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Salvage Crew #1
The Salvage Crew
Not yet published
Expected 27 Oct 29They thought this was just another salvage job. They thought wrong.
An AI overseer and a human crew arrive on a distant planet to salvage an ancient UN starship. The overseer is unhappy. The crew, well, they're certainly no A-team. Not even a C-team on the best of days.
And worse? Urmahon Beta, the planet, is at the ass-end of nowhere. Everybody expects this to be a long, ugly, and thankless job.
Then it all goes disastrously wrong. What they thought was an uninhabited backwater turns out to be anything but empty. Megafauna roam the land, a rival crew with some terrifyingly high-powered gear haunts the dig site, and a secret that will change humanity forever is waiting in the darkness.
Stuck on this unmapped, hostile planet, lacking resources, and with tech built by the cheapest bidder, the salvage crew must engineer their way to payday...and beat Urmahon Beta before it kills them all.
Experience this space exploration adventure told from the perspective of a snarky artificial intelligence you won't soon forget.
An AI overseer and a human crew arrive on a distant planet to salvage an ancient UN starship. The overseer is unhappy. The crew, well, they're certainly no A-team. Not even a C-team on the best of days.
And worse? Urmahon Beta, the planet, is at the ass-end of nowhere. Everybody expects this to be a long, ugly, and thankless job.
Then it all goes disastrously wrong. What they thought was an uninhabited backwater turns out to be anything but empty. Megafauna roam the land, a rival crew with some terrifyingly high-powered gear haunts the dig site, and a secret that will change humanity forever is waiting in the darkness.
Stuck on this unmapped, hostile planet, lacking resources, and with tech built by the cheapest bidder, the salvage crew must engineer their way to payday...and beat Urmahon Beta before it kills them all.
Experience this space exploration adventure told from the perspective of a snarky artificial intelligence you won't soon forget.
302 pages, Hardcover
First published October 27, 2020
462 people are currently reading
3027 people want to read
About the author
Yudhanjaya Wijeratne
29 books235 followersYudhanjaya Wijeratne is a Nebula-nominated science fiction author and data scientist from Colombo, Sri Lanka. By day he is a senior researcher with the Data, Algorithms and Policy team at LIRNEasia, working at the intersection of technology and government policy.
He is the co-founder of Watchdog, a fact-checking organization that sprung up in the wake of the April 2019 bombings in Sri Lanka. He built and operates @osunpoet, an experimental Instagram poet using OpenAI technology to test a human+AI collaboration in art - a thesis currently being explored in an entirely separate trilogy of novels.
Yudhanjaya blogs at Yudhanjaya.com, and has written for Slate, Foreign Policy and more besides.
He is the co-founder of Watchdog, a fact-checking organization that sprung up in the wake of the April 2019 bombings in Sri Lanka. He built and operates @osunpoet, an experimental Instagram poet using OpenAI technology to test a human+AI collaboration in art - a thesis currently being explored in an entirely separate trilogy of novels.
Yudhanjaya blogs at Yudhanjaya.com, and has written for Slate, Foreign Policy and more besides.
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November 21, 2020
The Salvage Crew by Yudhanjaya Wijeratne, narrated by Nathan Fillion
OC is the AI/human overseer of a human salvage crew, sent to Urmahon Beta, to salvage an ancient United Nations spaceship. OC was once human but at one point OC lost most of his humanness when his mind was removed from his body and it's since been housed in a variety of machines...sorry I'm not explaining it well but I don't know how it really works. Being a Buddhist seems to be one of the requirements for this type of being "reborn". This rebirth happened centuries ago and OC is still working to prove himself for the time he might, if ever, move up in AI status. For now, his latest crew is three ragtag rejects that he doesn't even consider C team worthy on their best days.
Still, OC hasn't lost his humanity completely and he becomes attached to Simon, Anna, and Milo, who often fight like cats and dogs, practically trying to kill each other when OC and the trio get stranded on hostile Urmahon Beta, with not enough of anything to help them survive until they can salvage enough to merit being picked up again, by the company ship, name Ship. At some point, it seems that OC might be required to cut losses and just leave the others there but he won't, he feels an obligation to take care of his crew, especially when each of them rises way above what he first thought of them, to try to do what is right for each other.
Nathan Fillion does an excellent job narrating this book. Every pause, sigh, every inflection that he gives to OC's thoughts and speech, adds to the character. And OC is a poet, he spouts poetry all the time, he'll be in the middle of thinking/talking about something then he'll be reciting his poetry. Now, I'm not good at poetry but for the most part, I could somewhat understand what he was saying, as well as I can understand any poetry. The strange thing is that during some of OC's downtime (computer maintenance type downtown), when he's dreaming or whatever it is his mind does then, he awakens and finds that he's written poetry that he doesn't remember writing. He also has very vivid, horrible dreams of things happening to the crew, to him, and to his surroundings.
The surroundings are bad news. There are extremely hostile human/machine things with rotting, oozy flesh, trying to make contact with them and/or trying to kill them. There are gigantic sloth like monsters and small weird doglike things that want to attack them. There is what looks like a square boxed city but it's not a city. And the spacecraft that crashed so long ago still has bodies rotting inside of it. Then Simon starts going crazy and OC is hearing things. Everything is horribly wrong and OC can't contact Ship.
It turns out OC's poetry is important to the story which is where things went from 4 stars to 3 stars for me because I'm lost with poetry. And also because this became less about OC and his crew but about something much bigger than us humans and I'm there for the characters. But I slept on the story overnight and became okay with how the story ended and what became of OC and the crew, so the story went back up to 4 stars. There is more out there than just us and in this world that has been built, we have to change to be able to stay in the game. I really like OC and I came away from a very sad story, feeling like there was hope and a future...of something. Maybe it helps to be Buddhist, which I'm not, to understand this story better.
Published October 27th 2020
Thank you to Podium Audio and NetGalley for this ARC.
OC is the AI/human overseer of a human salvage crew, sent to Urmahon Beta, to salvage an ancient United Nations spaceship. OC was once human but at one point OC lost most of his humanness when his mind was removed from his body and it's since been housed in a variety of machines...sorry I'm not explaining it well but I don't know how it really works. Being a Buddhist seems to be one of the requirements for this type of being "reborn". This rebirth happened centuries ago and OC is still working to prove himself for the time he might, if ever, move up in AI status. For now, his latest crew is three ragtag rejects that he doesn't even consider C team worthy on their best days.
Still, OC hasn't lost his humanity completely and he becomes attached to Simon, Anna, and Milo, who often fight like cats and dogs, practically trying to kill each other when OC and the trio get stranded on hostile Urmahon Beta, with not enough of anything to help them survive until they can salvage enough to merit being picked up again, by the company ship, name Ship. At some point, it seems that OC might be required to cut losses and just leave the others there but he won't, he feels an obligation to take care of his crew, especially when each of them rises way above what he first thought of them, to try to do what is right for each other.
Nathan Fillion does an excellent job narrating this book. Every pause, sigh, every inflection that he gives to OC's thoughts and speech, adds to the character. And OC is a poet, he spouts poetry all the time, he'll be in the middle of thinking/talking about something then he'll be reciting his poetry. Now, I'm not good at poetry but for the most part, I could somewhat understand what he was saying, as well as I can understand any poetry. The strange thing is that during some of OC's downtime (computer maintenance type downtown), when he's dreaming or whatever it is his mind does then, he awakens and finds that he's written poetry that he doesn't remember writing. He also has very vivid, horrible dreams of things happening to the crew, to him, and to his surroundings.
The surroundings are bad news. There are extremely hostile human/machine things with rotting, oozy flesh, trying to make contact with them and/or trying to kill them. There are gigantic sloth like monsters and small weird doglike things that want to attack them. There is what looks like a square boxed city but it's not a city. And the spacecraft that crashed so long ago still has bodies rotting inside of it. Then Simon starts going crazy and OC is hearing things. Everything is horribly wrong and OC can't contact Ship.
It turns out OC's poetry is important to the story which is where things went from 4 stars to 3 stars for me because I'm lost with poetry. And also because this became less about OC and his crew but about something much bigger than us humans and I'm there for the characters. But I slept on the story overnight and became okay with how the story ended and what became of OC and the crew, so the story went back up to 4 stars. There is more out there than just us and in this world that has been built, we have to change to be able to stay in the game. I really like OC and I came away from a very sad story, feeling like there was hope and a future...of something. Maybe it helps to be Buddhist, which I'm not, to understand this story better.
Published October 27th 2020
Thank you to Podium Audio and NetGalley for this ARC.
September 15, 2023
When I heard there was a new space travel sci-fi book out and the audio version was narrated by NATHAN-freaking-FILLION, there was no stopping me from getting my hands on it. It literally sounded like the best possible Firefly substitute this nerd could get.
And it was, plus so very much more.
I had never heard of Yudhanjaya Wijeratne before The Salvage Crew, but I'm giving his body of work a good hard look now. This novel was technically intriguing, philosophically exciting, satisfyingly claustrophobic and suspenseful, and surprisingly irreverent all at once. Wijeratne packed such a rich bundle of everything I love about sci-fi into this one book, and as a result, has created a forever fan in me.
I don't want to give much away, but I must say I do love the AI point of view, when it's coming from a once-human consciousness. HAL in 2001 had his moments, but he was a human construct and couldn't give us the poetry (or feels) our Overseer does here. Or the existential inner dialogue.
As well, I appreciated the matter of fact ideas laid out about how true space travel could (or could not) be achieved by mere humans. We have spent decades of sci-fi trying to figure out how a being with a ~80-100 year lifespan could travel bajillions of light years to distant quadrants without dilithium-fueled FTL speeds, worm holes, or spore drives. But what if it's not hibernation we need to achieve to cross the universe, but rather uploading into artificial, exponentially longer-lived "bodies" or ships that can survive millennia?
Apparently all the sentient beings are doing it -- we just need to get with the program!
A special thanks to Podium Audio and NetGalley who honored me with a copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.
And it was, plus so very much more.
I had never heard of Yudhanjaya Wijeratne before The Salvage Crew, but I'm giving his body of work a good hard look now. This novel was technically intriguing, philosophically exciting, satisfyingly claustrophobic and suspenseful, and surprisingly irreverent all at once. Wijeratne packed such a rich bundle of everything I love about sci-fi into this one book, and as a result, has created a forever fan in me.
I don't want to give much away, but I must say I do love the AI point of view, when it's coming from a once-human consciousness. HAL in 2001 had his moments, but he was a human construct and couldn't give us the poetry (or feels) our Overseer does here. Or the existential inner dialogue.
As well, I appreciated the matter of fact ideas laid out about how true space travel could (or could not) be achieved by mere humans. We have spent decades of sci-fi trying to figure out how a being with a ~80-100 year lifespan could travel bajillions of light years to distant quadrants without dilithium-fueled FTL speeds, worm holes, or spore drives. But what if it's not hibernation we need to achieve to cross the universe, but rather uploading into artificial, exponentially longer-lived "bodies" or ships that can survive millennia?
Apparently all the sentient beings are doing it -- we just need to get with the program!
A special thanks to Podium Audio and NetGalley who honored me with a copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.
March 22, 2021
This is my third novel by this author and I still think he's going strong as hell.
The shape and flavor of Salvage Crew is a pretty familiar one to readers of SF, of course. A crew comes to a hostile alien world, encounters many strange things that kill them, and makes discoveries that change everything.
But as always, HOW a thing is done is often much more important than WHAT is being done.
In this case, we're taking on another example of AI-ship narration, claustrophobic horror (even for the AI), and a slippery slope down a stop-gap defensive position that NONE of them are prepared for.
And the enemy?
Let's just say that there's no way any of us could have prepared against it.
Fortunately, it gives us a very satisfying conclusion that makes me want to read on and on. I'm reminded of We Are Legion (We Are Bob) and To Sleep in a Sea of Stars in a very fond way.
Oh, and as a side benefit, Nathan Fillon narrates the audio version!
The shape and flavor of Salvage Crew is a pretty familiar one to readers of SF, of course. A crew comes to a hostile alien world, encounters many strange things that kill them, and makes discoveries that change everything.
But as always, HOW a thing is done is often much more important than WHAT is being done.
In this case, we're taking on another example of AI-ship narration, claustrophobic horror (even for the AI), and a slippery slope down a stop-gap defensive position that NONE of them are prepared for.
And the enemy?
Let's just say that there's no way any of us could have prepared against it.
Fortunately, it gives us a very satisfying conclusion that makes me want to read on and on. I'm reminded of We Are Legion (We Are Bob) and To Sleep in a Sea of Stars in a very fond way.
Oh, and as a side benefit, Nathan Fillon narrates the audio version!
April 14, 2021
This was a strange reading experience. It's sort of three novellas that were mashed together with very little transition. The first arc was pretty funny and interesting. The second one was disjointed and poorly supported. The third part was just not at all related to the first two, and could have been fascinating, if it wasn't meant to be resting on what the earlier parts of the book laid out.
CONTENT WARNING:
Things that were good:
-The first 30%. I really liked this. It was like We Are Bob, but actually funny and interesting to me. In fact, I got the feeling that it was taking shots at that series directly, which as I'd just tried and failed at Bob, was a balm.
-The thought experiments. I really had fun with the author's self-determined limitations. We have an AI who is more or less stuck in a tin can, and neural network generated poetry that was made to fit. I also really enjoyed the Buddhist philosophy throughout which was cool when it came up against concepts like immortality.
-The planet. I thought the world was AWESOME. It did a lot of things I like about exploration stories and made it at once threatening, novel, and familiar. Very cool.
Things that didn't work:
-The rest. We kind of...lose the thread. There's a lot of treading water in the middle third, the character concepts go out the window and become stereotypes, none of the conflict or resolution are organic, and then starting at about 85%, the whole narrative changes, throws away just about everything we've done so far, and we get a whole new plot which was jarring, to say the least.
-The characters. Aside from OC, no one else made sense. I'd say f*ck Simon especially, but by the end I was mad any of them were in the book. Even OC didn't really feel grounded to me, but at least I had a sense of their personality. Not so with the others.
Bummed that the author tried to cram all this into one story when it would have been so much better as three separate installments. Separately, delicious. Together, the flavors fight each other.
CONTENT WARNING:
Things that were good:
-The first 30%. I really liked this. It was like We Are Bob, but actually funny and interesting to me. In fact, I got the feeling that it was taking shots at that series directly, which as I'd just tried and failed at Bob, was a balm.
-The thought experiments. I really had fun with the author's self-determined limitations. We have an AI who is more or less stuck in a tin can, and neural network generated poetry that was made to fit. I also really enjoyed the Buddhist philosophy throughout which was cool when it came up against concepts like immortality.
-The planet. I thought the world was AWESOME. It did a lot of things I like about exploration stories and made it at once threatening, novel, and familiar. Very cool.
Things that didn't work:
-The rest. We kind of...lose the thread. There's a lot of treading water in the middle third, the character concepts go out the window and become stereotypes, none of the conflict or resolution are organic, and then starting at about 85%, the whole narrative changes, throws away just about everything we've done so far, and we get a whole new plot which was jarring, to say the least.
-The characters. Aside from OC, no one else made sense. I'd say f*ck Simon especially, but by the end I was mad any of them were in the book. Even OC didn't really feel grounded to me, but at least I had a sense of their personality. Not so with the others.
Bummed that the author tried to cram all this into one story when it would have been so much better as three separate installments. Separately, delicious. Together, the flavors fight each other.
December 14, 2020
Mini-Review:
4 Stars for Narration by Nathan Fillion
3.5 Stars for Concepts, Characters
3 Stars for Story Progression
I bought the audiobook because Nathan Fillion is the narrator. I believe this may be the first book he has narrated solo. He was great! His narration speed is faster than most and that had me knock down my listening speed to 2x. Great job with character voices and adding emotional nuances.
Print vs Audio:
I do think the audiobook made the story more interesting because the story is a tad dry & has odd transitions. However, reading the book would allow you to create your own input and it may be more exciting or cohesive that way.
Story:
I thought the story came across as a Firefly+Murderbot type story. But! Firefly is probably because of Fillion narrating it and there's the aspect of the story being about a salvage crew. The Murderbot comparison is more applicable. The AI overseer is a bit like what I imagine Murderbot may have been like if he was a human person first and then turned into cyborg hybrid.
Pros:
- Good writing, solid characters, great setting & 'mysterious' conflict.
- Details linked in a satisfactory manner.
Cons:
- Overall, underdeveloped. What is the story about? There's no true focus. It seemed like a few concrete ideas were developed and used within the story but it was more about following a project check list than weaving a story with well developed characters, setting, etc.
There's no central point to the story. You could argue that OC (the AI) is the focus but that's only because the story is mostly told from his viewpoint. We're told bits and pieces about him but it's not like this is a series. No point to dangling detail/history lures when there's not likely to be any payoff in the desire to know more.
The job on the planet and what happened there could be the focus. Except the plot lines juggled OC's past, crew behavior, the salvage job, company politics, AI (dehumanized) vs AI (Still Human-ish), touches of science, poetry and a lot of 20th references.
I would have enjoyed the story more if it focused on either the job, psychological aspects of working on the planet or being turned into an AI, life as a salvage crew, etc. The story did all of those things but not enough to make it the core.
4 Stars for Narration by Nathan Fillion
3.5 Stars for Concepts, Characters
3 Stars for Story Progression
I bought the audiobook because Nathan Fillion is the narrator. I believe this may be the first book he has narrated solo. He was great! His narration speed is faster than most and that had me knock down my listening speed to 2x. Great job with character voices and adding emotional nuances.
Print vs Audio:
I do think the audiobook made the story more interesting because the story is a tad dry & has odd transitions. However, reading the book would allow you to create your own input and it may be more exciting or cohesive that way.
Story:
I thought the story came across as a Firefly+Murderbot type story. But! Firefly is probably because of Fillion narrating it and there's the aspect of the story being about a salvage crew. The Murderbot comparison is more applicable. The AI overseer is a bit like what I imagine Murderbot may have been like if he was a human person first and then turned into cyborg hybrid.
Pros:
- Good writing, solid characters, great setting & 'mysterious' conflict.
- Details linked in a satisfactory manner.
Cons:
- Overall, underdeveloped. What is the story about? There's no true focus. It seemed like a few concrete ideas were developed and used within the story but it was more about following a project check list than weaving a story with well developed characters, setting, etc.
There's no central point to the story. You could argue that OC (the AI) is the focus but that's only because the story is mostly told from his viewpoint. We're told bits and pieces about him but it's not like this is a series. No point to dangling detail/history lures when there's not likely to be any payoff in the desire to know more.
The job on the planet and what happened there could be the focus. Except the plot lines juggled OC's past, crew behavior, the salvage job, company politics, AI (dehumanized) vs AI (Still Human-ish), touches of science, poetry and a lot of 20th references.
I would have enjoyed the story more if it focused on either the job, psychological aspects of working on the planet or being turned into an AI, life as a salvage crew, etc. The story did all of those things but not enough to make it the core.
February 23, 2021
Rounded down.
Coming away from this with the same feeling I had with Vandermere's Annihilation. Not a story of a hope. Suffered for the stupidity of the characters.
Edit: Tolerably stupid. Stupid in what would have been a humanising manner if there was more to them to care about.
This is well written. Pretty sure Wijeratne achieved everything they wanted to do with this story. I just didn't love what was done.
Coming away from this with the same feeling I had with Vandermere's Annihilation. Not a story of a hope. Suffered for the stupidity of the characters.
Edit: Tolerably stupid. Stupid in what would have been a humanising manner if there was more to them to care about.
This is well written. Pretty sure Wijeratne achieved everything they wanted to do with this story. I just didn't love what was done.
September 6, 2022
Thanks to my friend Mike Finn for his review/recommendation.
This was a fun science fiction story that turned into something completely different by the end. I love when that happens. Told mostly from an AI's point of view, I enjoyed the humor, empathy, and the literary knowledge and prowess the AI possessed.
Set down on an alien world to salvage whatever they could, the crew faces numerous obstacles to their mission. This story whirled around completely a few different times and I loved every minute of it.
Highly recommended, especially to fans of Science Fiction!
This was a fun science fiction story that turned into something completely different by the end. I love when that happens. Told mostly from an AI's point of view, I enjoyed the humor, empathy, and the literary knowledge and prowess the AI possessed.
Set down on an alien world to salvage whatever they could, the crew faces numerous obstacles to their mission. This story whirled around completely a few different times and I loved every minute of it.
Highly recommended, especially to fans of Science Fiction!
April 30, 2021
This was an unexpected journey that held two surprises for me!
In the relatively far future, the UN is a relic with starships lost here and there that have to be salvaged. The first person MC of this story is the Overseer of such a salvage crew - and an AI (human-based mind though)!
So they land on the respective planet ... if you can call that a landing ... and are about to go and do their jobs when things ... get out of hand.
The local flora and fauna isn't exactly welcoming and then they are being attacked. And that is still not the worst of it.
I liked the underdog team with the cheap-ass tech they cobbled together. They were a bit downtrodden but had heart. Besides, Overseer - while grumbling that he's stuck on a hostile planet with a team so not kicking anybody's ass - loved them. And I loved his loyalty.
The twist at the end, then, was actually a surprise. I had already loved the months of exploration on Urmahon Beta, from having to find food to body horrors stemming from not being cautious enough, but was truly awesome.
Lots of probable influences for this story come to mind. The humour, for example, very much reminded me of that from Bobiverse while many other aspects were similar to Paolini's scifi book and many other space operas. Yet the author had a way to make it is scrappy own. ;)
The writing style was simultaneously delivering hurtful blows and sweeping me along while the characters made me chuckle and even laugh out lout.
Moreover, Nathan Fillion, of Firefly fame, was the narrator so OF COURSE I had to get the audiobook. And he certainly didn't disappoint.
In the relatively far future, the UN is a relic with starships lost here and there that have to be salvaged. The first person MC of this story is the Overseer of such a salvage crew - and an AI (human-based mind though)!
So they land on the respective planet ... if you can call that a landing ... and are about to go and do their jobs when things ... get out of hand.
The local flora and fauna isn't exactly welcoming and then they are being attacked. And that is still not the worst of it.
I liked the underdog team with the cheap-ass tech they cobbled together. They were a bit downtrodden but had heart. Besides, Overseer - while grumbling that he's stuck on a hostile planet with a team so not kicking anybody's ass - loved them. And I loved his loyalty.
The twist at the end, then, was actually a surprise. I had already loved the months of exploration on Urmahon Beta, from having to find food to body horrors stemming from not being cautious enough, but was truly awesome.
Lots of probable influences for this story come to mind. The humour, for example, very much reminded me of that from Bobiverse while many other aspects were similar to Paolini's scifi book and many other space operas. Yet the author had a way to make it is scrappy own. ;)
The writing style was simultaneously delivering hurtful blows and sweeping me along while the characters made me chuckle and even laugh out lout.
Moreover, Nathan Fillion, of Firefly fame, was the narrator so OF COURSE I had to get the audiobook. And he certainly didn't disappoint.
October 5, 2023
💀 DNF at 51%.
I have no bloody shrimping idea why this one didn't work for me. It wasn't bad...But it wasn't good either...It should have been pretty fantastic indeed (the idea of a human-turned-AI is quite scrumpalicious after all)...But for some reason, it wasn't...Part of the reason being that the book felt like a door-stopper when it's actually less than 300 pages...And that I didn't give a fish about any of the human characters...So all in all I guess you could say that the whole thing made me feel a little like this:
The end.
February 17, 2021
I picked this up specifically because Nathan Fillion was the narrator without reading a synopsis or anything else. SciFi so I was in.
The narrator of the story is a ship AI, but not just any ship AI. He used to be human once upon a time and had his consciousness downloaded into a computer system. Now his job is to keep the humans in his charge on the salvage crew intact and on task to bring home the salvage for a big payday. If he does that he can have an upgrade and continue to exist.
The crew in question is the ragtag and almost scraping the bottom of the barrel. Still that will not stop our trusty AI from figuring out how to get them to perform their tasks. The only problem is the uninhabited planet might have inhabitants and they aren’t what our crew was prepared for.
This is an interesting story. Our AI still has an emotional voice since he used to be human and appreciated a different PoV from something that is no longer human. I also really liked that the alien inhabitants were different than anything I’ve really read before. It was a different and interesting take on alien life.
I got a little bogged down in the day to day of the crew and the craziness of them just trying to survive. It was a good story but I just didn’t connect with it as well as I do with some other stories. That might have had a little to do with the PoV or not getting to who/what the big bad on the planet was until late in the book. Still interesting take on first contact.
The narrator of the story is a ship AI, but not just any ship AI. He used to be human once upon a time and had his consciousness downloaded into a computer system. Now his job is to keep the humans in his charge on the salvage crew intact and on task to bring home the salvage for a big payday. If he does that he can have an upgrade and continue to exist.
The crew in question is the ragtag and almost scraping the bottom of the barrel. Still that will not stop our trusty AI from figuring out how to get them to perform their tasks. The only problem is the uninhabited planet might have inhabitants and they aren’t what our crew was prepared for.
“What doesn’t kill you does make you stranger. The trick is not to let people see it too often.”
This is an interesting story. Our AI still has an emotional voice since he used to be human and appreciated a different PoV from something that is no longer human. I also really liked that the alien inhabitants were different than anything I’ve really read before. It was a different and interesting take on alien life.
I got a little bogged down in the day to day of the crew and the craziness of them just trying to survive. It was a good story but I just didn’t connect with it as well as I do with some other stories. That might have had a little to do with the PoV or not getting to who/what the big bad on the planet was until late in the book. Still interesting take on first contact.
August 2, 2021
Let's see... my copy was on sale from the Audible service (my reviews are sometimes harsher, when I pay for reading), and narrated by Nathan Fillion (bonus!) I had no text back-up.
Welcome to the future, where humankind and their adopted AI children have spread among the stars for generations, sometimes first as robotic explorers, then as frozen humans and durable androids, and even as human consciousnesses relayed electronically from outpost to outpost.
Our narrator turns out to be such a consciousness, sent to a far outpost, assigned three local (novice) salvage workers and surplus equipment, and sent to Urmahon Beta to recover a long-abandoned crash site.
So we spend a portion of the book on some good-old planet-conquering humanity-against-the-universe hard SF. Almost. It seems that our human-in-robot-body overseer, "OC", may not have a first-string crew. Nor first string equipment. Nor reliable support from Ship, their transport in orbit. Nor, if we read between the lines, may OC himself/herself be a fully-integrated personality any longer. Things, in otherwords, are not destined to go well in a crisis.
The crisis presents itself, as crises will. Unanticipated megafauna appear, a rival salvage company appears to be encroaching on OC's area, and Simon develops a mysterious illness.
The hard science steps back a bit (in a good way), but any more would be spoiler-ish. So let's look at some technical issues
== Loved the plot, the pace of plot reveals, the theme, the hard and soft science discussions, and the universe building. It all fit together at least to me, in a pretty clean way.
== Liked-to-loved the "global"nature of characters, planet names, mythologies.
== Audio Is Hard (I). I don't know if I had a bad recording, or if it was t-e writing style, but it felt like there were a number of broken thoughts from OC, where the narrator stopped. Paused. And paused a beat longer. Before continuing.
== Audio Is Hard (II). I missed a few points from "lack of desire to rewind".
== Audio Is Hard (III). It was occasionally hard determine the distinction between various voices, or between prose and poetry, with the narrator. (would have been easier to eye-read.)
== Audio Is Hard (IV). No, not really, but I unconsciously lean toward being manist and heteronormative, and I'm confused by Nathan Fillion voicing an entity of never-specified gender named Amber Rose busy describing a close friendship with a similar entity named Hyacinth...
== Possession, zombies, and nastiness: more than I enjoyed.
Go for it, grab a copy. More fun than Heinline, more creative than Niven, and a broad feel for what it means to be human, and more.
Welcome to the future, where humankind and their adopted AI children have spread among the stars for generations, sometimes first as robotic explorers, then as frozen humans and durable androids, and even as human consciousnesses relayed electronically from outpost to outpost.
Our narrator turns out to be such a consciousness, sent to a far outpost, assigned three local (novice) salvage workers and surplus equipment, and sent to Urmahon Beta to recover a long-abandoned crash site.
So we spend a portion of the book on some good-old planet-conquering humanity-against-the-universe hard SF. Almost. It seems that our human-in-robot-body overseer, "OC", may not have a first-string crew. Nor first string equipment. Nor reliable support from Ship, their transport in orbit. Nor, if we read between the lines, may OC himself/herself be a fully-integrated personality any longer. Things, in otherwords, are not destined to go well in a crisis.
The crisis presents itself, as crises will. Unanticipated megafauna appear, a rival salvage company appears to be encroaching on OC's area, and Simon develops a mysterious illness.
The hard science steps back a bit (in a good way), but any more would be spoiler-ish. So let's look at some technical issues
== Loved the plot, the pace of plot reveals, the theme, the hard and soft science discussions, and the universe building. It all fit together at least to me, in a pretty clean way.
== Liked-to-loved the "global"nature of characters, planet names, mythologies.
== Audio Is Hard (I). I don't know if I had a bad recording, or if it was t-e writing style, but it felt like there were a number of broken thoughts from OC, where the narrator stopped. Paused. And paused a beat longer. Before continuing.
== Audio Is Hard (II). I missed a few points from "lack of desire to rewind".
== Audio Is Hard (III). It was occasionally hard determine the distinction between various voices, or between prose and poetry, with the narrator. (would have been easier to eye-read.)
== Audio Is Hard (IV). No, not really, but I unconsciously lean toward being manist and heteronormative, and I'm confused by Nathan Fillion voicing an entity of never-specified gender named Amber Rose busy describing a close friendship with a similar entity named Hyacinth...
== Possession, zombies, and nastiness: more than I enjoyed.
Go for it, grab a copy. More fun than Heinline, more creative than Niven, and a broad feel for what it means to be human, and more.
August 29, 2022
How do you get someone to see something that they're currently unable to see? To take on ideas and concepts that are not only new but challenging?
This is how Yudhanjaya Wijeratne does it. He starts with something familiar and relatively simple that the reader (at least the Science Fiction reader) can slide into comfortably. In this case, a simple commercial mission to retrieve salvage from the wreck of a colony ship that crashed on an only partially terraformed planet. OK, maybe it's a little unusual that the story is being told from the AI's point of view and that he's assessing the crew as if they were components that he's not entirely convinced are from the original manufacturer but that's not a big stretch.
Then he adds things that aren't normally there and which start to move us out of our comfort zone. The idea that AI was once a person. That it still mostly thinks of itself as an ex-person. The slowly dawning knowledge that each of the three crew members is broken in ways that make them poor candidates for handling high-stress situations as a team or even individually. Then the slow revelation that the company that the salvage crew works for is concerned only with turning a profit and would rather write off people than lose money. We're further out now but we're still in fairly familiar territory. The kind of thing you might have seen in Outland or Dark Matter.
He lets the crew struggle with the salvage task, made harder by local fauna that shouldn't be there and by the growing tensions between the crew members. Then he turns up the heat. We get a threat from a rival team. One so heavily modified they seem not to be human. We get to see that our AI, who seemed so benign, isn't nearly as human in his thoughts and reactions as he sees himself as being. Now, some of my expectations are on shakier ground. Do I like the AI anymore? If it came to a choice between the AI and the crew, who would I want to win?
As the external threat levels rise, I get more insight into the AI. Who he was when he was still human. Why he became what he is. What he wants now. I even get to hear the poetry he writes to help himself think. I become re-engaged with seeing the AI and the crew survive whatever is attacking them.
Even while I'm wrapped up in the gritty and often bloody struggle to keep the crew alive, I'm starting to be shown that something more and different is happening. It occurs to me that I may not have a good understanding of who the enemy is or why the attacks are happening. I'm also starting to understand that the AI is being pushed towards a decision: to hold on to his human mindset and protect his crew no matter what or do what is expected of an AI overseer and cut his losses, run for it and leave his crew to fend for themselves. By now I'm dealing with a level of complexity where I'm having to consider what I think human means and whether, whatever it means, it's any better than the alternative.
So my worldview has shifted but Yudhanjaya Wijeratne isn't finished. What he shows us next makes everything else seem simple. When the AI finally encounters the force behind the attacks, the whole geometry of the situation changes. Everything I thought I knew, everything that I thought had been going on, needs to be reassessed. And, if the AI survives the reassessment, whatever happens next is going to be truly momentous.
Now, if I'd known what the truly momentous thing was when the book started, I wouldn't have understood it or I'd have understood it in the way I might read schematics - seeing the logic but not the beauty or the threat or the true semantic value of what is happening.
But Yudhanjaya Wijeratne has been playing a language game with me from the first page. He's been expanding my vocabulary and my catalogue of concepts and doing it in a way that felt like entertainment rather than work. Everything from the story being told from the AI's point of view, through the frailty of the fractured crew, to the poems that the AI writes, has been bringing me to the point where, when the momentous thing is revealed, it means something to me emotionally and I have the language to describe it and think about it.
This is hard science fiction at its best. Good science. Scary, life-threatening challenges faced by people who are not the omnicompetent heroes Science Fiction used to love but rather societies discards, human salvage desperate enough to take a dangerous mission. Lots of action but also lots of reflection which together build a conceptual landscape and a language that allow me / require me to consider what it means to be human and what it might mean to have once been human and now be something... different.
It's always a joy to find a fresh voice in Science Fiction. Someone not only with something to say but with a different way of saying it. Yudhanjaya Wijeratne is a perfect example of this. He's a Sri Lankan Science Fiction writer who is also a senior researcher in Big Data. He's a man used to thinking deeply about the interactions between people, technology and data both individually and at scale and he brings a post-colonial mindset. Best of all, he writes people I can believe in, even when they're doing unbelievable things, and even when they're not really people anymore.
I will be consuming his entire back catalogue.
Now a confession. I didn't pick up 'The Salvage Crew' because it was written by a rising star in South East Asian Science Fiction who also knows a lot about AI. I'd never heard of Yudhanjaya Wijeratne. I picked up the book because it was narrated by Nathan Fillion and I wanted to hear him tell me a story. He was an excellent choice. Not just because, as I expected, he's a talented narrator, but because he helped the early part of the book feel more familiar. He made the AI into a reassuring presence just because he's Nathan Fillion. But he also carried me beyond that familiarity, through all the strangeness and unpleasantness and death, to something very different. I recommend the audiobook to you.
August 2, 2021
Let's see... my copy was on sale from the Audible service (my reviews are sometimes harsher, when I pay for reading), and narrated by Nathan Fillion (bonus!) I had no text back-up.
Welcome to the future, where humankind and their adopted AI children have spread among the stars for generations, sometimes first as robotic explorers, then as frozen humans and durable androids, and even as human consciousnesses relayed electronically from outpost to outpost.
Our narrator turns out to be such a consciousness, sent to a far outpost, assigned three local (novice) salvage workers and surplus equipment, and sent to Urmahon Beta to recover a long-abandoned crash site.
So we spend a portion of the book on some good-old planet-conquering humanity-against-the-universe hard SF. Almost. It seems that our human-in-robot-body overseer, "OC", may not have a first-string crew. Nor first string equipment. Nor reliable support from Ship, their transport in orbit. Nor, if we read between the lines, may OC himself/herself be a fully-integrated personality any longer. Things, in otherwords, are not destined to go well in a crisis.
The crisis presents itself, as crises will. Unanticipated megafauna appear, a rival salvage company appears to be encroaching on OC's area, and Simon develops a mysterious illness.
The hard science steps back a bit (in a good way), but any more would be spoiler-ish. So let's look at some technical issues
== Loved the plot, the pace of plot reveals, the theme, the hard and soft science discussions, and the universe building. It all fit together at least to me, in a pretty clean way.
== Liked-to-loved the "global"nature of characters, planet names, mythologies.
== Audio Is Hard (I). I don't know if I had a bad recording, or if it was t-e writing style, but it felt like there were a number of broken thoughts from OC, where the narrator stopped. Paused. And paused a beat longer. Before continuing.
== Audio Is Hard (II). I missed a few points from "lack of desire to rewind".
== Audio Is Hard (III). It was occasionally hard determine the distinction between various voices, or between prose and poetry, with the narrator. (would have been easier to eye-read.)
== Audio Is Hard (IV). No, not really, but I unconsciously lean toward being manist and heteronormative, and I'm confused by Nathan Fillion voicing an entity of never-specified gender named Amber Rose busy describing a close friendship with a similar entity named Hyacinth...
== Possession, zombies, and nastiness: more than I enjoyed.
Go for it, grab a copy. More fun than Heinline, more creative than Niven, and a broad feel for what it means to be human, and more.
Welcome to the future, where humankind and their adopted AI children have spread among the stars for generations, sometimes first as robotic explorers, then as frozen humans and durable androids, and even as human consciousnesses relayed electronically from outpost to outpost.
Our narrator turns out to be such a consciousness, sent to a far outpost, assigned three local (novice) salvage workers and surplus equipment, and sent to Urmahon Beta to recover a long-abandoned crash site.
So we spend a portion of the book on some good-old planet-conquering humanity-against-the-universe hard SF. Almost. It seems that our human-in-robot-body overseer, "OC", may not have a first-string crew. Nor first string equipment. Nor reliable support from Ship, their transport in orbit. Nor, if we read between the lines, may OC himself/herself be a fully-integrated personality any longer. Things, in otherwords, are not destined to go well in a crisis.
The crisis presents itself, as crises will. Unanticipated megafauna appear, a rival salvage company appears to be encroaching on OC's area, and Simon develops a mysterious illness.
The hard science steps back a bit (in a good way), but any more would be spoiler-ish. So let's look at some technical issues
== Loved the plot, the pace of plot reveals, the theme, the hard and soft science discussions, and the universe building. It all fit together at least to me, in a pretty clean way.
== Liked-to-loved the "global"nature of characters, planet names, mythologies.
== Audio Is Hard (I). I don't know if I had a bad recording, or if it was t-e writing style, but it felt like there were a number of broken thoughts from OC, where the narrator stopped. Paused. And paused a beat longer. Before continuing.
== Audio Is Hard (II). I missed a few points from "lack of desire to rewind".
== Audio Is Hard (III). It was occasionally hard determine the distinction between various voices, or between prose and poetry, with the narrator. (would have been easier to eye-read.)
== Audio Is Hard (IV). No, not really, but I unconsciously lean toward being manist and heteronormative, and I'm confused by Nathan Fillion voicing an entity of never-specified gender named Amber Rose busy describing a close friendship with a similar entity named Hyacinth...
== Possession, zombies, and nastiness: more than I enjoyed.
Go for it, grab a copy. More fun than Heinline, more creative than Niven, and a broad feel for what it means to be human, and more.
December 1, 2023
Well damn. That was unexpectedly great. Wijeratne is a good writer. He's a good poet too. There are so many great elements in this. Strong MurderBot Vibes. But also a lot of Scalzi too. But honestly, a lot better than both, in charm and little sprigs of uniqueness. But most of all the ending blew me away. The scale went from a colony backwater to... big. And satisfying.
Also it was narrated by Nathan Fillion! What's not to love?! He did a great job.
I loved OC. I loved his poetry, and his drive to do the best by his crew. I am so glad to have found Mr Wijeratne, and to see that he's god a few other books out too. This is great news.
Also it was narrated by Nathan Fillion! What's not to love?! He did a great job.
I loved OC. I loved his poetry, and his drive to do the best by his crew. I am so glad to have found Mr Wijeratne, and to see that he's god a few other books out too. This is great news.
May 17, 2021
This is a SF novel by a Sri Lankian author Yudhanjaya Wijeratne. It was published in 2020 and I’ve read it mostly to see what SF from outside the USA looks like. TL;DR it was fine but not great.
The story starts with a strange AI/human consciousness upload named OC (“a state-of-the-art computer equipped with weapons, seed stock, building materials, people”), which heads a salvage mission on a far away planet, Urmahon Beta, on which decades ago a UN colony ship fell after some yet unknown catastrophe. The landing team consists of OC and three humans, two guys and a gal. All of them are far from ideal crew, with traumatic experiences and sometimes antisocial behavior. They are all hired by PCS (Planetary Crusade Services) to salvage the remainder of the colony ship.
From the very landing everything went wrong: there is a macrofauna that can crush a third-grade equipment that PCS uses to minimize costs, bickering between the crew members and not much later clear indication of heavily tech modified humans from rivals. So, the initial part is setting a fort on an alien world. Later there are some adventures, finding artifacts, being unwilling participants in a conflict way beyond their paygrade… at some point the story went somehow similar to The Invincible (1964), and I’m curious whether the author was aware of it.
Overall, it is more or less usual SF adventure story with only differences that the protagonist often refers to Buddha and writes poetry, which as the author states in the preface was initially computer generated.
The story starts with a strange AI/human consciousness upload named OC (“a state-of-the-art computer equipped with weapons, seed stock, building materials, people”), which heads a salvage mission on a far away planet, Urmahon Beta, on which decades ago a UN colony ship fell after some yet unknown catastrophe. The landing team consists of OC and three humans, two guys and a gal. All of them are far from ideal crew, with traumatic experiences and sometimes antisocial behavior. They are all hired by PCS (Planetary Crusade Services) to salvage the remainder of the colony ship.
From the very landing everything went wrong: there is a macrofauna that can crush a third-grade equipment that PCS uses to minimize costs, bickering between the crew members and not much later clear indication of heavily tech modified humans from rivals. So, the initial part is setting a fort on an alien world. Later there are some adventures, finding artifacts, being unwilling participants in a conflict way beyond their paygrade… at some point the story went somehow similar to The Invincible (1964), and I’m curious whether the author was aware of it.
Overall, it is more or less usual SF adventure story with only differences that the protagonist often refers to Buddha and writes poetry, which as the author states in the preface was initially computer generated.
February 7, 2021
Unenjoyable on several levels.
1) There was little to no character development. I can't remember the last time that I cared so little about any of the characters in a novel. I'm pretty sure that the author realized this and tried to include some "interludes" from different character's perspectives, but those were monotonous and added nothing to the story.
2) The narrative had no nuance. There were no "clues" that would allow the reader to try to figure out what was happening on the planet and nothing that would motivate the reader to continue other than marginally developed action scenes.
3) The writing was disjointed, self-indulgent, and poorly edited. I lost track of how many times the author wrote "some much", as in, "the animal was turned into so much blood and guts" or "The tree was turned into so much fire wood". It seemed like he used that completely unnecessary phrases about every five minutes and it was maddening.
4) I love Nathan Fillion as an actor; however, he is not for me as an audio narrator. Sometimes he speaks ridiculously quickly, and then has gigantic pauses for no reason. He also doesn't change his voice at all for different characters, which makes it hard to follow along, at some points.
I almost gave up halfway through, and in retrospect, I wish that I had.
1) There was little to no character development. I can't remember the last time that I cared so little about any of the characters in a novel. I'm pretty sure that the author realized this and tried to include some "interludes" from different character's perspectives, but those were monotonous and added nothing to the story.
2) The narrative had no nuance. There were no "clues" that would allow the reader to try to figure out what was happening on the planet and nothing that would motivate the reader to continue other than marginally developed action scenes.
3) The writing was disjointed, self-indulgent, and poorly edited. I lost track of how many times the author wrote "some much", as in, "the animal was turned into so much blood and guts" or "The tree was turned into so much fire wood". It seemed like he used that completely unnecessary phrases about every five minutes and it was maddening.
4) I love Nathan Fillion as an actor; however, he is not for me as an audio narrator. Sometimes he speaks ridiculously quickly, and then has gigantic pauses for no reason. He also doesn't change his voice at all for different characters, which makes it hard to follow along, at some points.
I almost gave up halfway through, and in retrospect, I wish that I had.
November 18, 2020
A review in verse:
broken humans on a broken planet
and a voice in their head
like shards of glass.
survival should be simple
for those carrying the burden of their histories;
for those whose mortal homes
know hunger, thirst, love, and loss.
And yet, the siren songs are louder.
It is silence that is unlocked,
the truth that is salvaged.
The crew — pieces on the Go board,
that flicker and burn,
incandescent in the dusk of change.
we dance into the unknown
temporary companions to anxious yearnings.
it all becomes so much like sand
— the slipping away, the flowing
the seeking and the finding.
poetry is guide map, language the key,
the loudest secrets are the unspoken ones,
on other worlds, and our own.
So read, and break the ice,
that encloses frozen thoughts,
and go forth on adventures
that unleash the seas within.
For more, in prose: https://thereadingdesk.wordpress.com/...
broken humans on a broken planet
and a voice in their head
like shards of glass.
survival should be simple
for those carrying the burden of their histories;
for those whose mortal homes
know hunger, thirst, love, and loss.
And yet, the siren songs are louder.
It is silence that is unlocked,
the truth that is salvaged.
The crew — pieces on the Go board,
that flicker and burn,
incandescent in the dusk of change.
we dance into the unknown
temporary companions to anxious yearnings.
it all becomes so much like sand
— the slipping away, the flowing
the seeking and the finding.
poetry is guide map, language the key,
the loudest secrets are the unspoken ones,
on other worlds, and our own.
So read, and break the ice,
that encloses frozen thoughts,
and go forth on adventures
that unleash the seas within.
For more, in prose: https://thereadingdesk.wordpress.com/...
December 5, 2020
Poetry in motion
A routine salvage op with a ragtag crew devolves into chaos as marauders attack, only there’s more to this conflict than is readily apparent. Is brute force the answer? Are guns and bombs going to save the day? Or is the poet’s pen mightier than a laser sword? Yudhanjaya brings Buddhist concepts to the fore of science fiction in this thought-provoking story. Pay close attention to the poet’s words :)
A routine salvage op with a ragtag crew devolves into chaos as marauders attack, only there’s more to this conflict than is readily apparent. Is brute force the answer? Are guns and bombs going to save the day? Or is the poet’s pen mightier than a laser sword? Yudhanjaya brings Buddhist concepts to the fore of science fiction in this thought-provoking story. Pay close attention to the poet’s words :)
November 5, 2020
I must admit that while science fiction in film is my bread and butter, I had hardly touched the literary side of the genre. It was much too intimidating, like the Star Wars EU was for me at the very start when I didn’t know Salacious Crumb from Nien Nunb.
But, like Pringles, once you pop you can’t stop — and I think Yudhanjaya’s work might be the crunchiest chip I’ve come across in a long time.
Much like HAL 9000 was the best part of 2001: A Space Odyssey, the AI narrator of the story is wonderfully pithy and fun to keep up with. The plentiful humour balances out the perilous situations, and adds to the rich worldbuilding at play. After all, the grim reality of what the future holds is only bearable because of our innate ability to joke about it. But if you’re expecting Firefly because of Nathan Fillion: don’t. It’s not that. It’s gritty, hardcore and goes real deep. Think along the lines of Annihilation.
It seems the writing pre-supposes a working knowledge of sci-fi references and lore, but it doesn’t hinder the narrative in any way. Rather, there are levels to it that you can enjoy no matter what knowledge-base you’re working from.
As a total outsider, it made me feel like a part of something bigger than myself. I felt improved, like, as a person, for being privy to this story. It was a gratifying feeling that kept me going even when a few words, names, and references sailed over my head like errant meteors.
The AI generated poems were delightful additions, the story a well-paced absolutely buckwild ride from start to finish, and the excellent wordplay and memorable little quips like the icing on the cake. The marshmallows in Lucky Charms. The isso on the vade.
In short, I had a wonderful time, and it truly got my pulse racing. And also screamed out loud when I read the sneaky My Chemical Romance line. Absolutely, heartily recommend reading this.
But, like Pringles, once you pop you can’t stop — and I think Yudhanjaya’s work might be the crunchiest chip I’ve come across in a long time.
Much like HAL 9000 was the best part of 2001: A Space Odyssey, the AI narrator of the story is wonderfully pithy and fun to keep up with. The plentiful humour balances out the perilous situations, and adds to the rich worldbuilding at play. After all, the grim reality of what the future holds is only bearable because of our innate ability to joke about it. But if you’re expecting Firefly because of Nathan Fillion: don’t. It’s not that. It’s gritty, hardcore and goes real deep. Think along the lines of Annihilation.
It seems the writing pre-supposes a working knowledge of sci-fi references and lore, but it doesn’t hinder the narrative in any way. Rather, there are levels to it that you can enjoy no matter what knowledge-base you’re working from.
As a total outsider, it made me feel like a part of something bigger than myself. I felt improved, like, as a person, for being privy to this story. It was a gratifying feeling that kept me going even when a few words, names, and references sailed over my head like errant meteors.
The AI generated poems were delightful additions, the story a well-paced absolutely buckwild ride from start to finish, and the excellent wordplay and memorable little quips like the icing on the cake. The marshmallows in Lucky Charms. The isso on the vade.
In short, I had a wonderful time, and it truly got my pulse racing. And also screamed out loud when I read the sneaky My Chemical Romance line. Absolutely, heartily recommend reading this.
September 25, 2021
It has taken me from March until September to read this book (more due to a general reading slump than the book in particular), which is probably reflected a bit in my rating. I liked the set up and the beginning, but then it started to feel like a strategy game at the point where things start to go catastrophically wrong. Which seems like it may have been the intention, and kudos to the author for capturing that feeling very well, I just didn't particularly enjoy reading it. Especially as it didn't really feel like there was any narrative payoff for the struggling, due to how disjointed the ending felt from the rest. I am not a fan of huge reveals close to the end that introduce some major new idea that is not sufficiently (for me) foreshadowed previously in the book.
Anyway, I thought the author's approach was interesting, but sort of brought home to me the fact that I appreciate quite different narrative styles and features depending on the storytelling format. This book takes a lot of inspiration from gaming, but I often didn't find those gaming aspects as enjoyable in a more linear, less interactive story format.
Anyway, I thought the author's approach was interesting, but sort of brought home to me the fact that I appreciate quite different narrative styles and features depending on the storytelling format. This book takes a lot of inspiration from gaming, but I often didn't find those gaming aspects as enjoyable in a more linear, less interactive story format.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 3, 2020
I will preface this brief review with the fact that the ONLY reason I read this audiobook is because Nathan Fillion narrated it. The narration was very good.
The book started off good for me but eventually sort of unraveled. I'm not usually a hard scifi reader, so I was probably not the right audience here, but the world and science of it isn't what bothered me. My main problem was that it veered off into too many philosophical/poetic/political tangents and the plot got very bogged down. I would definitely read another novel narrated by Nathan Fillion, but probably not one written by Wijeratne.
The book started off good for me but eventually sort of unraveled. I'm not usually a hard scifi reader, so I was probably not the right audience here, but the world and science of it isn't what bothered me. My main problem was that it veered off into too many philosophical/poetic/political tangents and the plot got very bogged down. I would definitely read another novel narrated by Nathan Fillion, but probably not one written by Wijeratne.
February 24, 2022
Fantastic ideas, cool world, great narration, uneven execution.
December 2, 2020
I don't read as much Sci-fi as I should, but I am so glad I picked up the Salvage Crew!
The main character is an AI and a special one at that. This AI used to be human! It has kept much of its humor and was fascinating to read about. There are light moments and some more serious ones. The writing style feels a bit like a Joss Whedon script with the way the story uses humor to offset more serious issues and then hits you in the feels too. That is a total compliment.
The main character is an AI and a special one at that. This AI used to be human! It has kept much of its humor and was fascinating to read about. There are light moments and some more serious ones. The writing style feels a bit like a Joss Whedon script with the way the story uses humor to offset more serious issues and then hits you in the feels too. That is a total compliment.
December 15, 2020
I could nitpick, but really I only do that when I have higher expectations going into a new book. At first blush, I thought I was going to get a Murderbot knockoff with this AI/ship story, but thankfully both in tone and substance it was a different story.
Also appreciated is how pew-pew isn't actually the best answer, even if it does tend to be the first resort. That the book is self-aware on this point in a genre crowded with normalization of violence, it's nice to see the violence within the narrative properly examined without being preachy. Can you tell I'm getting burned out on my own genre? :)
This isn't a light read, but it's not cynical either. Instead it finds a happy medium as actual speculative fiction.
Also appreciated is how pew-pew isn't actually the best answer, even if it does tend to be the first resort. That the book is self-aware on this point in a genre crowded with normalization of violence, it's nice to see the violence within the narrative properly examined without being preachy. Can you tell I'm getting burned out on my own genre? :)
This isn't a light read, but it's not cynical either. Instead it finds a happy medium as actual speculative fiction.
Want to read
October 25, 2020That's a heck of a name.
What lazy ass adds books, but can't be bothered to add the blurb?
I don't usually add books with 0 reviews, but this one sounds interesting.
What lazy ass adds books, but can't be bothered to add the blurb?
I don't usually add books with 0 reviews, but this one sounds interesting.
September 17, 2022
Pretty good first contact story overall. There was a part in the middle where I put it down not really liking it but I persevered and ending up liking it fairly well.
July 9, 2022
"Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done."
To be honest, the blurb of this one pretty much tells you everything you'll need to know about the plot before starting. Maybe even more than you need to know. So I'm not going to repeat it. What is fascinating about this here story, is that the main character is an AI with a penchant for generating poetry AND the author decided to go ahead and generate that poetry using a simulated AI. Just fantastic!!
Quite coincidentally, I recently watched Marcus du Sautoy talking about the idea of using mathematics to generate poems on 'Numberphile', so I was quite pleased to accidentally find this book filled with unnaturally generated poetry.
Some other elements of the story were also experimental. I think (but I'm not certain) some decision making algorithms were implemented for deciding whether an interaction would have a positive or negative outcome. The author gave an overview of the tech tricks he used in the foreword which will explain it to you better. As a fan of both science and scifi, this is very exciting conceptually.
Now, in my view the poetry comes out a little plain, it is what it is and honestly I'm not the right person to critique poetry at the best of times. But don't give up, even if you're unimpressed with the poetic capabilities of Wijeratne's simulated AI, because it all has a surprising purpose in the end and I enjoyed the pay-off.
The bulk of the story is of the crew dealing with the scenario as blurbed (if that isn't a verb yet, it is now) and that's sort of fun but nothing we haven't done before. Snarky AI sorting out a ragtag crew while they fight the odds to complete their intended mission. However, you shouldn't see the ending coming, it's a pretty swift change of direction giving this story a rather unique trajectory.
Highly recommend. Because of the experience. This is not going to be the best thing you ever read, but it'll be easy and fun and it deserves some attention.
Some work of noble note, may yet be done."
To be honest, the blurb of this one pretty much tells you everything you'll need to know about the plot before starting. Maybe even more than you need to know. So I'm not going to repeat it. What is fascinating about this here story, is that the main character is an AI with a penchant for generating poetry AND the author decided to go ahead and generate that poetry using a simulated AI. Just fantastic!!
Quite coincidentally, I recently watched Marcus du Sautoy talking about the idea of using mathematics to generate poems on 'Numberphile', so I was quite pleased to accidentally find this book filled with unnaturally generated poetry.
Some other elements of the story were also experimental. I think (but I'm not certain) some decision making algorithms were implemented for deciding whether an interaction would have a positive or negative outcome. The author gave an overview of the tech tricks he used in the foreword which will explain it to you better. As a fan of both science and scifi, this is very exciting conceptually.
Now, in my view the poetry comes out a little plain, it is what it is and honestly I'm not the right person to critique poetry at the best of times. But don't give up, even if you're unimpressed with the poetic capabilities of Wijeratne's simulated AI, because it all has a surprising purpose in the end and I enjoyed the pay-off.
The bulk of the story is of the crew dealing with the scenario as blurbed (if that isn't a verb yet, it is now) and that's sort of fun but nothing we haven't done before. Snarky AI sorting out a ragtag crew while they fight the odds to complete their intended mission. However, you shouldn't see the ending coming, it's a pretty swift change of direction giving this story a rather unique trajectory.
Highly recommend. Because of the experience. This is not going to be the best thing you ever read, but it'll be easy and fun and it deserves some attention.
December 28, 2020
Sci Fi at its best
An amazing amount of hard work, innovation and creative thinking has gone into this - mind blowing. I found the introduction by the author quite illuminating. Apparently he created an IG page for AI poetry (couldn't find it though)
The story is narrated by an opinionated and sometimes snarky AI personality named Amber Rose who has a view on everything and everyone. She grows on you after a while...
And the poetry - what part does poetry play in civilization? You will have to read this to find out!
The beginning was a little slow, but then it's a salvage run to an uninhabited world - you don't want things to go wrong on page one, huh?
I loved the twist at the end
I feel this is definitely a book all sci fi fans should read. And I feel it would also appeal to a larger discerning audience who like a little philosophy with their tea
An amazing amount of hard work, innovation and creative thinking has gone into this - mind blowing. I found the introduction by the author quite illuminating. Apparently he created an IG page for AI poetry (couldn't find it though)
The story is narrated by an opinionated and sometimes snarky AI personality named Amber Rose who has a view on everything and everyone. She grows on you after a while...
And the poetry - what part does poetry play in civilization? You will have to read this to find out!
The beginning was a little slow, but then it's a salvage run to an uninhabited world - you don't want things to go wrong on page one, huh?
I loved the twist at the end
I feel this is definitely a book all sci fi fans should read. And I feel it would also appeal to a larger discerning audience who like a little philosophy with their tea
April 5, 2021
This book was different than I expected, much deeper and thoughtful, and less action and excitement. That’s not to say that there wasn’t action and excitement, it just wasn’t the focus of the story. I loved the humor in the book. I thought the audio version would rock because— Nathan Fillion. Need I say more? Turns out that he’s not as great at narrating an audiobook as I thought he would be. He’s not bad, he’s just a very mixed bag. He was fantastic when he was reading from the main character’s POV. He did a great job as the OC. Unfortunately, he didn’t do a great job changing voices for the other characters or when the narrative switched to their POVs. Several times I had a hard time figuring out which character was talking. But Nathan Fillion’s pacing and voice are great, of course. Worth reading for sure.
April 20, 2023
Mir hätte das Buch deutlich besser gefallen hätte ich nicht 250 Stunden Rimworld gespielt.
Hab ich aber.
Been there, seen that.
Hab ich aber.
Been there, seen that.
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