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Richards & Klein
From Warhammer 40,000 author Guy Haley, his first original series remastered and collected together in this new omnibus edition!
Meet Richards & Klein - the Holmes and Watson of the 22nd century. Well, if Holmes were an advanced AI obsessed with pulp fiction, and Watson a gun-toting cyborg.
When AI rights activist Zhang Qifang winds up murdered, Richards has to get involved – the man set his kind free after all. What should be a simple case turns out to be anything but, because Qifang has been killed more than once. Someone really wanted him dead.
A deadly trail leads the duo across a warming globe, from New London to Colorado, Sinosiberia and beyond, for the ultimate answers lie in the virtual world of Reality...
File Under : Science Fiction [ Detectives Rebooted | Ghost in the Machine | Remurder | Take Two ]
Meet Richards & Klein - the Holmes and Watson of the 22nd century. Well, if Holmes were an advanced AI obsessed with pulp fiction, and Watson a gun-toting cyborg.
When AI rights activist Zhang Qifang winds up murdered, Richards has to get involved – the man set his kind free after all. What should be a simple case turns out to be anything but, because Qifang has been killed more than once. Someone really wanted him dead.
A deadly trail leads the duo across a warming globe, from New London to Colorado, Sinosiberia and beyond, for the ultimate answers lie in the virtual world of Reality...
File Under : Science Fiction [ Detectives Rebooted | Ghost in the Machine | Remurder | Take Two ]
- GenresScience Fiction
640 pages, Paperback
Published May 25, 2021
10 people are currently reading
90 people want to read
About the author
Guy Haley
285 books727 followersGuy Haley is the author of over 50 novels and novellas. His original fiction includes Crash, Champion of Mars, and the Richards and Klein, Dreaming Cities, and the Gates of the World series (as K M McKinley). However, he is best known as a prolific contributor to Games Workshop's Black Library imprint.
When not writing, he'll be out doing something dangerous in the wild, learning languages or gaming.
When not writing, he'll be out doing something dangerous in the wild, learning languages or gaming.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 25, 2021
Originally published in 2011 and 2012, Guy Haley’s SF detective adventure novels Reality 36 and Omega Point are back in print in a hefty new omnibus edition entitled Richards & Klein, both books revised, updated and combined into a single volume. Set in 2129 it sees freelance security consultants Richards (a Class Five AI) and Otto Klein (German ex-military cyborg) investigating the murder of Professor Zhang Qifang, a prominent activist for AI rights, whose death heralds a rising threat that’s felt across both the physical and digital worlds. People connected to Qifang are dying or disappearing, some of Richards’ fellow Class Fives are acting weird, and someone really doesn’t want Richards and Klein to find out what’s going on. As they dig beneath the surface, their investigation takes them across the Real, the digital space of the Grid, and even the virtual worlds of the Realities.
Set in a near-ish future in which the Earth has suffered through disasters, developed incredible technologies and adapted to new geopolitical realities, this starts off as a detective story and grows into a wild adventure, combining an essentially serious narrative with madcap action and lashings of wry humour. With two novels worth of story there’s a lot going on here, the complex world building and combination of physical and digital settings allowing for all manner of interesting, thought-provoking, sometimes hilarious and other times heartbreaking discussions. Individually, both of the main protagonists are engaging and cleverly depicted, Richards proving amusingly smug, sharp-tongued and often genuinely witty while Otto provides the emotional heart of the story (along with most of its action scenes), but it’s a shame that they spend so much of the book apart, as a little more time for their odd-couple contrast to shine through would have been welcome. Hopefully that might happen in future Richards & Klein stories – there’s certainly scope for more, as the characters are great and the world Haley has created here is richly textured, expansive and utterly believable.
Given that Reality 36 and Omega Point were two of Haley’s earliest novels, albeit updated and reworked for this new edition, if you’re familiar with his more recent writing you can sort of see where he’s become a more assured and confident writer since these were first published. There’s so much going on that it can be hard to process at times, but the relentless pace and effective balance between action, intrigue, humour and heart means that it’s consistently entertaining and ultimately a lot of fun. All told, the overarching story told across this book – and it really is one story, so the single volume makes a lot of sense – is bold, imaginative, full of ambition and ultimately satisfying, and as well as being a great read in its own right it gives a real sense of what Haley is capable of beyond the boundaries of his work for Black Library.
Read the full review at https://www.trackofwords.com/2021/05/...
Set in a near-ish future in which the Earth has suffered through disasters, developed incredible technologies and adapted to new geopolitical realities, this starts off as a detective story and grows into a wild adventure, combining an essentially serious narrative with madcap action and lashings of wry humour. With two novels worth of story there’s a lot going on here, the complex world building and combination of physical and digital settings allowing for all manner of interesting, thought-provoking, sometimes hilarious and other times heartbreaking discussions. Individually, both of the main protagonists are engaging and cleverly depicted, Richards proving amusingly smug, sharp-tongued and often genuinely witty while Otto provides the emotional heart of the story (along with most of its action scenes), but it’s a shame that they spend so much of the book apart, as a little more time for their odd-couple contrast to shine through would have been welcome. Hopefully that might happen in future Richards & Klein stories – there’s certainly scope for more, as the characters are great and the world Haley has created here is richly textured, expansive and utterly believable.
Given that Reality 36 and Omega Point were two of Haley’s earliest novels, albeit updated and reworked for this new edition, if you’re familiar with his more recent writing you can sort of see where he’s become a more assured and confident writer since these were first published. There’s so much going on that it can be hard to process at times, but the relentless pace and effective balance between action, intrigue, humour and heart means that it’s consistently entertaining and ultimately a lot of fun. All told, the overarching story told across this book – and it really is one story, so the single volume makes a lot of sense – is bold, imaginative, full of ambition and ultimately satisfying, and as well as being a great read in its own right it gives a real sense of what Haley is capable of beyond the boundaries of his work for Black Library.
Read the full review at https://www.trackofwords.com/2021/05/...
February 22, 2022
Probably the most ambitious book I've read in a while. It's hard sci fi set in our post-apocalyptic future, but the author layers in science fantasy due to the virtual realities the AI co-protagonist eventually spends a lot of time in. Those virtual realities include non normal physics, talking animals, and storybook-like plotlines. Sometimes I found this very frustrating as I was really here for the neon Bladerunner vibes but OTOH it makes total sense that our future would look like this. I felt kind of disconnected from the British humor; I think this book was too long; sometimes it was too abstract; it wasn't exactly what I wanted. Waffling between three and four stars but I'm going to round up, for now. Oh, and this book is chock full of editor's errors in both the print and e-book editions. Repeated words, words out of order, words omitted, words that shouldn't have been included. Some of these unexpected bits did seem like maybe they were a more British take on grammar (like deciding when to use "a" or "an")?
World building:
* Highlight: The author doesn't spoonfeed you his world, there's a lot to pick up on by implication and that makes it somewhat of an adventure.
* Highlight: I thought there were some unique takes on this cyberpunk reality around how AIs operate in the world
* Lowlight: Sometimes you can get lost in what is being described, especially if it is very abstract. There were moments where I felt like it was supposed to be a climax but it didn't because I was still trying to figure out what was actually happening and what mattered.
* Highlight: There is an index in the back of the book. It's easy to miss if you're using an eBook edition.
Tone:
* There is a LOT of science fantasy in here. The Grid space interactions feel much more like "Wreck it Ralph". There is also a lot of horror.
* Humor: I didn't really laugh all that much. I suspect that British and/or Euro readers might laugh more than me. I could tell that there were culture in-jokes that just weren't resonating. The friction in the relationship between Otto and Klein was, I guess, supposed to make me laugh, but it often felt tiresome. I tried to remember this story is supposed to be about "hulking angry German guy tries to get along with smarmy robot" but eh
Structure/reading level:
* This is a LOOOOOONG book. And it felt long, too. I had to really push myself through the last third of the book
* Lot of chapters that switch back and forth between characters. At least the chapter titles are descriptive, and it does all eventually come together.
* If you're American, get used to converting meters to your preferred system of measurement lol
* At some point the author tried to describe a character's accent as being a combination of some Boston area rhotic and some other mid-atlantic something or other...another time he's describing very specific architectural features with which I'm unfamiliar... point being you might often be Googling things.
World building:
* Highlight: The author doesn't spoonfeed you his world, there's a lot to pick up on by implication and that makes it somewhat of an adventure.
* Highlight: I thought there were some unique takes on this cyberpunk reality around how AIs operate in the world
* Lowlight: Sometimes you can get lost in what is being described, especially if it is very abstract. There were moments where I felt like it was supposed to be a climax but it didn't because I was still trying to figure out what was actually happening and what mattered.
* Highlight: There is an index in the back of the book. It's easy to miss if you're using an eBook edition.
Tone:
* There is a LOT of science fantasy in here. The Grid space interactions feel much more like "Wreck it Ralph". There is also a lot of horror.
* Humor: I didn't really laugh all that much. I suspect that British and/or Euro readers might laugh more than me. I could tell that there were culture in-jokes that just weren't resonating. The friction in the relationship between Otto and Klein was, I guess, supposed to make me laugh, but it often felt tiresome. I tried to remember this story is supposed to be about "hulking angry German guy tries to get along with smarmy robot" but eh
Structure/reading level:
* This is a LOOOOOONG book. And it felt long, too. I had to really push myself through the last third of the book
* Lot of chapters that switch back and forth between characters. At least the chapter titles are descriptive, and it does all eventually come together.
* If you're American, get used to converting meters to your preferred system of measurement lol
* At some point the author tried to describe a character's accent as being a combination of some Boston area rhotic and some other mid-atlantic something or other...another time he's describing very specific architectural features with which I'm unfamiliar... point being you might often be Googling things.
June 23, 2025
A massive tome, comprising of two previously published books (Reality 36 and Omega Point) which have been extensively rewritten by the author and coming in at over 600 pages, this was a fun read which would make a great holiday read if you want to lose yourself in some proper scifi.
Blurb:
From Warhammer 40,000 author Guy Haley, his first original series remastered and collected together in this new omnibus edition!
Meet Richards and Klein - the Holmes and Watson of the 22nd century. Well, if Holmes were an advanced AI obsessed with pulp fiction, and Watson a gun-toting cyborg.
When AI rights activist Zhang Qifang winds up murdered, Richards has to get involved - the man set his kind free, after all. What should be a simple case turns out to be anything but, because Qifang has been killed more than once. Someone really wanted him dead.
A deadly trail leads the duo across a warming globe, from New London to Colorado, Sinosiberia and beyond, for the ultimate answers lie in the virtual world of Reality 36...
I would give the first half of this novel 4 1/2 stars - I loved Reality 36. The world building was spot on, and I loved the description of the drowning real world due to climate change. No wonder everyone wants to escape into virtual worlds... which are protected after several were destroyed, including all the sentient AIs contained within. This was pure, solid sci-fi, with lots of AI and cyborgs, and nearly every human has some sort of augmentation. And a murder / mystery to boot!
Omega Point - that brought my total score down. It followed on nicely with plot development as a sequel to Reality 36, but I didn't get into it in quite the same way. The characters - many of them AI augmented abandoned toys - felt a bit flawed (maybe that was the point?), and I simply didn't love it as much.
Together, though, they make a good read, and I'd definitely recommend - and pass on once I've finished it.
Thanks to A Box of Stories #ABoS for including this in my latest SFF box. Definitely something I've not come across before, and will keep an eye out for more from this author.
Blurb:
From Warhammer 40,000 author Guy Haley, his first original series remastered and collected together in this new omnibus edition!
Meet Richards and Klein - the Holmes and Watson of the 22nd century. Well, if Holmes were an advanced AI obsessed with pulp fiction, and Watson a gun-toting cyborg.
When AI rights activist Zhang Qifang winds up murdered, Richards has to get involved - the man set his kind free, after all. What should be a simple case turns out to be anything but, because Qifang has been killed more than once. Someone really wanted him dead.
A deadly trail leads the duo across a warming globe, from New London to Colorado, Sinosiberia and beyond, for the ultimate answers lie in the virtual world of Reality 36...
I would give the first half of this novel 4 1/2 stars - I loved Reality 36. The world building was spot on, and I loved the description of the drowning real world due to climate change. No wonder everyone wants to escape into virtual worlds... which are protected after several were destroyed, including all the sentient AIs contained within. This was pure, solid sci-fi, with lots of AI and cyborgs, and nearly every human has some sort of augmentation. And a murder / mystery to boot!
Omega Point - that brought my total score down. It followed on nicely with plot development as a sequel to Reality 36, but I didn't get into it in quite the same way. The characters - many of them AI augmented abandoned toys - felt a bit flawed (maybe that was the point?), and I simply didn't love it as much.
Together, though, they make a good read, and I'd definitely recommend - and pass on once I've finished it.
Thanks to A Box of Stories #ABoS for including this in my latest SFF box. Definitely something I've not come across before, and will keep an eye out for more from this author.
May 30, 2021
This is a rich and nuanced re-issue of two novels which have nothing to do with a certain game-based franchise. It shows a sometimes whimsical, sometimes funny, sometimes serious side of Haley, as we follow a cyborg and an AI through a suspenseful mix of action and mystery. The heros are stuggling to avoid the proverbial end of the world as we know it. The plot twists and turns entertainingly, the writing is solid and the main characters, especially Otto, get some good development as it goes along.
My only complaint is that Haley occasionally overdoes it—the tactical nuke in particular was overkill and I gave up trying to follow the logic of how the AIs and virtual reality worlds interacted with each other. This lent the climax of the book a bit of a deus ex machina quality. By which I mean, I got what happened but not quite how we got there. And the cover: if there were an award for the least interesting cover on the most interesting book, this would win hands-down.
Minor complaints, though, about an otherwise a fun and entertaining read. I'd love to read more.
My only complaint is that Haley occasionally overdoes it—the tactical nuke in particular was overkill and I gave up trying to follow the logic of how the AIs and virtual reality worlds interacted with each other. This lent the climax of the book a bit of a deus ex machina quality. By which I mean, I got what happened but not quite how we got there. And the cover: if there were an award for the least interesting cover on the most interesting book, this would win hands-down.
Minor complaints, though, about an otherwise a fun and entertaining read. I'd love to read more.
June 10, 2022
3.5
The first half is better.
The first half is better.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews