Name: NovaSapiens
ISBN: 9781922452719

David Cooper

Kasih is a robotic child drawn into a project to discover her secrets, and into a war that threatens all humanity, including her own.

The Believers

NovaSapiens

Shona Tiger

** spoiler alert **
           Thank you to NetGalley and to Green Hill Publishing for this DRC. Warning: spoilers abound!

This is about a robot, and personhood. Unfortunately, very early on, the main protagonist loses everything -- a quick way to bring about the crisis she must resolve, but quite brutal in view of the subsequent events.

The protagonist is very likable -- very human, in the middle of many inhuman (military) characters. The way she's treated before and after a big reveal about her origins is quite telling; still, I think the other characters seemed unnecessarily cruel, perhaps to create a contrast with her. It's not very clear to me why people react so badly to her before the "bad robots" come along, and I don't think the author explored this to my satisfaction. Is it the (kind of) uncanny valley? Is it because she seems completely human, but isn't? Maybe it'll be clear to other readers.

I was troubled by certain experiences the protagonist went through that never found resolution (-- and the framing became quite gut-churningly explicit at some point 💔). She had sympathetic people among her captors, but it's horrible that she sets aside her experiences to help humans.

The story also seemed to go off on tangents frequently, seemingly for world-building purposes, but it felt very disjointed, and I have only a very murky idea of why the situation was what it was, and who the major players were (and so, in this, the book felt like a sequel). The bits set in government offices were completely extraneous and baffling to me, and I mostly skipped over them. There is some resolution of this in the end.

One thing that's explored incidentally is a post-disability, transhumanist world, because of cybernetics. I'm left wondering if people in this particular (built) world would become more or less accepting of disability? Although one of the characters becomes gravely injured and so goes through the process of becoming partly cybernetic, it's never explored whether the people around her accept her, except as a useful tool. (Nb. These thoughts are inspired by an important book I read last year: Disfigured, by Amanda LeDuc, which I will review on this blog and link to soon.)

Also, how nice to read about a world that's not US-centric!

Content warnings: pretty graphic physical violence in places, and the aforementioned framing relating to sexual abuse (no actual sexual abuse in the book).

Rated: 4/5, because it's a really good story! Could have been tighter, but still really good.

NovaSapiens The Believers