This is a difficult book to review.

I cannot say I really enjoyed this.

I am still unsure whether it is Science Fiction of General Fiction.

There was very little science fiction and more about human rights.

The story itself was fairly predictable.

It’s clear that C. D. Tavenor has a deep understanding and a burning passion for science and philosophy – the book was very descriptive and detailed in these areas. Not only does this help and educate the reader, but it also makes us so enthralled and keeps us interested. It was almost impossible to just read a page or two. I think this was why I managed to read through it so quickly!

This book exceeded a lot of my expectations and it was a thoroughly enjoyable read. I’d definitely recommend this one to anyone with an interest in science and artificial/synthetic intelligence. It will definitely teach you a thing or two. If this is not your kind of thing, maybe it will be after reading this great novel.

An interesting sci-fi that tries to explore big questions, like the nature of sentience or life. Parts of the story are slower and lack strong hooks that would fuel a page-turning hunger, but in the end, it's definitely worth reading and thinking about.

This is proper, hardcore scifi - it feels like this could happen within my lifetime - and like proper scifi it has space to explore the big questions - what is sentience? what is life? who do we grant the status of personhood to? Theren is undoubtedly intelligent, undoubtedly a person - they are alien, but recognisable as an individual. Watching them work themselves out, and grow in emotional understanding, is fascinating.

We are priveleged, of course, to meet Theren. The world around them finds them harder to cope with. Theren faces anger, fear, all that stuff.

I'm really looking forward to the second installment of this one.

Book I suspect eerily predicts a future we are going towards. Very realistic and makes one ponder the issues the book raises. I am looking forward to sequel.

C. D. Tavenor's first novel is a good one, in what is due to be a centuries-spanning series (that's in terms of the writing, not the publication - unless there's something Tavenor isn't telling us..!).
The characters - especially the development of the SI ('synthetic intelligence', rather than AI - 'artificial intelligence') from 'infancy' - were really well-rounded and handled. The world building was totally believable, though this is often the way with a near-future setting. The storyline structure and the pace of writing, which is of a high standard, kept me reading.
What is a soul and where does one start / live? What is the (or even a) measure of humanity / human-ness? What rights does, or should, a non-human sentient being have? It's...


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Very interesting scifi story which explores morality, tech, AI, and consciousness. I'll probably be thinking about this book for a few days. I was not totally engaged throughout, but that didn't hurt overall. There is some lack of character development, but this can be excused at time since AIs are involved. Solid scifi effort.

I really appreciate the ARC for review!!