Name: Shelter
ISBN: 9780312866020

Susan Palwick

In a late twenty-first century earth on which compassion has become a crime, Meredith Preston relies on the kindness of strangers at their own peril and forges a connection with a genius technological developer who has programmed a house capable of protecting the homeless during dangerous climate-induced weather systems. Original. 25,000 first printing.

Shelter

Janice Hopper

I was thoroughly engrossed by this story. Here are a few reasons why.

The story is mostly non-linear. We start with a man and an intelligent house. Add in a homeless man, who came in from a storm. Then we meet a couple of women with an old connection that maybe neither really wanted to renew. Then we find out how they are all connected. The story unfolds gradually, and I found it fascinating.

Learning the connections makes the whole story pretty interesting. The world now has a deadly flu that kills many, and doesn't always leave the survivors unscathed. The world is also learning to deal with the ramifications of artificial intelligences, like the entity in the intelligent house. That AI has its own backstory too.

I thought about this book for a few days before I started writing this review. I began to realize that one of the appealing things here is that almost all the important characters are women. This is a women's story, where children and nurturing others and other women are important things. The women have problems and make bad decisions and do the best they can in difficult situations. There's very little worry about what men are thinking here. 

I've read Susan Palwick in the past, and she's a good writer. This is a good story. It looks like it's long, but I found it compelling reading. You should read it.