Review:

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...I'm done. Don't care about 8000 year old Thomas and his family woes. Don't care about Alpha. Just don't care. Also, didn't realize this was a second book.

Life is just too short for me to spend it on books like this; maybe I'll try it again. Narrator is not very impressive; sounds bored TO DEATH (this probably didn't help).

And fanboys/girls, before you shrill at me for my review, let's all remember: It is MY OPINION. You are more than entitled to love this and make many beautiful babies with it. I willingly admit that this is a "it's not you, it's me" book. Doesn't mean that I'll change my feelings or rating however.

[Laurie Green · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very impressive story. The characters and the world-building were amazing. Alpha was unstoppable. Now I'll have to go back and read Sunrise Alley, the first book in the series.

[Popco · Rating 1 out of 5]

A rare DNF.

I picked up this book purely because of the cover, which made me think of pulpy 80's military scifi. I didn't expect a good book, but I did expect a charming, cheap read. Unfortunately, this book has zero charm.

The first chapter starts with an introduction of our POV character, seventy-two-year-old former fighter pilot General Thomas Wharington. It immediately lists the good general's many, many accomplishments and medals, and informs us that he's physically fit and looks "more than two decades younger" than his 70+ years. Riiiiight.... Mary Sue alarm going off right there.

After a short introduction to Thomas' daughter and granddaughter, we get some poorly done info-dumps. This book does that annoying thing of taking existing concepts and giving them new names, like zombie movies that refuse to use the word 'zombie' and talk about walkers or infected instead. The story takes place in the early 2030's and, despite depicting no changes in general colloquial English, the internet is suddenly known as "the mesh", hackers are "mesh bandits", and robots are "formas". It's a lazy replacement for actual world-building.

So Thomas is send to interview the titular Alpha, a captured killer android built by a mad criminal genius. Said mad genius built Alpha to serve as a bodyguard, mercenary/assassin, accountant, and sex-bot. The book really wants you to know that our killer robot (sorry, 'forma') is a sex-bot. She's described as a thirty-year-old 'sex goddess', with 'tousled' hair, slanted dark eyes, a 'well-proportioned' body, a dusky voice, and wearing tight leather pants. How does our totally professional General with decades of experience react to his subject being attractive? A subject that seems to have a high level of sentience but is also programmed to be completely loyal to her creator? A creator that specifically designed her to cater to his own sexual desires? By perving over her appearance every other page of course! His internal monologue even admits that his attraction to this 'woman' forty years his junior affects his ability to interrogate the deadly robot properly.

By the sixth time the book had brought up his attraction to her in just the first chapter, I went back to the blurb on the cover and found a word I'd overlooked earlier: romance.
Though not my genre of choice, I've nothing against romance. I also have nothing against love stories involving the elderly.
I definitely have something against 'romance' involving a literal grandfather lusting over a sentient AI programmed and designed to be a sex-bot around the same age as his daughter. Just to be sure, I went ahead and skipped to the end of the book, where it's confirmed Thomas and Alpha end up in a relationship and he introduces her to his family. Funnily enough, his daughter isn't charmed. I wonder why? /s

I stuck around for another chapter, but the writing never got better and I was in no mood to spend the next 300 pages having to deal with grandpa's libido. Hard pass.

[Joey Brockert]

This story is in the near future. Computer intelligence has grown to the point of awareness, beyond just artificial. Alpha is a robot or andriod or forma, as it is referred to in this story. In this story there are the philosophical and legal issues of artificial intelligence, & evolved intelligence (the computers that have developed into self-awareness) is introduced. There is also the notion of people's selves being moved from their bodies to machines, to other bodies. At least the notions are being presented here.
Alpha is being held captive by a branch of the military to be studied, but they are not getting very far. The only person who she (it?) will talk with is Lieutenant General Thomas Wharington, the Air Force officer who she kidnapped in an attempt to regain possession of an android, Turner Pascal. Mr. Pascal was killed in an auto accident, by his intelligence was moved from his body, and moved again, into an android body, so now he is both dead and alive. Mr. Pascal and Alpha were products of Charon, a naughty person who wants to rule the world, or something like that.
The story line was to take Lieutenant General Thomas Wharington to someplace and kill him.

[Maureen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Alpha was better than it's predecessor, Sunrise Alley, and as straight sci-fi books both were ok. But I'm comfused as to why this is considered a romance. Sure, the love interest is a primary focus of the story and sure, there is a bit of sex, but I'm afraid it just doesn't have the emotional connection I've come to expect from a romance. It just doesn't get inside the characters and make me feel what they are feeling like I've come to expect as a defining feature of a romance. Alpha does this better than Sunrise Alley did, and I think I definitely like the male lead character, Thomas, but it still felt... incomplete.

Overall, Alpha was ok but I think if I hadn't been expecting a romance I would have enjoyed it a whole lot more. It feels like it was written by a good sci-fi writer who wanted to try an experiment in a different genre and couldn't quite pull it off. Perhaps if the romance had been written as part of the story (ala John Scalzi's "Old Man's War") even an integral part of the story, but not THE story itself it might have worked better.

[P. Kirby · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF. This was my third and last attempt at reading Catherine Asaro. I really, really, really wanted to love her books, but I'm just not feeling the love. The first Asaro book I read was The Charmed Sphere, a fluffy fantasy that felt like someone's first attempt at writing a novel, not a story from an award-winning author. Assuming that fantasy wasn't Asaro's thing, I then read Primary Inversion. The theoretical physics was fascinating, but the characterization rather dull (standard embittered warrior-heroine archetype), the romantic subplot unsexy, and the plot ... plodding. With Alpha, I was bored from page one. The backcover lists another book as the prequel. Maybe that's why the first chapters of this novel are chuck full o'exposition. Anyway, after about eight pages, I decided that reading a dull book was killing my muse and bailed.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Alpha is the second book in a series, but I started it without being aware of the first book. This was an interesting experience. There are references in the story to something that happened before, but were explain to a sufficient detail that it seemed like part of the book, a back story that wasn't being gone into here. I really liked this. Life is full of things that happen that you are aware of that are just sidings and I got that feeling from this book. Then I found out that there was a previous book and it ruin the feeling. Overall I liked the book without it being anything that made me go wow.

[Carolyn F. · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars. I wanted to like this book more than I did. When I sat the book in my lap to start reading, I was excited about a new sci-fi romance. This was okay. Except for the lust, I didn't see the romance part at all. It ended up morphing into something more but I had no idea why Alpha was so into Thomas, especially since he vaguely looked like Charon. Anyway, it was good not great and a nice quick read.

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a sequel to Sunrise Alley, although you would not need to have read that book to get what is going on in this book. There is plenty of back story in the first 30 pages to enjoy this story as is.

I've never read a romance novel, but the author has a reputation for writing SF/romance crossover novels.

[Buka · Rating 1 out of 5]

At first I actually thought the first three paragraphs were an annotation for this book and not one of the worst-written info-dumps I've ever encountered. As far as info-dumps go, it sounded like a mediocre fanfic.
Maybe the rest of the book is better and it did look interesting in the description but I just couldn't read past that.

[Dawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think I'm reading books out of order again and I've missed a lot of background to put this book in perspective.
It was a great book anyway, confronting the "when is a robot considered a human?" question and packed with action.

[Lance · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is a good read. One that does not improve my faith in any government. Robots, etc. What is human, and not. There are some books I will read twice, this is not one of them. It is interesting to think C. Asaro maybe thinking of another follow up with Jamie.

[Kerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alpha by Catherine Asaro (9/10)
SF with a good touch of romance. I thoroughly enjoyed this, but I'm biased to like Asaro and this didn't disappoint, although it took a while to get moving.

[Copied across from Library Thing; 5 November 2012]

[Jackie · Rating 3 out of 5]

An action-packed adventure that also poses some intriguing questions about the line between human and machine. The rather unconvincing romance (70-something army man with 30-ish-looking AI-woman) made is less engaging for this romance-junky than it might be to those who care more about action.

[Jedi Kitty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although I love Asaro, I put off reading this for a while because I thought I wouldn't enjoy it as much as her others. However once I did start it- I couldn't put it down! This has much more action than most of her books! More action, than character driven, but still great!

[Audrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not our author's best work. I found the plot unevenly paced and some of the attitudes dated. Plus I kept wondering how someone in the midst of a series of heart attacks could be as active as one of the main characters is, even with supposedly advanced medical care.

[VMom · Rating 2 out of 5]

Got this off the library's new books stand. Not Asaro's best book, but it was a fun read.

[Natalia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sequel, kind of, to Sunrise alley, but a stand alone
Robots, AIs, Romance and ethics...

[Ginnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun romp :))

[Sally · Rating 3 out of 5]

slow starting but gets better

[Tressa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found the story a bit repetitive and the characters were okay. I didn't realize that this was a sequel to Sunrise Alley, but the book does stand on its own.

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

This Title was an excellent Sci-Fi/Future/Romance. This title will be on either my bookshelf or in my hands being reread

[Amy]

Not to my taste, but I can see where others could be very fond of this author.

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Does what it says on the tin.

[Terry · Rating 4 out of 5]

As usual I am reading a favorite author's set of novels. Set in her creative Skolian Empire universe this book made for a relaxing set of evenings revisiting.

[John Loyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

I meant to read this pretty soon after Sunrise Alley. It's been five years, but any recap we need is given. It can be read standalone. Alpha is a forma with a sophisticated AI created by Charon. Charon was an evil mastermind who besides creating Alpha also downloaded himself into another body, but he was killed at the end of SA, and all copies of him were erased. Alpha is still programmed to follow Charon's orders and isn't so sure of his death. The NIA has Alpha in custody, the only person she will talk to is Gen. Thomas Warrington.

Escape, attempted kidnapping, kidnapping, and 72 year old Thomas with a heart condition and a broken leg proves he's not worthless. Thomas isn't convinced that Alpha is an AI bound to the will of her programming, he feels that she is more of an EI (evolving intelligence).

Good flow, fun, nice relationship building where there was no reason for them to have any trust in the other. That's the start of the tough decisions the characters have to make. Jamie was a minor character, but adorable. 4.6 stars.

[Becky Beaman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very readable book. I started this right after finishing Isaac Asimov's outstanding Foundation set, and initially I was struck by how much "simpler" Asaro's writing is. But the story drew me in quickly, and I loved it. Kidnappings, cyborg villians, deserted islands, superweapons -- VERY entertaining, and highly recommended.

[Josephine · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was an interesting take on the story.

[Anthony Faber · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cyberpunky romance thriller. Similar to her other books.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Précis Alpha is an android programmed to obey by her now dead master Charon. In the previous book, Sunrise Alley, she is captured by General Thomas Wharington. This story opens with her in captivity and Wharington is fascinated by her and wants to unlock the information she has. She escapes, kidnaps Wharington and they evolve a relationship that has many twists and turns, including the re-appearance of Charon.
The captivity has a profound effect on Alpha as well and she makes the general a very tempting offer that could change their relationship forever. Along the way the collective AI known as Sunrise Alley is vying for autonomy and gets involved in this in an unexpected way. Complicating all of this is the general’s feelings for his family, especially his very precocious granddaughter.



Protagonist General Thomas Wharington
Antagonist Alpha/Charon

What I liked After thoroughly enjoying Sunrise Alley, I wanted to read this. I didn’t know where Asaro was going to go with this and a romance of sorts is not what I expected, but she puls it off with finesse. There is excellent action to go with the well written romance scenes. The ending was just right.

What I didn’t like The only two things I didn’t like was that the Sunrise Alley subplot was not more developed and that the granddaughter’s unique abilities were not explorerd more. Possibly those will be pursued in a third novel in this universe (at this time I am not aware of Asaro having any plans to do that)