I loved the story, the world building and meeting the different characters. I felt completely immersed in the story and couldn't stop reading it.

Elizabeth Bear https://www.elizabethbear.com is the award-winning author of more than 30 novels. Machine: A White Space Novel was published in 2020 and is the second in her White Space series. This is the 57th book I have completed in 2022.

I received an ARC of this book through https://www.netgalley.com with the expectation of delivering a fair and honest review. Due to scenes of violence and mature language, I categorize this novel as R.

The generation starship Big Rock Candy Mountain had left Terra about 600 years earlier. It had been lost to history until the Synarche ship had responded to its distress signal and called for assistance. Rescue Specialist Dr. Jens arrives in the Synarche Medical vessel I Race to Seek the Living.

Neither vessel is now responding. Once aboard the ancient ship, Jens discovers a mystery. A mystery she feels compelled to unravel. She has no idea of the conspiracy she is about to uncover.

I enjoyed the 17.5+ hours I spent reading this 495-page science fiction novel. I thought that this novel was a bit odd. I was not impressed with the chosen cover art. I give this novel a rating of 3.8 (rounded up to a 4) out of 5.

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This was an absolutely excellent read. The characters and background were so well written, I could see them clearly. Each character fit perfectly into the community surrounding them. Their histories were shared enough to give us an understanding of their life choices yet still left gaps to be filled in the next book of the series. This is my first book by Elizabeth Bear. A reading buddy recommended it and I'm so glad she did.

I thank the author and publisher for accepting my request to read and review Machine from NetGalley. I also apologize that this was released Oct.6th 2020 and my review took until just about Sept 1 2022.

I took the time to read the first book in the series Ancestral Night, while these are something like stand-alone novels set in the same universe. I am glad to have done so as I understood who Singer was and why he was treated as a hero. It's good to see him make a appearance here as I wasn't sure how things turned out for him and his crew (although they didn't make a appearance). We also see Goodlaw Cheeirilaq, which I was glad of although the interactions with Rilriltok were funny.

Dr Jens starts off by jumping into a rescue mission to the human generation ship Big Rock Candy Mountain (a little literally) that becomes something of a mystery, the ship is from Earth and it's crew is in cyrosleep (all but it's dead Captain) and only Helen, part ship mind, part human minder made up to be a sexy robot, and her tinkertoy mechine are awake. Yet strangely Big Rock Candy Mountain play perhaps unwilling host to the ship I Bring Tidings From Afar - it's shipmind and Darboof crew in a unresponsive sleep.

Once Dr Jens and Tsosie bring back Helen and some of her crew onboard I Race To Seek the Living, the shipmind Sally and the rest of the crew - Loese, a new pilot, Hhayazh, a flight nurse, senior flight surgeon Rhym, and Camphvis the other flight nurse - make for Core General, THE most advanced hospital of the Synarche.

The mystery morphs into a dangerous sabotage of the hospital - and one that Dr Jens must solve on behalf of O'Mara and Starlight, a alien tree at the heart of the greenhouse like hospital that is Core General.

When two of the crew of Big Rock Candy Mountain waken it becomes clearer that all is not as it seems and somehow mystery has become conspiracy that leads to a faith shattering dark secret that ties Core General, Dr Jens very crew - and the mystery of Big Rock Candy Mountain mystery together.

I do hope Dr Jens at the end gets a coffee and a vacation that's due, she also needs to work on a hero complex that had me as mad at the Synarche for using her as the first book had me at making AIs pay of debts for their making that their "born" into.

I ended up not picking this book up. I had a few of the authors previous books and decided to try those first and they just weren't for me

Part 2 in the White Space series. Takes place in the same universe as Ancestral Night, but not a direct sequel - a few of the characters from the first book appear briefly. An intriguing premise - a deep space medical rescue team answers a distress call to find an unusual alien vessel in stasis locked silently with a truly ancient - archaeologically ancient - vessel with no explanation for the situation. The story and mystery flow from one ship to the other and then far distant to a massive intergalactic medical facility. Along the way is an exploration of a good bit of philosophy in with the science and technology, unfortunately a little too much of all three at times as so much had to be talked about or explained or thought in Llyn's head and caused the story to drag. But there's lots of action in later chapters, so hang in there. And all will be explained, and if you're like me, you'll never see it coming. Very twisty narrative, so enjoy the ride.

No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't get into this. I barely got 10% in. This just wasn't for me. Sorry!

I am obsessed with Elizabeth Bear's White Spaces series. I liked that this entry had an entirely different focus in its cast of characters yet still tied in to the first title. I've been recommending this to patrons at the library looking for excellent new sci-fi. Anxiously awaiting book three.

I received this eBook from NetGalley in return for a fair and honest review.

I liked this book. I haven’t read this author before and I was pleasantly surprised by how the novel kept my interest. It is an entertaining read.

This book is set in the same universe as Ancestral Night and some of the characters from that book appear, but you can read Machine without feeling like you're missing anything.

There isn't anything at all wrong with this book; I just never quite attached to it. The first part, in which Llyn Jens explores an ancient generation ship that isn't where it should have been, is great. Jens is a doctor and rescue specialist and she's there because of a distress signal, along with her crew. She runs across an ancient artificial intelligence and a lot of cryochambers that need to be rescued and an attempt made to bring back the crew sleeping inside.

Jens lives in a universe where AIs run things as a matter of course. These AIs are essentially created and then made to work off the indentures of their creation, after which time they have more freedom to do as they like. There's quite a bit of moral grayness here that hasn't been explored yet. Jens takes for granted that these AIs will always be around to keep things from getting too dangerous, to be thinking ahead and to run all the background tech that makes her life possible. It's disturbing, then, when her AI Sarah blanks out for part of the rescue and finds that there is some damage to the ship that Sarah isn't aware of. Jens decides that this isn't her area of expertise and moves on. That seemed dangerously complacent to me, but then again I probably do that plenty in my own life when small things aren't as they should be.

Jens also has to fight with her own prejudices when working with the ancient AI that has also been placed on her ship as they return to their hospital home station. Jens doesn't really like this AI much, partly because the peripheral that houses the AI is over-the-top sexual bombshell, probably because of a past engineer's sense of humor. The peripheral, Helen, can't help this, but Jens still has a hard time working with Helen.

There's a lot of plot here, but things really move slowly. Even though the author had a lot of balls in the air (or maybe because of it), the pacing dragged. I ended up skimming about the last half of the book. Jens does a lot of ruminating on various topics; this is the author's way of exploring this setting but it still felt like massive non sequiturs that derailed any sense of forward movement. This is probably a good book to read on vacation when you can sink into the book for big chunks of time, but it's not a great book to read little bits of over a long period of time, at least not for me. Ancestral Night was paced similarly. These are big potboiler books that act like space opera, but feel a lot like nineteenth century novels that take their time getting anywhere, while characters muse on about whatever the author felt like discussing. I think the pace did eventually pick up, but the book had lost me by then.

I do like the various species of aliens that populate the novel, and I like the idea of a big hospital setting. This is the second book I've read in a month with that setting- even though I've been running across it lately it feels underutilized in science fiction.

This is book 2 of the White Space Series. Dr. Jens is working to create treatments for alien species that she has never known nor seen. Then she uncovers two ships, one new and one old. They hold a mystery that she feels she must solve. Can she solve the mystery that may change everything?

I got an ARC of this book.

Normally when I start writing a review, I have the star number already assigned and prepped everywhere the review will be posted. I don’t this time. I have no idea what I will rate this book. So join my journey of rambling. I started reading this book in February of this year. It is now October. The book has been out for almost a year today. Why did it take me so long?

The amount of time I have had to devote to this series is one of the reasons I like it. This book took me eight months to read. More accurately. I read about 15%, fell asleep. Then didn’t pick it up for weeks. Read another chapter and then thought about reading it for the next few months. I read the bulk of the book in two days. This book makes me feel drunk when I read it. It requires a lot of thought and it slows my body down somehow. I am amazed at this feeling adjustment. It is why I fall asleep. I am not bored, but I am content.

The characters were ones I really liked this time. My favorites from book one got more screen time. Cheeirilaq got much more screen time. I loved it so much (it being the pronoun for Cheerilaq). The dolphin doctor that I was giggling about in the first review also had more screen time. I am just so happy that those characters got real parts. I want my sci-fi to have non-humanoid sentients in it. Cherrilaq is a great example of that. It is drastically not human and the culture is so fascinating. It alone is a good enough reason to rate this book five stars.

The plot itself seemed to get in the way of my enjoyment at times. There was a lot of dense sci-fi. There was a mystery sabotage plot, which is not one I wanted tor read. I got by because of the characters. There was a great deal of action and ebbs and flows. It felt faster than the first book, but it took just as long to set-up the plot. The start was both exciting and incredibly slow. There was a lot happening, but it felt a bit drawn out. The set-up really was needed, but the opening about 175 pages is a lot to take in to open up the plot.

The ending wasn’t exactly satisfying. It was very open ended and weird. It wasn’t unsatisfying either. There is something about this book that just is. It defies explanation and it just is there. It is not a book I will ever forget. Some of the ideas from this series have become common references to what I am looking for in sci-fi, but then talking about aft-hands doesn’t really get into the meat of either book.

The book is weirdly perfect, but also weirdly very slow and meandering while being an action packed mess. What do I do about that for a rating?

Tiresome and disappointing. Read the original James White *Sector General* series and skip this one.. It depends way too much on magical deus ex machinas and implausible ghosts in the computer. While the James White series is lighthearted, amusing, and clever, this one is dark and a "real drag".

Great imagination, great world building. But I'm afraid this wasn't exactly my cup of tea when it comes to Space Opera T_T.

The book was a bit annoying and hypocritical. The author tried to be deep and relatable but fell short. The mark was missed with this novel.

While the worldbuild was interesting I found the aspects sometimes contradictory and sometimes very annoying.

I enjoyed this novel for 2 reasons. The first is the mysteries to be solved as the major character struggles with the complexity of her medical condition. The second is a society dealing with artificial intelligence entities as people, just as it deals with alien races as people. Very enjoyable novel. I highly recommend it v

Machine is a fast-paced space opera that has an overwhelming amount of world-building. I learned after the fact that this is a sequel, so I don't know if you need to read the first to enjoy this one. I don't feel like I was missing anything.

The story was fast paced - until it wasn't. I felt like the book moved in fits and starts. There is a lot of info dumping, and then a LOT of internal dialogue. It did open an interesting debate when it got into the concept of "right minding", a bit of programming (maybe not so far as brainwashing) those who held unacceptable beliefs.

I struggled to get through some sections, but just as I was unsure if I really could finish it, I was sucked in again.

If you are a true fan of space opera and sci-fi, definitely give it a try.

Dr. Jens, a rescue specialist for a medical group composed of different species from across the galaxy, is on a mission to save the lives of thousands of humans on an ancient ship, stranded among the stars. Something has gone terribly wrong with their computer system.

In addition, there's a strange, and dangerous looking, machine in the hold of another, far more modern ship, that is attached to the archaic ship. Could it be the genesis of everything that went wrong or something more sinister?

"There could be people alive in there. We had to proceed as if there were, until we had proven otherwise."

Elizabeth Bear has created a fantastical, possible future in Machine where humanity has learned to manage some of our more troublesome brain chemistry through the use of sophisticated machines implanted in our heads.

I loved her imagining of what aliens (she calls them 'systers') may look like and how thousands of different people from worlds separated by both time and space would be able to come together and create something resembling a community.

It leads to some particularly interesting questions in this story as Dr. Jens is concerned primarily with the physical, and occasionally emotional, health of the beings, both flesh-bound and digital, whom she encounters.

"An AI couldn't suffer a psychotic break, exactly. But they had their own varieties of sophipathology, and dissociation of their various subroutines into disparate personalities was definitely one that had been well-testified in the literature."

I liked those aspects of the story- the exploration of a universe so far removed from my own.

Unfortunately, I felt that this exploration was bogged down by long and meandering self reflection at key moments in the story. I realize that much of the development of the plot is an emotional journey for the characters, but it's not fun to read about and occasionally comes off as a little preachy.

"We had to learn that there were more important things than being 'right.' Brilliant people are sometimes terrible at being people."

And, as I said, it slowed the story down to a painful crawl through neurosis and the perpetual struggle Dr. Jens has between allowing her emotions or handling them through her technologically advanced and chemically-altering brain tech.

All that being said, Machine was an enjoyable sci-fi adventure and mystery, and I look forward to reading more from Elizabeth Bear in the future.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a free digital copy of this book for review purposes.

This sci-fi novel is extremely technical yet tries to be relatable and funny; however, it does not quite accomplish what Andy Weir does so effortlessly. The characters don’t seem to have much depth or development and the ideas don’t coalesce. The story was a bit disjointed and at times hard to follow.