Ignore All Previous Instructions

by Ada Hoffmann

A script supervisor for an AI media conglomerate is caught between her intense need for an orderly life and her deeper, darker queer desires. From the creator of the Outside trilogy, a heartfelt interplanetary epic of identity, longing, and a space pirate who smuggles inappropriate stories.

“[A] deliciously queer, timely ode to human creativity in an ever-more-algorithmic world. Its subtle philosophical depth, keen observations, and lyrical poignancy will wow you, even as its neurodivergent hero steals your heart.”
—Maria Dong, author of Liar, Dreamer, Thief and Aviary

Kelli Reynolds loves creating stories more than anything in the world. But on Callisto, a generative AI company called Inspiration owns everything, including all the media, and only Inspiration determines which stories can be told.

Kelli has a rare and coveted job where her autism is to her She precisely edits AI output into “appropriate” stories for Inspiration’s massive TV audience. Her proudest creation is the pirate Orlando—a dashing do-gooder based on stories she used to tell friends.

Reenter Kelli’s ex-boyfriend Rowan, the person Kelli based Orlando on. Back when they were teenagers, their relationship was a secret. Kelli had thought that Rowan, a trans man, was her schoolmate Am, a girl.

Rowan is tangled up in the black market after he needed to get money for gender affirming surgery. He needs Kelli’s help with something . . . illegal. So, now Kelli has to Will she risk the safe, tidy story of her life now for the world she once wished for? What would Orlando do?

Passionate, dangerous, and tender, Ignore All Previous Instructions is a sweeping, poignant novel about censorship, forbidden love, and growing up.

Genres: Science Fiction, Queer, LGBT, Adult, Fiction, Dystopia, Fantasy

337 pages, Kindle Edition

Expected publication May 12, 2026

Reviews

[Rachel (TheShadesofOrange) · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.0 Stars
As someone who loved The Outside and its sequels, I was eagerly anticipating this follow up novel. I am happy to announce that I was not disappointed and would recommend this book to anyone else who loved that trilogy.

One of the best elements of this novel was the inclusion of another character with autism and a queer identity, which I understand pulls from the author's own experiences. I appreciated the complexity and nuance of these representations, breaking away from certain popular stereotypes.

In addition, this novel explored the world of AI written tools and their invasion of storybased media. I found the conversations very topical and important, not saying away from the negatives of AI in creative spaces.

In terms of science fiction, this one is much softer than others, which makes it a great entry point to readers who don't read a lot of the genre. I would primarily recommend to character driven readers who don't mind a romantic element to the story. This one felt personal and left a big impression on me.

Disclaimer I received a copy of this book from the publisher.

[Bogi Takács]

Find me elsewhere: My Patreon | My Bluesky account

Read for blurbing and absolutely loved it. I'll do my best to put my blurb here once it's public :)
____
Source of the book: Print ARC from publisher

[Brianna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'll be honest, the title is what sold me to this book. I ~ love ~ the concept of jailbreaking models. I have a lot of Big Feelings about AI (even with all of the fiction/sci fi I consume where AI is central to the plot in a neutral presentation), but this one got me thinking more deeply about how bias can lead to censorship/erasure as a step beyond creative freedom. Overall? Speculative fiction that feels both cozy and high stakes? I love the vibe. I appreciated the dual timeline and the completeness of our characters here. The biggest draw back for me was that it definitely felt like YA at times and I wanted a little more punchiness.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Kara Babcock · Rating 3 out of 5]

If companies like Anthropic and OpenAI get their way, generative AI will run rampant while being controlled by megacorps who care little for human creativity. This is the future on display in Ignore All Previous Instructions, and I don’t like it—the future, that is. I liked the book! Ada Hoffmann uses their background in computer science and computer poetry to explore a contemporary issue through a futuristic lens. I enjoyed the many layers of this story: a heist, friends reunited, a parable about LLMs, a story of life on a colony of the human diaspora, and of course, a story of an autistic protagonist. Some of these layers are more sophisticated and satisfying than others. I received an eARC from NetGalley and Tachyon Publications.

Kelli Reynolds is a script supervisor for a company that owns the copyright to all the media in the Jovian system of moons. Her job is to review and tweak AI-generated scripts for AI-generated entertainment. It’s squeaky clean and sanitized. However, Kelli finds the job fulfilling. Autistic and introverted, Kelli splits her time between her quiet home and her quiet office. When her ex, Rowan, flounces back into her life asking for a suspiciously easy-to-grant favour, Kelli’s entire life is upended. She’s catapulted into an adventure closer to the life of her pirate OC than her own.

The story alternates between adult Kelli, counting up the days since her reunion with Rowan and their ill-fated trip from Callisto to Io, and younger versions of Kelli and Rowan. These latter chapters provide essential backstory for both characters, from the inception of their friendship on the playground to their romantic entanglement, breakup, and Rowan’s coming out as trans. They also provide a deeper glimpse into the sinister, hollowed-out society of Callisto and the other Jovian moons. Everything is deeply impersonal, with LLM-powered robots taking the place of a lot of human interaction.

I have to be honest: I didn’t really care for the flashback chapters. The only part of them I enjoyed was that we got a glimpse into younger Rowan’s mind, whereas the present-day chapters are purely limited to Kelli’s perspective. Otherwise, I found the flashback chapters really killed the pacing of an already languorous plot (the main story takes place essentially over a weekend).

That main plot is more interesting, and I’m not just saying that because I am biased in favour of heists! Hoffmann creates a very compelling dilemma for Kelli; I love the setup that compels her to go along with the crime. Similarly, the actual break-in and theft are tense and well done, as is the aftermath. Most heist stories are, understandably, told from the perspective of experienced, even cocky thiefs. In this case, however, Kelli is as green as they come: despite her piratical persona, she is no good as a thief in real life, and it shows.

Yet as the title of the book implies, the most poignant underlying theme is one that touches on questions of humanity, artistic licence, and the soul of creativity. It’s here that Ignore All Previous Instructions both sizzles and fizzles.

The sizzle: I love how completely Hoffmann sketches this dystopia, how believable it is given the rhetoric we are currently seeing around LLMs. Everything they have done here feels rooted in possibilities established now, in 2026, just extended into a Jovian future. On top of the LLM commentary, they’ve layered commentary around queer freedom, on the treatment of autistic people, and so on. It’s an intricate and thoughtful take that I suspect will resonate with many readers.

The fizzle: the central conceit, while enticing, is too simplistic. Megacorp monopoly on all entertainment sounds great on paper (hi, Disney), yet when you actually put it on paper, you run into a few problems. One is the facelessness of the antagonist. The closest thing we have to a representative of the megacorp, other than Kelli herself, is her superior, Baz—and ironically, he is one of the most human and relatable characters. I suspect this isn’t an oversight; rather, Hoffmann is trying to make the point that this megacorp is LLMs nearly all the way down. It’s as if society is being run by phone menus. Nevertheless, as much as I appreciate the careful explanation of LLMs and then the gentle unspooling of why they are problematic/easily hacked/lacking in creative flair, I wish there were more to this part of the story.

In particular, Hoffmann dances around the actual question of storytelling with AI. They explore it mostly in relation to Kelli, whose natural storytelling abilities are subsumed by her teachers into an AI-sanctioned playground, albeit with the occasional pirate stories (in both senses of the word) with Rowan and Elaine. Rowan and Kelli have occasional debates about AI-generated versus human-generated art. I’m intrigued by and sympathetic to the portrayal of Kelli as a kind of collaborator, someone who started off very radical before eventually “growing up” into someone who upholds the system. Despite all of this, however, Hoffmann never actually explores whether the limitations of the AI-generated scripts are a result of megacorp moralizing or a fundamental limitation of LLMs producing slop. The implication seems to be it’s both—and I actually agree with this, philosophically, but I think the novel muddles these factors.

So, I liked Ignore All Previous Instructions and found it interesting, thoughtful, and engaging. It’s a good attempt. But it doesn’t quite swing big enough for me, and some of stylistic choices, like the pacing, didn’t work for me. This will definitely be a “your mileage may vary” book.

Originally posted on Kara.Reviews.

[sums · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and Tachyon Publications for providing this ARC!

4 stars. Ignore All Previous Instructions is so evidently a labour of love.

My favourite thing about this story is the way it’s told.

The main plot is told using the point-of-view of the main character as she finds herself wrapped up in an intergalactic heist with an ex she hasn’t seen in ten years. But woven into the story are flashbacks of said ex’s perspective as they both grew up together, and then an inside look into her mind using second person when she prompts herself as her imagined character Orlando.

I found that this format gave the novel so much dimension and really made it feel so immersive.
I loved that through all these perspectives, the reader really gets to know the main character and understand her in an intimate way. Which is why I’m probably so willing to move past the fact that the actual heist was not as action-packed or eventful as I had initially hoped it would be. With how much I enjoyed the storytelling, I really don’t mind.

If anything, I went into this novel because of the premise of a space-heist, but I latched onto the effort the author put into showcasing neurodivergence in a complex way, advocating for self-expression, creativity, and the freedom and safety to be who we are meant to be through art and media.

Additionally, the focus on mental health was also especially touching to me.

And although there were parts of the book I may not have enjoyed as much or wished were done differently, the experience of reading this story and the feelings that emerged afterwards were worth it.

(Bonus points for the author’s comments and discussion questions at the end of the book!)

[Rach A.]

new book from the author of my favourite scifi trilogy?! thank you 2026

[Jenna O'Malley]

ARC received. Thank you so much ❤️

[Laura (crofteereader) · Rating 4 out of 5]

The cover makes this book look very unserious (and I suppose there is a little bit of that “overstated pulp sci-fi” vibe to the story), but it has a lot of really important things to say.

I really liked how GenAI was handled, in this society where very few people are expected to make it past basic schooling and into an intelligent workforce. Where AI chatbots are seen as a reasonable equivalent to therapy or person-driven behavioral coaching. I like how it broached the homogenization of AI generated content (shaving off the bits that don’t apply to the majority until the minority is erased completely) and the sort of brainless dependence that can come from a world where one’s creativity and independent thought are not only not encouraged but actively repressed.

I also really liked the choice to show specifically how that directed but also kind of inadvertent censorship can negatively affect queer youth. There’s a lot of darkness in this silly little heist book.

{Thank you Tachyon for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review; all thoughts are my own}

[Venneh · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has a lot to say and a lot it wants to impart, and the fact that Hoffman manages to convey it all as well as she does, along with some liner notes in the back for some things that people might think feel familiar but they're not sure from where, is genuinely impressive. I read and loved Hoffman's short story collection within the last few years, but this is honestly a hell of a novel, and has so much to say about the censorship of queer portrayals, the actual goals of AI, and how maybe it just fucking isn't worth it to mask. There's also some exquisite use of the second person pov, which I am a sucker for, and there may have been a few times where I stepped away from the book for a few days because I identified so much with what Kelli was feeling (yay recent mid 30s ASD diagnosis!). This comes out in May, preorder it the next time the Barnes and Noble presales come along. Also, A++ usage of Virginia Woolf references with Orlando, ngl.

[Joe Karpierz · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the perks of being able to read advance reader copies is that I can experiment with new (to me) authors. John Feinstein, Mary G. Thompson (who has a new book coming out later this year which I'm very interested in reading), Izzy Wasserstein, and Kimberly Unger are just a few writers who, at the time, fell into that category. Knowing nothing about them, I picked up their books based upon the description of the story (it's kind of hard to do it any other way, since electronic review copies may or may not have a cover to pull in the reader). Based on that criteria, I picked up Ada Hoffman's (again, a writer new to me) latest novel IGNORE ALL PREVIOUS INSTRUCTIONS.

The premise is simple. The main character, Kelli Reynolds, is the script supervisor for a highly popular video production. But there's something of a catch. Her employer is the company call Inspiration. Inspiration is an generative AI company which owns quite literally everything on Callisto (Kelli's home - yeah, THAT Callisto), including all the stories that have ever been told. While this may be a little bit of hand wavium by Hoffman, it allows Inspiration to not have to worry about training its AI with materials that are copyrighted to someone else. As a result, Inspiration can dictate what kind of stories are "good and proper" for public consumption. Since Inspiration is trying to reach the widest possible audience, the stories are scrubbed - by script supervisors like Kelli - to be "acceptable" to the largest possible audience. Kelli is fully aware of what she is doing, but she loves her job. There is enough leeway in the rules to make the stories exciting, but not so much to make the stories her own.

Then, out of the blue, Kelli's ex Rowan makes an appearance. Rowan disappeared at Kelli's request a decade prior, and now he needs her help. Rowan is in debt to a major crime lord, and needs to pull off a heist that hopefully will allow him to get out from under the burden of the debt. Except that Kelli (and the reader) don't actually know that it's going to be a heist. She doesn't trust Rowan, but she can't resist him either. Against her better judgement, she agrees to travel with Rowan to Io. She doesn't know what she's in for, so she purchases a small communications device that will allow her to send messages to her boss to let him know what's going on if she runs into anything illegal.

And illegal it is. The crime lord wants the kernel to the main character of the story she is working on - Orlando, who is based on Rowan from when Kelli and Rowan were young - as a birthday present for her entitled and privileged daughter. The coercion comes in the form of blackmail, for she knows a very dark secret from Kelli's past that will ruin Kelli and put her in jail for a very long time. So a team is put together to go get the kernel, and the heist commences.

The story is told via alternating periods in both Kelli's and Rowan's lives. There is the present time, which I've described so far, and the time period of their youth, going back to their single digit ages all the way up through their teen years. And this is where we learn about how Kelli and Rowan get to be where they are today. Kelli is autistic, and has a robot that is her constant companion and which helps her navigate through her awkward social interactions by telling her what to do. Rowan, who we learn is a trans man, grew up as Amelia - Am - and who struggles with her emotions and feelings toward other girls - and boys. Inspiration's rules indicate that being trans is illegal, and it's okay to be gay as long as you don't flaunt it or make it public. Basically, society is set up such that there is no mechanism to help young people growing up know that it's okay to be different. So, eventually we find out that Rowan is in debt because he needed to pay for gender affirming surgery, and Kelli is sheltered in her job so that she can perform her duties without distraction. Along the way, we also find out what that dark secret from Kelli's past is and what caused it to happen.

IGNORE ALL PREVIOUS INSTRUCTIONS is a well written, character based story with just enough space and science in it to keep the people interested in the science fiction elements reading while at the same time making readers sympathetic to the characters. As a person who has experience with neurodivergent family members, I found this story immensely satisfying. And as one of those readers interested in the science fictional elements of a story, I was enthralled from the beginning and stayed interested all the way through. It's a terrific novel. I think it's worth giving it a try.

[Rachel Reeves · Rating 5 out of 5]

TW: ableism, arson, suicide (teenager, discussed, not depicted on page) homophobia, transphobia (societal)


I encourage you to look at reviews by Autistic and ADHD reviewers, as I am (as far as I know) neurotypical, even though I live with an AuDHD partner.

This book stuck with me, and its prescience is something that I hope will come top pass, even if the main character often made me frustrated.

Kelli is one of the 10 percent of people who still have a job. She works for Inspiration as a script editor and AI prompter, where she makes sure that her show (Ship of Fools) and it's main character (Orlando) follows company guidelines, and that her own creativity doesn't contrast with the AI scripting too much. Inspiration's shows are basic, shallow and flat, made to be as marketable as possible to a common mean, and Kelli sometimes does struggle to reign herself in, even when she always follows the rules. When she takes a call from her former partner and current pirate (smuggler), Rowan (a trans man), this careful routine is destroyed. Rowan is in trouble, and Kelli is the only one who can help him. Her task is simple: Talk to a superfan of the show, and Rowan gets out of debt with the fan's mob boss mother. But of course, nothing is that simple. When she;'s drafted into stealing her own work from her company; she must make a choice. Will Kelli be able to make it out of this in one piece? Will she ever sort out her feelings for Rowan?

This is primarily a character drama, with the heist taking a distant second, as the ostensible driver of the plot. The characters were very vivid, even painfully so. The third person POV follows Kelly and Kelly and Rowan/AM as children. There are also points where there are written prompts from Kelly's point of view. So, I do like that you get a portrait of both characters that is incredibly detailed. I hated Kelly as a character, but I really understood her. Kelly is a pathological rule follower, incredibly naive, but also has a strong sense of justice. So when she immediately tries to turn Rowan in, I hated her for it. However. I understood why she tried to turn Rowan in, and because of the intimate POV, there was no choice but to sympathize with her. I also did aside from the POV, as it was very clear that Kelli was raised by a robot who taught her the most basic and milquetoast ways to interact socially. If you can stick with her, the ending is worth it.

Rowan is the other half of this duo, and I love him. He very clearly has ADHD, even if his parents don't want to label it and as Am, was the first person to really break Kelli's shell. I enjoyed reading about his coming of age journey, and also, seeing how deep his friendship went with Kelli. When you finally learn what tore the two apart, it is devastating. I also appreciate that through him we see how queerness is suppressed (you can't talk about it for fear of influencing the youth/complicating a simple algorithmically fed society, but are 'allowed' to be queer in private) and how he hacks the system. He was a bit of a scoundrel as well, and later in the book, you see why. I was rooting for him from the get-go.

The side characters were also compelling, and you could tell that they had their own problems and reasons for joining the heist. (I really liked the representation in this group of side characters as well.) The representation was also well researched, and realistic.

Aside from the characters, the worldbuilding was serviceable, and somewhat realistic. Kelli lives on Callisto, and travels in a ship to other places, and the nitty-gritty of space travel isn't glossed over. It was a great backdrop to a story of self discovery. The heist was also serviceable, but definitely did take a backseat to the character's lives.

All in all, despite the fact that I didn't enjoy the main character, I really enjoyed and appreciated this book. If you want a queer space romp with great representation, I'd say go for it. It was a great read.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC!

Final Rating: 4.5 (rounded up to 5) out of 5 stars

Check out my blog for drink parings and other reviews: https://theredreaderreviews.blogspot....

[Stephanie Ravenscroft · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received an Advance Reader Copy via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This is my first time reviewing an ARC, and I wasn’t expecting this level of polish. I began reading this in late 2025, but in retrospect, I’m glad this is the story I started 2026 with.

I highly recommend Ignore All Previous Instructions. It’s a compelling read, and the most authentic queer writing I’ve personally encountered. Some books simply find their audience, and this one felt uncannily aligned with my own experiences. I’m an enthusiastic AI user interested in AI ethics; I’m queer and in a closed-triad polyamorous relationship; and I’ve worked as a care support worker supporting autistic people. I’ve never read a novel where those identities meaningfully intersected until now.

Previously, I have pretty much bounced off of queer and LGBT. I find that queer authors tend to get caught up in the freedom of expression, and the actual writing suffers. That, or they become encumbered with therapy speak, which is a pet peeve of mine. This book did not have those problems. In fact, I think the characters shared a portion of my derision on the therapy speak note. The queerness was integral to the story and the characters, but they didn't become it. These are three-dimensional people with careers, fears, and conflicting motivations, and that depth was genuinely refreshing. It has raised my expectations for the genre.

Not that I wasn't nervous. When the book started, it was going into a huge amount of detail about the protagonist's routine. The hairs on my neck were rising because I have seen so many goofy and insulting interpretations of autism. I've had to be an advocate for autistic friends and family, so innately, I was bracing. The book didn't pathologise autism, though. Instead, it was detailed, felt intimate and world-building. It was very show-don't-tell heavy, and it was stunningly accurate, at least to some people's experience of autism. It continued to toe this line throughout the entire book. Showing us, and structuring the internal dialogue to walk us through the protagonist's experience of Autism. It was tasteful and so refreshing? Even as the book began to have two characters learning about queer topics afresh, it kept that tasteful, believable tone rather than collapsing into a sermon.

This still wouldn't be a book I'd recommend to an audience not on board with LGBT themes, but, a neutral party? I think I would be happy to give this book to someone entirely neutral to Queer or Autistic discourse and let it stand as a foundational text for their understanding and help define their empathy on the subject.

If I haven't made it clear, I loved this book. It was nuanced, and the story had stakes that made my heart clench. I was invested in the protagonist's success, even if I was just as uneasy as to whether it was the 'correct' thing to do. I don't get to say this about science fiction all the time; it felt very believable (if a little America-centric). The ChatGPT angle was integral to the story, and I really enjoyed the breaks wherein our protagonist is writing 'prompts' that are essentially her trying to process what is happening. The idea of the hacking of the future involving a lot of sweet-talking Grok-like systems was also very appealing to me, but the humour of the situation never diminished the stakes of the story to me. Half the story focuses on children, and I especially found the way the children interfaced with technology very authentic.

I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to read this. Thank you to NetGalley and Tachyon Publications, and especially to Ada Hoffmann, for such a thoughtful and quietly transformative novel. 5 Stars, no notes.

[Siavahda · Rating 3 out of 5]

DNF, under the it's-not-you-it's-me rule.

I just...don't want to read any more. I made it to 50%, and the thought of picking it up again is exhausting.

I loved Hoffman's Outside trilogy, but this couldn't be more different. The Outside books were very serious and complicated, and pretty dark! Ignore All Previous Instructions is light and fairly fluffy; even the language, the sentence structure, is much simpler than the Outside books. And it's a (to me at least) odd mixture of upbeat and deeply depressing - the book is set in a future where all books and movies and tv are created by one corporation with generative AI, and of course their stories are never queer and are mostly deeply, deeply bland. No one else is allowed to create stories at all, because this corporation long ago bought the copyright to all stories and all tropes/motifs/etc. It's terrible! But at the same time, we're getting many chapters of Rowan and Kelli's childhood, which, although there are terrible bits (the day their class learned how to 'write' stories with genAI made me want to cry) are often pretty funny too. Even quite a lot of the bleak stuff is spun in a way that's making mock of it, like the way baby!Rowan manipulates the robot that's supposed to teach baby!Kelsi how to be neurotypical.

The characters are fabulous, but I found myself really disinterested in the story. Rowan wants Kelli to come away for the weekend to meet a fan of the show Kelli helps write. On the journey there, he introduces Kelli to art not created by genAI, which sets off a galaxy-brain moment for Kelli. Upon arrival, Kelli learns that the fan is the daughter of a very big player in the criminal underworld, and they want Kelli to do a lot more than talk about the show. Every other chapter shows us Rowan and Kelli's childhood, the two of them initially drawn together by Kelli's incredible storytelling, and eventually exploring their own and historical queerness together.

None of it's bad: it's just that I...don't care, for some reason. I think a bit part of it is that I already believe everything Ignore All Previous Instructions is saying, about creativity and queerness and neurodiversity, about how genAI should be shot directly into the sun, about the dangers and evils of anyone being allowed to control storytelling. The book's preaching to the choir with me, and I find that pretty boring! Don't get me wrong, I don't want to read novels that think queerness and neurodiversity are bad, or that are praising genAI to the skies - ew. But I don't feel like there's a lot more to this book than its messaging; the plot seems very thin. I wouldn't call Ignore All Previous Instructions preachy exactly - there IS a plot, and like I said the characters are wonderful. This is not a lecture thinly wrapped in prose; the points aren't shoved down your throat, they're just left out in the open for the reader to absorb.

But there's nothing new for me to think about here, and the plot itself just isn't holding my attention.

Being as objective as possible, I think Ignore All Previous Instructions is pretty great. There's nothing wrong with the writing. I think readers who don't know yet what they think about genAI - or gods forbid are all for it - could get a lot out of this, just as plenty of others could get a lot out of the neurodiverse rep, re Kelli being autistic and Rowan very clearly having ADHD. If you're looking for a read that is a light, easy read, but isn't trying to pretend everything is always sunshine and rainbows, then I think this could be fun for you.

Maybe I'll try it again in a few months and love it. I hope so! But right now I don't have the spoons it would take to keep going with it.

[Nina van der Kooij · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks Netgalley & Tachyon publishing for the ARC!

Ignore all Previous Instructions is a book about AI, and a book about being human. It's also a book about autism and queerness in a world of censorship that feels much like the current age.

This is a sci fi book that has space travel and such, but also feels very grounded in reality. The AI and AI company work pretty much the same way as AI in the real world, only this is a more dystopian setting where this form of AI is integrated into pretty much everything, and where all media is mostly AI generated.

The story is told through a dual timeline. The main story in the present is from Kelli's POV. She's a supervisor of a mostly AI generated show, which she has to keep within the strict rules of the company. I found the rules mentioned very interesting, and they really speak to both threats of censorship and common discourse. The show is expected to constantly explain itself, treating its audience like children who otherwise wouldn't understand. And everything is expected to be as generic as possible with super broad appeal but without much depth or humanity. Pretty much how AI works in the real world. Kelli created the character of Orlando, and while he is very limited in who he can be by the AI's rules and how much is required to be generated, he still feels like a part of Kelli's imagination, and she is a storyteller, putting as much humanity in the output as is feasible within this system, even if she does also follow all the rules to the letter.

Kelli is contacted by Rowan, her ex, and a trans man who she dated when they were teenagers and Rowan still presented as a girl. He is in some financial trouble and needs her help, and against her better judgement, Kelli goes with him.

At the same time, there's a past timeline set during their childhood, when they went to school together, and this feels a bit more YA, but it's also quite heavy. It's about growing up queer and neurodivergent in a world that is quite hostile to these things. The past timeline is all from Am/Rowan's POV, and it shows some other uses of genAI in this world, including a robot Kelli has that's supposed to help her socialize with her autism but doesn't work at all, and therapybot program Elaine (another one of their friends) goes to talk to, which isn't shown on page, but is often referenced, and is also pretty much useless. Queerness is censored and considered something inappropriate for children, and while it is not forbidden for consenting adults, it's not talked about at all. This obviously has a huge effect on how Kelli and Am/Rowan develop and grow up, not really having access to the information they need.

I liked how this book portrays a genAI company as the main villain, and makes it very effective while also showing how useless genAI is for many purposes. Rowan's expertise as a criminal is prompting the genAI to let him into everything, and of course, they use genAI in pretty much everything. The autism assistance bot constantly gives very generic advice that's not helpful at all. The therapy bot doesn't help improve Elaine's mental health at all, and is programmed not to talk to her about any queer topics at all, making it even less helpful.

Would highly recommend this book

[jupiter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ignore All Previous Instructions is a book about an autistic main character, Kelli, who has found a haven in following the rules. She follows her routine, she goes to work, and she supervises an AI that writes episodes for a show. That's the entirety of it, and it's enough.

Enter Rowan, her ex-boyfriend, who has spent the years since they last saw each other becoming a criminal (in the eyes of Kelli at least) and he's back to ask her for a favour. A favour that might turn her into a criminal as well.

I'd like to preface this by saying that sometimes sci-fi books don't work for me because I didn't grow up reading a lot, and therefore I struggle more to dive into that sort of worldbuilding (in comparison to fantasy books). From the start, though, I could tell that this book was different. First of all, we don't get many books with characters as unapologetically autistic as Kelli. I loved Kelli from the very first sentence, and I could tell we had a whole lot in common.

One of the strongest points of this book is its characters. They're diverse, they're complex, and they make mistakes. We get to meet Kelli and Rowan in two timelines: the now and the before, when they were just teenagers trying to figure out where they stand in the world. I loved this look into 'what would it be like to grow up autistic, lesbian, or trans in a world like that?'. The answers we get aren't all pretty, but they feel real.

I didn't a hundred percent connect with the worldbuilding, I think some of it just passed me by, but that wasn't an issue for me. I was happy to just be along for the ride. I don't think a reader needs to understand the worldbuilding completely to enjoy it and I'm sure plenty of reader love the worldbuilding more than I did.

I think for me, it's truly the autistic representation that sealed this book as one of my favourite sci-fi books. I am autistic myself and I've read a couple of books now with autistic representation. i've always been able to relate to parts of those characters, but I never related as much as I did to Kelli. If you told me the author took part of my soul and put it into Kelli then I'd believe you.

And I think that even touches a point made in the book. Media like shows and books, they need to be made with a soul. I enjoy a book when it touches my soul, and stories written by machines could never do that. Even at the very start of the book I could tell this book was a passion project for the author. I could tell Ada Hoffmann poured part of her soul into it and just for the few hours that I read the book, I was able to connect to her, which I loved. Even if Hoffmann's autism isn't exactly like Kelli's, she understood Kelli and me for that instance in ways I don't often experience.

So thank you to NetGalley for letting me read this e-arc, but more importantly thank you to Ada Hoffmann for writing this book and showing me that people like me exist outside of this universe and even in space!

[Ariel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ignore All Previous Instructions follows exes Kelli and Rowan through two separate periods in their lives. Chapters alternate between flashbacks to various points of their childhood and their reuniting for a (reluctant) heist in their present. Rowan, a trans man then identifying as Am, is the point of view character of the past sequences, while Kelli, the main character of the book, takes the reins for the present and interspersed "prompt" chapters, where she writes LLM-esque prompts to herself to help get her through the events of the novel. The various plot threads and storytelling methods come together well to form a compelling narrative.

This book is a sci-fi, set on multiple moons of Jupiter, but apart from interplanetary colonies and consumer-grade space travel, it could be set in the near future. The plot focuses primarily on very timely issues, like the dangers of an AI-homogenized society, and the importance of queer representation. Coming at a time when tech billionaires are trying to shove AI into everything and queer rights are regressing in large parts of the world, this book has a lot to say, and I was hanging on most of it.

While the plot was interesting and I was curious to learn what had gone so horribly wrong in the past, it was Kelli and Rowan who really engaged me. Kelli is a young professional and autistic. Throughout the story, we see the impacts of the latter on her life. Her representation as autistic is realistic and nuanced, showing the ways it's made her good at her job, but also the challenges she faces like becoming overstimulated in stressful situations and breaking down. It's a type of representation missing in other media where all too often an autistic-coded character is just "quirky." I related immensely with Kelli, and felt her pain at multiple points, such as when character traits she admired were found childish and naive by others.

Rowan, meanwhile, is as full of swagger as he is ADHD. We follow his coming of age story as he grapples with his own sexuality and then gender identity in a world where all queer representation is forbidden. Both characters are very endearing, and it's easy to root for them together... Except for the small wrinkle that Kelli spent half the book learning she was a lesbian. Still, sexuality is complicated, and I didn't feel that their attraction in the present was unearned or invalidating to either of their identities or experiences.

I really enjoyed this book and found it a quick read. I would recommend it to anyone who appreciates queer representation and books written by humans. Thank you to NetGalley and Tachyon Publication for the opportunity to read it early in exchange for this honest review. 4.5 rounded up.

[Mari · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really loved Kellie’s as our MC, and Rowan was wonderfully written as well. The subtle hints at his ADHD felt very well placed present without being spelled out too explicitly. Kellie’s autism, on the other hand, was portrayed with great sensitivity and attention to detail, which I deeply appreciated. In both cases, it was clear that Ada draws from lived experience or at least from very close and well-informed perspectives.
Combined with the space and sci-fi setting and the added AI-related themes, the book had many elements that immediately appealed to me from the teaser alone. Overall, however, the story didn’t fully manage to draw me in. I did enjoy the dual timelines, Kellie and Rowan contrasted with Kellie and Am, which gradually converged, allowing us to experience their childhood while simultaneously witnessing their estrangement in the present and the unfolding of the main plot.

Unfortunately, the story-within-the-story featuring Orlando the pirate didn’t really capture my interest from the beginning. I found it difficult to connect with the more traditional tropes and plot entanglements. It felt a bit too flat for my taste. The prompt sections also didn’t add much value for me. While I could understand their purpose and depth, especially after reading Ada’s afterword and initially found the first couple of them interesting, they later disrupted my reading flow and slowed down the progression of the narrative.

The book touches on many important and powerful themes: gender dysphoria, emotional neglect, a system that systematically and harshly excludes disabled people, mental illness and depression, and yet another era in which queerness is neither seen nor allowed to be lived openly. The historical elements, particularly the exploration of queer history, were engaging and well executed, though ultimately not quite what I’m personally looking for. This is, of course, a very personal and subjective perspective, but in science fiction I tend to prefer not to encounter realities that so closely mirror those of our present day.

The fact that queerness remains stigmatized in this timeline and is even forbidden on some planets didn’t feel particularly innovative to me. At the same time, these kinds of stories absolutely deserve their place, and the anger, frustration, and emotional weight they carry are entirely valid and important. It’s just for me, this wasn’t the kind of future I had hoped to see.

That said, the representation throughout the book mental health, suicide, trans and queer identities, bisexual rep, polycuel, autism was handled impressively and brought vividly to life!

[ROLLAND Florence · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel ticks a lot of boxes:

* hard SF with a focus on computer science, and especially generative AI / cybersecurity
* neurodivergent characters
* queer characters
* technological singularity - what happens to society when it becomes ruled by AI overlords and 90% of the population relies on basic income to survive (there are barely any jobs anymore, everything has been automated)
* space pirates, fast-paced adventure
* intellectual property laws - what happens to artistic creation when megacorporations can copyright ideas?
* censorship, and especially banning queer and political content

All those themes come together in a novel that could be an awful soup, but somehow, it works.
The exposition was quite long, and I had to "hang in there". Around 30% in, the reward came (and it was massive). This is a compelling adventure relying on exquisitely built characters, fine grained world building, and a somewhat unreliable narrator. Queer and/or neurodivergent characters are never archetypes here. They are whole people, sometimes endearing, sometimes insufferable.

Ignore All Previous Instructions is as much about the evolution of the main characters' relationships as it is about space pirates and AI. This was well done, with no caricature and great sensibility. I am queer and neurodivergent myself and felt "seen". It does not mean that this is a novel for queer / neurodivergent readers. The story is compelling enough to appeal to a broad audience, I would even recommend this novel to teenagers. Without spoilers, my "age" line is about sex, sheer violence and unbounded morality. There is no such thing here. You can totally gift this to a fourteen year old who enjoys SF.

Some non-spoiler highlights:
* the prompts! Very innovative idea. It totally works and provides the reader with a lot of "food for thought"
* relatable computer security content - privilege escalation, geeking about file systems, serialization attack (more of this please!)
* elaborate exploration of what it means to produce fiction with an AI

Cherry on the cake, Ignore All Previous Instructions features a satisfying end. There could be a sequel and I would buy it, but this works really well as a standalone novel.

This novel was provided to me as an ARC by NetGalley and Tachyon Publications. Special thanks to the editor and to Ada Hoffmann for a great novel. I will buy this book.

[Lady C · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite not being a fan of any narrative “interruptions” of the main storyline, in the case of this particular book, the parallel narration of past events didn’t bother me at all—on the contrary, I found myself looking forward to reading those chapters.

This book tells a truly engaging story that probably won’t satisfy readers who expect fast-paced action and a complex plot. But for me, as someone who loves this kind of pace and slower, quieter stories, it was exactly what I was looking for. It has a smooth flow of events, leading to a gradual unfolding of both the present and past plot. There’s just the right amount of suspense. It’s not exactly a page-turner, yet it immerses you in the story, urging you to keep turning the page, until you reach the end.

The focus is on the characters—their relationships with each other, as well as with themselves and the society they live in. It delves deeply into themes such as censorship in media and the misuse and overuse of AI. Another major theme is the exploration of sexual and gender identity in a world that tries to erase queerness, while also indirectly touching on the importance of representation in media. The author approaches these topics with a knowledgeable and sensitive eye, allowing the reader to ponder on these topics that, at the end of the day, should concern us all.

Despite being a computer scientist, Hoffmann manages to delve into the mechanisms of AI and its overall issues without turning the book into a lecture- which is, oh well, great!

The main characters, Kelli and Rowan, are very interesting and their relationship had me HOOKED. I must say I needed more of their present selves' interactions on the page. While reading this book, I constantly felt that the author was building something up, but the catharsis that was offered was slightly underwhelming. Perhaps all I needed was 50 pages more.

Another thing that was missing was the deeper development of the side characters. They do have distinct personalities and a vivid presence in the plot, but we never delve into their fears, hopes, dreams or even the bad and the good parts of them as people.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. It was a great read, immersive and thought-provoking! I’m very happy I came across it, as it ticked many of my boxes as a reader! Do I recommend it? Hell yeah! Such an easy and enjoyable read.

Note: I requested and received this book as an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kelli feels very lucky to have her job supervising the AI that writes scripts for television shows. It's not perfect, but she's lucky to have a job at all given how much of the workforce has been replaced by the relentless mega-corporation Inspiration. It's all going well, until Kelli gets a call from her ex and childhood best friend about a shady meeting, bringing up emotions and events from their past better left buried.

This was pretty good! It's conceptually familiar enough that you can get right into the story and don't have to suffer through the sci-fi/fantasy world-building learning curve, but it also feels really fresh. I can't really think of something to directly compare this story to. A lot of the book is flashbacks to Kelli and Rowan as kids, which can sometimes mess with the momentum of the story but it makes sense here because it feels more like a story about their relationship than about the actions happening in the present timeline. Both of their experiences with queerness are very different from mine and probably will be different from most readers experiences, but there are just some experiences that are universal at their heart even if they differ in content. I also like the depiction of Kelli's neurodivergence, particularly in how it relates to her love of storytelling. A lot of neurodivergent kids (myself included) learned more about social interaction from the stories they consumed than from their actual interactions with people. And the way that Kelli has to process and view her own feelings or the events in her life through a character to fully understand and navigate them is very familiar to me. I think my only real critique is that I think we just don't see enough chemistry or even just interaction between Kelli and Rowan to buy into them falling in love again. Honestly, I didn't think they ever really seemed romantically in love. They struck me as the (very common) case of two queer people who are really just close platonic friends but end up in a romantic relationship because it's hard to separate the two and they don't have a lot of queer people around them, so at the end I was a little *shrug* on that.

A really interesting, reflective relationship study with a compelling sci-fi backdrop! Definitely recommend!

Thank you to Ada Hoffmann and Tachyon Publications for this ARC in exchange for my full, honest review!

Happy reading!

[queer_aussie_reviews · Rating 5 out of 5]

What do you get when you take two best friends who don’t fit society norms and try to instill in them ideals by a company that has somehow managed to take control of the thoughts, feelings, and emotions of an entire colony? In Ignore All Previous Instructions, you get a space pirate searching for lost freedoms and the right to be true to themselves, and a woman living a routine, somewhat satisfying life, embracing the only way of life she has ever known.

Set on a dystopian/sci-fi planet called Callisto, Inspiration runs the entire colony – there is no freedom of speech, no original thinking. Their reasoning? Those kinds of things previously destroyed people’s sanity and tore countries apart. Inspiration censors everything. Laws exist to prevent adults from talking to minors about topics deemed inappropriate, like sex and sexuality.
Keli and Rowan meet in elementary school when Rowan still goes by Amelia, and Keli has a robot. Rowan is fascinated by the technology, even though he disagrees with why it has been given to Kelli. To Rowan, Kelli’s autism is what makes her exceptional, but neurodiversity is controlled, not celebrated.

Through flashbacks, Kelli and Rowan discover their sexuality, they learn to question the rules enforced upon them, and they learn to grow together without compromising their integrity. Until one decision ruins everything, and years pass before they see each other again.
Flashbacks don’t always work for me, but these don’t stop the progression of the story; they enhance it. They play a critical role in helping the reader to understand the characters, and without them, the story would lose so much of the depth it has.

I was absolutely blown away by the originality of Ignore All Previous Instructions and found it so easy to get lost in the story. The characters grew between the pages, and being brought along for that journey felt like a privilege. It's inclusive and relevant, and sometimes I just wanted to shake Kelli and tell her to just kiss Rowan already!

How fantastic to find a new author to me, who is in fact a seasoned author with a backlog of books I have yet to discover. My TBR pile just grew a few inches taller, and I’d love to know which one to start with.

Ignore All Previous Instructions is one of those books that I want the paperback of, so I can proudly display it on my bookshelf. It gets an easy 5 Stars from me!

I recieved an ARC from Tachyon Publications via NetGalley and am leaving a voluntary review

[Cindy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel has a very thin layer of sci-fi over a YA story about getting through one's middle school and teen years and finding one's tribe.
In a future where AI does most of the writing, Kelly, a script supervisor, faces daily disappointments. Although she created the very popular Ship of Fools show, the government required her to change the main character's gender to conform to their moral standards. Jump back to when she was 8 years old, attending school with a companion robot. Her classmate Am, also 8, figures out how to hack the robot to say rude things about their teacher, and they become fast friends. Now living on another moon, Am has transitioned to Rowan. When he asks Kelly for a favor, she can't refuse. The story alternates between their early years and current day, revealing more about their relationship, their friends and bullies, and their coming to terms with their sexuality. It's interspersed with AI prompts for stories as well as thoughts about the on-again-off-again support for LGBTQIA+ rights across the various human societies of their time.
The world-building is just OK; the settlements are all human, and the technology isn't particularly advanced. For example, on one of Jupiter's moons, the adults sit on a sofa and watch videos all day while collecting their basic income checks. The audiobook is well narrated.
The story encourages acceptance of people who are different: Kelly is Autistic (she describes herself as having Autism whereas we might say she is "on the spectrum."), Am has gender dyphoria, other characters are angry, confused, or insecure. There is an attempt to build pressure and increase the stakes in the story, and a past event is reveald in detail. These were OK but to me fell short of the very real, life-threatening stakes felt by many in the LGBTQIA+ community just for existing. I really liked the opening's description of AI-assisted storytelling. Based on the title and some of the initial pages, I thought the book would be funnier than it is. In all, a good attempt, but a far from perfect sci-fi novel. 3.4 stars but rounded up for subject matter.
My thanks to the author, publisher, @RecordedBooks, and #NetGalley for early access to the audiobook #IgnoreAllPreviousInstructions for review purposes. Publication date: 12 May 2026.

[El Fish | libro.vermo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh man. So this book provides very frightening speculation on what could happen if we continue to allow generative AI to invade the arts. An AI company straight up controls all media and gets to decide what is appropriate for everyone to consume. It’s a scary thought that is written in a way that doesn’t seem as unlikely as I wish it did.

Kelli loves storytelling and that, combined with her strict adherence to all rules and laws, makes her the perfect script supervisor for a gen AI TV show. But she never considers that the rules she’s so adamant about following could be wrong, and that’s where her ex, Rowan comes in. Rowan has always disliked AI so it’s not surprising that he went from pretending to be a pirate as a child to basically a space pirate who distributes media created by real people. His “job,” and the favor he asks of her, forces Kelli to think outside the box and confront some truths she’s kept buried for at least a decade.

Ignore All Previous Instructions has fantastic queer, trans, and neurodivergent rep. Kelli has autism and it’s not always pretty. Her autism doesn’t come off as a “superpower,” but as a legitimate disability she has to live with every day. She’s roped into doing all sorts of things she never expected, and her reactions and growth as she does them make her so lovable. Rowan is trans (which is illegal), and the flashbacks to his realization as a teen are so realistic. I love the way these characters are portrayed both in the present and in the flashbacks to their childhood years. They are good people, but flawed in plenty of ways. They feel real, and raw, and honest.

The favor Rowan asks of Kelli (can you tell I’m trying hard not to say what it is? I feel like it’s better if you don’t know!) sort of takes a backseat, or maybe I should say it takes the passenger seat, so it’s a bit more character-driven, but it’s excellent and very fun. There are some very serious and important themes, like the oppression of queer and trans people and the problems we face when it comes to gen AI, but it felt warm and wholesome, too.

This is a great book to read if you’ve ever had to make a choice between following societal rules and following your heart.

Many thanks to Tachyon for the ARC!

[HighLadyPitty · Rating 5 out of 5]

I could not put this book down! It starts off with a bang and the pacing of the book kept my attention and interest through every page. This is a sapphic sci-fi novel written after civilization on earth has collapsed. People now live throughout the solar system which is largely controlled by a media conglomerate called Inspiration. Inspiration uses AI to write its shows and other media consumed by the people who live on the moons of Jupiter. Inspiration’s policy on queer rights is quite archaic and is essentially “Don’t ask, don’t tell”.

Kelli has autism and works for Inspiration as an operator of a pirate show. Rowan (Am/ Amelia) is a Trans man who grew up with Kelli and was her first and only girlfriend. Rowan comes back into Kelli’s life after an epic falling out and ten years of no-contact. He asks her for help with stealing a ‘character kernel’ from Kelli’s show. Rowan is in fact a criminal, smuggler, and pirate himself now. One of the things I loved most about this book is it weaves in issues that the queer community faces such as discrimination and health care. This story is a great accessible text for understanding Queer issues that as a straight woman, I have not always thought about.

It is also interesting to be in Kelli’s mind. She understands how Autism affects her and what she needs to do to soothe herself. I appreciated an inside look at how different stimuli affect and trigger her.

The novel bounces back and forth between the present day and our character’s childhoods. Before Rowan transitioned his name was Am/ Amelia, he befriended Kelli and Am’s patience and understanding toward her disability is a great lesson for adults to learn from. In their childhood, Am actively seeks out Kelli’s strengths, like story telling, and recruits other children to play and be friends with her. Inspiration (the governing media body) starts conditioning children at a young age and introduces them to an AI story writing platform which frustrates Am but Kelli excels at because of its rules and systems. There is definitely a sense of someone always watching over every citizen, with big brother vibes. I highly recommend this book!

[Sasha Wolf · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ignore All Previous Instructions tells the story of two young people, one autistic and the other trans, who grow up as classmates with common interests in stories and robots before taking those interests in very different directions.

Being trans and autistic myself, and having been responsible for developing AI policies at work, I expected to enjoy this book a lot. I did find the descriptions of AI, prompt injection etc more realistic and nuanced than in most SFF, which is not too surprising given that the author is a computer scientist who has worked in a closely related field. My only quibble is that the AI in the story felt like it belonged to a nearer future than the degree of space colonisation suggested, but I was able to suspend disbelief easily enough.

Rowan's experience of growing up trans was very relatable, although treated rather briefly. Unfortunately, though, I found the character unlikable in other ways, which coloured my view of the relationship between him and Kelli.

I also had serious difficulties with the portrayal of autism. The narrative repeatedly draws parallels between Kelli and a robot, which is a trope that has been used against me and neurodivergent friends too many times for me to enjoy it in fiction. I appreciate that Hoffman is autistic themself and can represent their experience in whatever way feels right for them, but for me, the analogy needed more nuance. Kelli does reject the comparison towards the end of the book, but to me it felt like too little, too late to correct the overall impression that the parallels are intended to be real.

I found the pacing a little slow until about halfway through, when it picked up. I also think the book should probably be marketed as YA to set readers' expectations appropriately. I will happily read both YA and adult fiction, so I didn't mind the YA feel of this one once I adjusted to it, but it would have been better to go in knowing what I was getting.

[Clo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks to Netgalley and Tachyon Publications for this eArc!

Kelli lives on the moon. Not just any moon, but Callisto, where a generative AI company runs and owns everything. Kelli works for the media, tuning generated AI scripts of her own characters and turning them into entertainment for the masses. Not everything is as it seems though, certain topics are taboo, restricted from being aired on TV or even researched without black market materials. As Kelli's ex, Rowan, resurfaces, she begins to delve into a world she wishes to forget, and also a new world too.

This book is very dystopian heavy, which I love. Lots of topics and themes currently centred around modern issues, such as trans rights, queer rights, ai use, autistic/disabled rights. I personally feel like the author approached these heavy topics really well. As an autistic person myself, I found the neurodivergent rep to be refreshing. Kelli, the mc, covers her ears from loud noises, wears noise cancelling headphones, has safe foods, doesn't like being touched, etc.

This book a is nice exploration into society. Kelli is ostracised as her diagnosis leads her to have an ai companion robot - a robot which tells her to introduce herself and ask her classmates' names, despite her being in classes with them for years. It looks into queer issues, both past and present, as well as mental health issues too.

The plot was great. It was a lot more than I expected for a sci-fi romance story. We have crime bosses, a heist, first loves, growing friendships, space, ai, all wrapped into a perfect, firey package. It explores dual pov, and past and present. The reveals and build ups worked perfectly for me, I wasn't moaning the time spent on anything, nor was i thinking it was too fast paced. I could not recommend this more, especially for ND and/ or queer folks into dystopian and sci- fi.

Content Warnings:
- ableism
- mental health issues
- homophobia
- transphobia
- suicide
- kidnapping
-fire / arson and injury

[Emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley/the publisher/the author for the eARC in exchange for an honest review
✨
Actual rating 3.5/5 stars
Hmm. I don’t have anything negative to say about this book. I just feel…neutral, I suppose. I love space operas. I love heists. This had both, but it just felt…cozy. There wasn’t any real conflict or high stakes. Just a quick and easy heist. Like…okay. Cool! I don’t feel strongly about this book at all.
The pros:
QUEER. REP. I loved that. I loved Rowan’s struggle with gender dysphoria and all the confusing labels he slapped on his feelings. It felt so realistic it was almost uncomfortable. Even though the world they lived in was very homophobic and transphobic, it felt natural. (Unfortunately).
Neurodivergent rep! ADHD and autism tend to get mischaracterized in media. Sure, they’re both spectrums, but the rep in this book felt natural. Normal. Like…yeah. Those are real people.
The ugly truth about genAI. I hate genAI more than most because I, too, am a creator. In that aspect, this book almost had a horror subplot to it. In the year 2026 things are looking like they’re heading towards a single language model that controls every bit of creativity. Terrifying stuff, really.
The cons:
Like…just…everything else?
There was no real bad guy.
No real sense of justice.
No real conflict.
So for me, it felt dull. I could see this being a YA book. I guess when I see “space opera” I imagine galactic battles and high tension and higher stakes and maybe an alien or two. Even though this took place solely in our solar system, you could just block everything out and pretend it took place primarily on earth.
If you want a cozy space opera with second chance romance and a friends to lovers to enemies to… (no spoilers here), you’d like this book.
I, sadly, just don’t care for anything cozy.

[Charlotte · Rating 4 out of 5]

With thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.

I had a lot of fun reading this book. It did a couple of things very pleasingly well:
- the switch between the two POV's worked very well, because there was also a gap in time. I found this very elegant.
- usually when reading queer sci-fi, you get some kind of progressive, everything got fixed view which, while comforting, can also get stale. This is the first sci-fi I've personally read where the clock on queer liberation has been turned back, and it's a lot of fun to have characters read 'historical documents' from our time to use as a guide to queerness. All those chapters hit really hard in a great way, congrats.
- the whole interaction between our main character, the character she has created, how she sees herself, how she sees her childhood friend/lover... Great commentary on the importance of stories and the dangers of AI and copyright.
- realistic neurodivergent characters! The first chapter had me a bit scared because it got so spelled out, but other details felt so right.
- the flaws of the characters being a driving force as well a complicating factor... Little spoiler, but the scene where Kelli hears someone else describe the character she created and put much of her (ideal) self into as 'naive'... Heartbreaking. I loved it.
- oh yeah, the central heist is fun. Maybe it took a bit too long to get to it but I didn't mind because I was having too much fun spending time with the characters.

Only point of criticism would be the prose. It's a bit too... Simple? Still prefer that to unnecessary flourish. But I'd liked to have felt more if a difference between the chapters in the past, with the younger versions of the characters, and the present time.

Ps, justice 4 Elaine, maybe also a neopronoun, some T, and a new name like Sharky.

[Franky · Rating 3 out of 5]

One thing Kelli and I agree upon is that everything is a story. By day, I am an accountant. Accounting, by its nature, is all about numbers. There is a general stigma in the zeitgeist that accounting is boring, that it’s a career for people who love numbers. Although it revolves around numbers, what accountants can tell you is that those numbers tell a story. Accountants are just able to read that story and explain it to others.

Ignore All Previous Instructions is no different. It’s a story about stories. How censorship alienates members of a society. How state-controlled media will only tell you the stories it wants you to hear. How even in those situations, those “banned” stories will always find their way into the world because people need to see themselves in the world.

Ignore All Previous Instructions characters are very representative of marginalized groups. Members of the queer and neurodivergent community will see themselves represented in the characters in this tale. The story hits on important themes, all centered around AI and how AI could change our society.

I think this is an important story, however, it was a little heavy handed for my taste. I prefer stories to have some mystery and surprises, however foreshadowing early in the story makes the arc easy to anticipate, with the thematic direction clear from the beginning. As a queer individual myself, I saw some of my own experience in these characters, and that representation is powerful. Overall, it was a good read.

One thing I can say confidently is that this book will highlight the importance of stories, and challenge you to see the stories playing out in front of your very eyes.

I received a free eARC of Ignore All Previous Instructions from Tachyon Publications via NetGalley for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

[BB · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you both the publisher and NetGalley for an opportunity to read Ignore All Previous Instructions as a free ARC and share my thoughts about the book.

I was so happy and curious when I got a chance to read this book and it didn’t disappoint me. It follows the story of Kelli and Rowan who grow up in a world where censorship is normal and a generative AI company has taken over the world, owning everything and deciding whose story will be told and how. Especially how.

Not that surprisingly, that world has no space for queers nor does it support these neurodivergent teens as they grow up and try to find out who they are and where their story should go.

For me, the characters were the highlight of the story. They have their strengths and weaknesses and I got really attached to both of our main characters. They’re not perfect but they’re real and likable. They felt very real, and I always appreciate more neurodivergent and queer representation in literature. I feel like there’s more than a few neurodivergent youth that love space, gays and gays with space and this book will feel as comforting as a warm cup of tea in a cold weather. For me, it felt like that.

Some parts of the plot felt quite YA and it’s not necessarily a bad thing when characters are young. It’s not a bad thing when teens feel like teens. The writing style was quite easy and simple, so it was quite a quick read. It did good job with combining the important messages how censorship won’t make either queer people or neurodivergent people to disappear and how genAI can lead into problems if the negative sides of it aren’t considered into an enjoyable book with a little bit tender romance, heartbreak and a heist in the space.