Autonomous (2017)
Written by: Annalee Newitz
Genre: Science Fiction
Pages: (301) Hardback
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Why I Chose It: Speculative Chic is covering the 2017 Nebula Awards and Autonomous is nominated in the novel category. I was also drawn to the intriguing cover, which features a severed robot arm with a chain around the wrist.
Premise:
When anything can be owned, how can we be free?
Earth, 2144. Jack is an anti-patent scientist turned drug pirate, traversing the world in a submarine as a pharmaceutical Robin Hood, fabricating cheap scrips for poor people who can’t otherwise afford them. But her latest drug hack has left a trail of lethal overdoses as people become addicted to their work, doing repetitive tasks until they become unsafe or insane.
Hot on her trail, an unlikely pair: Eliasz, a brooding military agent, and his robotic partner, Paladin. As they race to stop information about the sinister origins of Jack’s drug from getting out, they begin to form an uncommonly close bond that neither of them fully understand.
And underlying it all is one fundamental question: Is freedom possible in a culture where everything, even people, can be owned?
Spoilers Ahead
Discussion: It’s 2144 and pharmaceutical companies rule the world. There are all kinds of medical advances to those who can afford them. Judith “Jack” Chen is a drug pirate who reverse engineers designer drugs in order to finance making medically necessary drugs for the poor. She learns that one of her copied designer drugs, Zacuity, makes people work themselves to death. At first she thinks that she has made a terrible mistake but then realizes that the drug company created an addictive drug, which is illegal. Eliasz and his military robot, Paladin, are agents of the International Property Coalition (IPC) who have been sent to murder Jack before she can reveal the truth about Zacuity. Before Jack can start running for her life, she kills a would-be drug thief and winds up with his indentured servant, Threezed.
The book’s primary problem is that there is so much going on that it is hard to develop an emotional connection to any of the characters. I thought the idea of brutal pharmaceutical companies dominating every country was the most compelling and relevant idea in the book but it’s quickly abandoned for robots as a clumsy metaphor for freedom. We never meet any of the poor people who are helped by Jack’s drug piracy. Autonomous also has issues with world-building and pacing. The majority of the novel is set in Canada but it’s never fully explained how Canada went from publicly funded health care to allowing the IPC to commit acts of terrorism. Crucial information about the character’s back stories doesn’t come until almost the end of the book. By that time, I was bored of the story and didn’t care about the characters.
So many things in this book did not make sense. Certain robots are autonomous from the day they are created but indentured robots like Paladin serve a certain number of years with a company and then gain their freedom. Human beings like Threezed indenture themselves if their parents can’t afford to educate them or set them up in a career. I never understood why robots have the desire to be autonomous or why they have been granted rights by the court system. It’s not like you have a Roomba for three years and then set it free. I also did not get why people have to indenture themselves in a world where robots can do everything. Wouldn’t it be cheaper and more humane to keep robots enslaved? In addition, I had plausibility problems with the actions of Jack’s associates in the drug piracy world. They should have been well aware that the IPC frequently resorts to violence to protect drug patents, but they were super causal about inviting Eliasz, a mysterious stranger, and Paladin, his military-grade robot, to their workplaces and parties, with disastrous results.
There is also the weird romantic subplot between Eliasz and Paladin. Sex robots exist but since that is not Paladin’s purpose, he is innocent about sex. Robots don’t have a gender identity but people use male pronouns for Paladin because he is a military robot. Eliasz worries that being attracted to a robot with no genitals makes him gay. He confuses Paladin with his use of the world “faggot.” Humans can live on the moon in this world, but people are still homophobic? This was also strange because Jack is bisexual and no one, including her, cares. I would think that in a universe where robots are so sophisticated that they conduct medical research, sex between humans and robots would be normal. Although I could not read the romantic scenes between Eliasz and Paladin without thinking about the robot preacher from Futurama (Reverend Lionel Preacherbot) raving, “Robosexuality is an abomination.”
I thought that I had figured out some of the book’s mysteries when I learned that Paladin is a biobot with a human brain in his abdomen. The official story is that the brains help robots process faces, but Newitz repeatedly emphasizes that Paladin is not allowed to know everything about himself. It seemed like Newitz was building up to revealing that the biobots were partially human. This would explain why they want autonomy, have rights, and cannot be slaves forever. Nope, the brain actually is just for facial recognition. Paladin’s brain becomes significant when Eliasz learns that the donor was a woman and decides that this makes Paladin female. Paladin goes along with the gender switch to make Eliasz happy, which is unhealthy if not abusive, because robots have no gender and are programmed to please their masters.
The ending was a huge disappointment. I expected Jack to takedown the evil pharmaceutical industry. The drug company has to stop making Zacuity but there is no real punishment or change to society. I also anticipated that once Paladin gained autonomy, he would be repulsed that Eliasz forced him to murder innocent scientists to protect drug patents. Instead, they decide to move to Mars and live as a couple, in an ending that is bizarrely presented as romantic. Even stranger, a final battle destroys Paladin’s donor brain, but he and Eliasz never discuss what this means for his gender identity.
In conclusion: I am baffled that Autonomous received rave reviews because if I would not have finished it if I hadn’t been reading it for a review. I would give Newitz another chance as an author because her writing is not terrible and the concept of pharmaceutical companies controlling the world was interesting, although not well-executed. Autonomous features dull characters, an infuriating amount of unanswered questions, and too many issues crammed into one book. I will be shocked if it wins the Nebula.
No Comments