Mal Goes to War takes place in the near future where the implanting of various biomechanical devices into people allows for the improvement of those characteristics they feel they need—strength, agility, memory, or full-immersion gameplay. To some degree, nearly all software allows for learning.

Our main character is Mal, short for Malware, a piece of software. Mal's character is so three-dimensional, that I'll use male pronouns for Mal. Mal was developed as a top-notch hacking program learning from previous hacking experiences and incorporating new software into his programming to improve his abilities. As Mal grew in abilities he somehow developed sentience, becoming a Free AI. Mal moved about infospace looking to learn more about the world.

Aware there was a war, Mal stumbled into an area in dispute hoping to find out if the reports in infospace were rumor or fact. He dove into a passing drone and observed a group of Humanist soldiers clearing an area of those they called abominations (people with mods). Following one group, he found a woman with an unprotected access point, released the drone, and dove in. Unfortunately, she was dead but her exoskeleton worked so he could move around. He intended to jump to another mobile unit but suddenly the infospace disappeared. He then learned the human he inhabited was the bodyguard for a child who declared that Mal was now responsible for her safety.

At this point, Mal was in uncharted waters--he didn't know much about humans. Getting out of a war zone, finding a new host, keeping a small human alive, and not being tossed in a burn pit made the top of his new To Do list.

Along the way, Mal meets a few people who assist him, a few who wish to kill him and his fellow party members, and runs into some extremely tense experiences better left for you to read yourself.

Mal is an amazing character. Rational and thus often unaware of how he sounds to others, he is baffled by the reactions he gets from those he interacts with. Not familiar with emotions, Mal can not grasp the many ways humans use facial expressions or sarcasm to reply to his suggestions.

The war is ideological. The Humanists want all modded people dead. Dead, not forced to have the mods removed. The other side doesn't care one way or the other but heartily objects to killing people just because they have a biomechanical modification of some sort. Mal learns the Humanists do have some exceptions to their no-mods rule which leaves him questioning the entire reason for their war.

As with Ashton's Mickey 7 series, Mal Goes to War has its share of laugh-out-loud moments along with some serious philosophical issues driving the plot that will leave readers with some issues to think about after they close the book.

*yawn* If anyone needs a book to put them to sleep this might be a good choice, sadly. I was hoping for some sort of Murderbot, Sea of Rust style story with an AI I could connect with or even remotely be intrigued by. Instead I got a story that had no purpose or real direction until the last two chapters (could have been a short story!!); and an AI that was so unappealing. Mal, our AI MC, has a tone and rhetoric that made it seem like they were telling us they had ‘ethics’ because they had been programmed to; not because they had any sort of emotional attachment. I understand that any AI, even a sentient one, is subject to its originally coded parameters in most cases, or must have logic to override them (see I, Robot); that still didn’t really make this AI feel like it had purpose or reason.

I wish more of the reasons for the war and the overall politics were discussed. It would have, maybe, made the reveal in the end more impactful. As it was, it’s a good ending yet it doesn’t make up for 300+ pages of fairly substandard writing and character development. I do think the audiobook enhances this one. I listened to the last 25% on audio and it was a mild improvement over reading as the narrator is quite good. That said, I wasn’t a big fan of the sound effects used to convey when the bots were talking to one another without actual verbal audio (in their heads or online). But I haven’t come up with a better way to distinguish between when it was verbal audio and not in the audiobook (the print copy gives us italics versus quoted text).

This is my first Edward Ashton book, and I know everyone says Mickey 7 is fabulous, so I will try it still. Hopefully this is an anomaly for this writer. However, this book could make a good movie with the right actors to give the characters more emotional development. It would be interesting to have someone like Alan Tudyk do the AI voice that is never truly ‘embodied’. That I think would be an interesting media for this store.

If you’re a devoted sci-fi reader this might be okay for you (as it was for me, just ok). If you’re newer to sci-fi please find a more engaging story. I highly recommend All Systems Red (Murderbot series) or Sea of Rust for engaging and interesting AI MCs that you can feel connected to.

Please note: I received an eARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. This is an honest and unbiased review.

In this SF story, mankind is at war - modded and augmented Federals against puritanical Humanists.

Malware, a free artificial intelligence, is salvaging equipment from a battlefield when the Humanists cut off infospace access.

Stuck in a cyborg mercenary's corpse, he, modded girl Kayleigh and others travel (and fighting) together, their banter enlivening the story.

Despite a genocidal attack on AIs, Mal saves humanity from being made into mounts (habitats) for AIs. He saves his friends as well.

I really liked Mickey 7 and took a chance on this one. This was my first character (other than ghosts) who lacked a physical body. Unfortunately, it wasn't my cup of tea, although it was well-written and the character of Mal was particularly well done.

Mal spent most of his time in infospace. He could also inhabit various types of hardware, including drones (which sounded fun as long as your drone wasn't shot down). Mal made a bad decision when he dropped out of infospace, right into a war.

The two factions are the Federalists and Humanists. Mal found himself in an active fight, which resulted in Mal getting trapped in a cyborg body after the original occupant died. Unfortunately, the cyborg also had organic parts that began to decay...

I received an e-arc of this book from the publisher St. Martin's Press via NetGalley, and voluntarily read and reviewed it.

This is the first by the author that I have read, so my first impression was that he had been influenced by the success of the <i>Murderbot</i> series. Mal is what he self-describes as a "Silico-American." In other words, he's actually an AI existing in "infospace" and is capable of occupying compatible hardware of all types in a future USA. While in the warzone near Bethesda (a civil war is in progress between the Federalist and Humanists), the infospace towers go offline and Mal finds himself temporarily trapped occupying the military hardware worn by a deceased woman. This is just the first of Mal's travels from host to host, sometimes drones, sometimes other augmented humans, sometimes weapons, etc. During his ensuing quest to find a way back to infospace and/or stay "alive", Mal is joined by an odd group of other survivors/victims of the war. That war actually centers around whether or not AI or augmentations are good or not.

Some parts are humorous, but I found that I really didn't care for any of the characters that much, including Mal. On some levels it was entertaining, but I still found it difficult to care about whether not anyone actually survived in the long run. The ending seemed rushed, but also gives readers a glimpse of "where they are now".

Compared to Murderbot, Mal seems a pale copy. But if you like stories of quirky AIs, your mileage may vary...

I was given the privilege of reading this ARC, from the publisher and NetGalley, in exchange for an honest opinion.

We love to speculate about the personalities of aliens and AIs as they interact with us emotionlessly. It’s a classic sub-trope of the outsider view, but played at the level of species narcissism. Whether it’s ALF, Mr Spock, Mr. Data, the Murderbot or the week’s latest article about LLMs, it’s the human version of “that’s enough about me, tell me what do you think, about me?”

https://bookandfilmglobe.com/fiction/book-review-mal-goes-to-war/

More of a 3.5 but I’m rounding up.

I’ve been wanting to read Mickey7 for a while, especially because of its movie adaptation but have never gotten the chance yet. So instead I decided to listen to the audiobook of this novel by the author as I had access to the audiobook.

It’s best going into this one without much expectations coz I don’t know if it’ll live up to them. While the title may say “war” and the story takes place across a few days during a kind of brutal civil war, the tone of the novel is extremely in odds with it. It’s funny and snarky and our protagonist Mal is a sentient AI who’s extremely logical analysis and conclusions are just downright hilarious. But there is also a lot of violence happening, if not on page always, atleast on the periphery with a lot of body count. Despite all this, the book isn’t necessarily action packed and more slice of life and found family, highlighting themes like what happens when othering and discriminating a group of people is taken to extremes.

While I did enjoy reading it in parts, it’s the audiobook experience that really shines through. John Pirhalla as Mal is excellent at conveying his robotic but endearing thoughts and Katherine Chin’s inclusion at times makes for some great conversations. If you are looking for a chill dark comedy with bouts of violence and some unusual friendships, I’ll definitely recommend this one, especially the audio format.

Having read and loved Ashton’s Mickey7, I knew I had to read Mal Goes to War about Mal, a free A.I. who gets trapped in an augmented cyborg mercenary when infospace has been cut off.

Mal ends up traveling with a ragtag group of humans who are caught in between a civil war of puritanical Humanists and augmented Federals.

The story felt like a Bobiverse meets the MurderBot and I was all in. Mal ends up traveling from host to host while traveling with the group to look for a connection back to infospace and becomes friends with everyone, but especially the childlike Kayleigh. Mal does whatever he can to ensure Kayleigh’s safety. All the snark flying around is a hoot and I adored Mal and the rest of the characters.

*Thanks so much to St. Martin’s Press and to NetGalley for the gifted eARC!*

Edward Ashton again takes the reader to a seeable place in our society’s future if we continue on this present course. He does so with humor, plot twists, and believable characters. I looked forward to this one after reading both Mickey 7 novels.

This is based in a future version of the US where technology and AI’s place is being highly debated it’s being incorporated into people and excess abounds. MAL is a self aware AI construct who can bounce around at well between tech that can support him. There is no visual for this abstract concept so there is no visual of this for most of the book.

I enjoyed seeing him develop into more of a human than some of the characters. He had more of a conscience and felt obligated to care for others. The conflict between the federalists and humanists to some degree made sense, but seemed like a generic futuristic debate about morals and ethics once it’s too late to have the conversation because the science and development outpaced the slow tedious conversations about it due to the money to be made.

It really was a good read that was hard to put down for me.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin Press for an ARC of this book.

Edward Ashton has an interesting look at an AI who decides to drop in on a small war near Bethesda Maryland about forty years from now. Mal Goes to War (hard from St. Martin's Press) when normal, poor people called humanists decide to fight the rich who are modifying themselves to make themselves superior. Mal had been observing the war from a drone it had hijacked when access to Infospace was blocked and it was forced to drop into an exoskeleton of a dead body guard. It seems logical to assist the bodyguard’s modified human charge in survival, and thus begins a pinocchio type tale as Mal learns about humans and actually forms friendships. Learning both about itself and about what was driving this silly localized war. I really enjoyed the tale and would love to see Mal in a further adventure.

Rounding this one up to 4 stars. I didn’t quite enjoy it as much as the Mickey7 series, which I loved. This story follows an AI named Mal. I found this character to have a fun snarky sense of humor that is not uncommon amongst AI type characters in most science fiction stories. He enjoys human company but doesn’t feel emotions like empathy or compassion, which can be a little off-putting at times. He reminded me a bit of Harry from Resident Alien.

Mal is trapped due to a war between two factions, one group he refers to as humanists and another group referred to as the Federals. The Federals consist of the government and individuals that have genetic modifications with nanos and the humanists are purists averse to any kind of tech modifications. Mal can jump into any tech entities from drones to humans with nano modifications and often must as some of the bodies get brutally murdered as they travel in a war zone.

The first new host turns out to be a caregiver to a girl named Kayleigh who is actually 18 but has been genetically modified to physically age at a slower rate and therefore looks like a little girl. Kayleigh and Mal quickly make a great duo with her macabre sense of humor bordering on sociopathic and Mal’s AI emotion averse affect. Along their journey to find a data center to reunite Mal with the group separated by the war’s destruction of communications, they pick up a few stragglers along the way that both help and hinder their progress.

I found their journey and shenanigans along the way to be fun and entertaining, maybe a little reminiscent of a more adult In the Lives of Puppets.

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for a copy provided for an honest review.

As much as I loved Mickey7, MaL Goes to War just did not work for me. I felt like it was attempting to replicate other stories of sentient AI, such as I Robot or Murderbot, and it just was not as successful of a story as it's predecessors.

This sci-fi novel was a miss for me. Which is a real shame because I love Ashton's two books Mickey 7 and Antimatter Blues. I think this was trying to give Murderbot vibes, but it just wasn't as good. I will continue to recommend the other two books.

Overall, this book was an entertaining diversion into a near-future world of AI and human modifications, this is a brief war-time tale that blends humour and ugliness to illustrate some of the ethical challenges that await a technological revolution.

I’m a fan of Ashton’s Mickey 7 series (of only two so far…hoping for more!) so I was thrilled to be approved for an ARC of his new novel, Mal Goes to War, seemingly a standalone. I had a lot of fun with this one! It’s entirely easy to read, a page turner and highly entertaining.

Mal is a free-AI who’s never deeply considered human affairs, only observing from afar out of vague curiosity. When he’s accidently forced to download himself into a modified-human body during a horrible war, he has to contend with real people and difficult situations. He’ll have to manage unusual factors, like empathy and compassion.

The war is interesting. The Humanists want purity from technology. Modified humans are the enemy here and even modified children are executed. The Federals are the government, who represent the status quo, but resort to unforgivable means to put down the Humanist uprising. The free-AI aren’t spared either…war drags everyone into its sphere.

That said, this is primarily a problem novel: how can Mal and his accumulated band of friends survive this war, and can Mal escape back into the infoverse? The war is seen only in Mal’s immediate world, and the larger atrocities are kept firmly at a distance in the novel. Thus, it feels like a band-of-friends novel rather than a book about war.

You’ve gotta love snarky, disaffected AI-bot characters who pretend to dislike everyone but who secretly and reluctantly care deeply about others, and can’t help but make friends and feel a sense of pesky and inconvenient compassion. It’s hard to make selfish decisions and take the easy way out when you need to consider the well-being of your friends.

The tone was similar in many ways to Martha Wells’ Murderbot series, which I love, so if you like that, you may want to pick this up. It’ll give you a nice little shot of the reluctant AI hero to keep you going.

Thanks NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for a gifted copy!

Thanks to St. Martin's Press and Netgalley for the ARC.

I can always count on Edward Ashton to bring a dark comedy that both entertains, makes you think and makes you laugh. He accomplishes that again with Mal Goes to War, a story about a free AI named Mal(for malware-honestly, I'll never think of anything else again whenever I see anything about malware..LOL) who is happily existing in infospace when he decides maybe it would be fun to inhabit a modified human......boy does he regret that!! Since we humans are once again at war with ourselves, Mal suddenly finds he can't get back to infospace and is now guardian of a little girl with mods of her own. As Mal and Kayleigh struggle to survive this battle, they find themselves some unlikely allies and Mal starts learning how complex and quite often idiotic we humans can be. It definitely doesn't always end well.
As with both of the Mickey7 novels, the humor in the story is delightfully snarky, dark and makes for a wonderful relationship with Kayleigh as the banter is sharp both ways. The story is intriguing, engaging and as with his prior novels, while you are busy just enjoying the story, you also end up thinking about AI in new ways. I definitely recommend this book to any fans of science fiction and if you know someone who wants to add more Sci-Fi to their reading, tell them to let Mal in their heads!!

Fans of the Mickey7 books will enjoy this new title from Ashton. Like the Mickey7 books, Mal is a fast-paced, character driven science fiction that isn't really a thriller, but more of a "cardio sci/fi"- people are constantly on the move and dealing with situations in a physical manner. Add in a satirical look at humans and AI plus Ashton's humor and you have an engaging read.

The one aspect that might be troubling for some is that the main character is the titular AI, Mal, short for malware. We see the world and learn of the setting through his "eyes" so our world building is developed by observations that would matter to a sentient AI and not a human.

Some readers have pointed out some questionable similarities to the Murderbot series, and I agree they are obvious, but I'm going to think of them as Easter eggs for us science fiction fans.

First, I want to thank NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for giving me access to an eARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Mal was your run-of-the-mill spontaneously sentient AI until he decided to find out what a war looked like up close. Living out his life in infospace Mal had never needed a physical shell and was dubious of their uses in the first place. It is a stroke of bad luck that the one time he decides to try piloting one, his connection to infospace is shot down. Now he's stuck behind enemy lines with no way back home. He stumbles across his own band of misfit refugees, and they have to work together if any of them are going to make it out of this war zone alive.

This is a really fast-paced story with great character development and a fun plot. Mal being a digital creature with no signal is forced to try to find connection wherever he can, and all the while he begins to develop some empathy for why humans do the irrational things they do. I have been enjoying some recent sci-fi from the perspective of machines, with a focus on a more rich emotional life. Mal will go to great lengths to keep his friends alive, and if he manages to save the rest of the humans from a terrible fate, then so be it.

Ultimately, I had a great time reading this, and I think plenty of other folks will too.

This is the second book I’ve read by Ashton and the second time I’ve felt that this book would make an excellent movie, but makes for a mediocre book. Passage of time in this book was difficult to track and because of that it felt like the characters were growing “off page.” It felt like they went from hating each other to being best friends fairly quickly. Kayleigh seems to flip from hating everyone around her to feeling betrayed by Mal and protective of Asher in a very short amount of time.

All of the books I’ve read by Ashton are very plot focused. A lot of things happen in a short amount of time. This can lead to fun action sequences, but leaves me wishing for more time to understand his characters. Each character is less a person and more a part of the “unit” that truly becomes the character. It is what happens to the unit that is compelling, not what happens to any one individual. If you go in knowing that, you’re in for a fun, if predictable, sci-fi story.

In MAL GOES TO WAR, by Edward Ashton, a war has commenced between the Federals and the Humanists in this near future story. Mal, a untethered AI, seems to be caught in the middle. Mal can inhabit most of the technology he comes across and in this age of augments, mods, and computerized weaponry, Mal has a lot of places to choose from. Mal discovers a small group of reluctant objectors who would rather live life without picking a side and participating in the conflict. As Mal struggles to find a better home for himself, friendship, loyalty, and even fraternal love seeps into his programing ways he would have never expected. Can he protect his new group of companions from the ravages of war and maybe even find a better life for him and his group?
Mal is at the same time an artificial intelligence that is in no way a human and yet acts more human than most people he comes in contact with. Ashton writes Mal with unknowingly dry wit and endless curiosity. His curiosity creates a commentary on war and acceptance that is both poignant and comical at the same time. The band of rebels are interesting in their own right and each present their own views on the war. Ashton does an excellent job of balancing plot, commentary, and well placed humor, The story becomes layered, full of deceit and hidden agendas. The ending is exciting, fun and rewarding and the reader can't help but feel the most empathy for Mal, the entity that is supposed to have no emotions.
Ashton creates a unique main character that in theory has no emotions and yet seems to have the most empathy of any character in MAL GOES TO WAR. The book can be enjoyed by more than just science fiction lovers, it a the kind of novel most anyone can relate because aren't we all trying to figure out how to have more human empathy and understanding.

Mal (actual name Malware) is a free AI, or Silico-American as they prefer to be called, hovering in a drone over a battlefield where Humanists and Federals are doing their best to destroy each other, and the Humanists have the Federals on the run. Mal is intrigued by the action between the humans, or monkeys as they call them. But Mal's friends, other free AIs, can't see the point, as they're happy enough staying in infospace, commenting on the action. Mal decides to jump into the head (they and their friends use the term "puppeting") of one of the Federal soldiers, who have a number of software and hardware augments in their bodies, so Mal can get a better view.

Almost as soon as Mal takes over a soldier the soldier is killed, leaving its charge, a young girl, vulnerable. And more alarming to Mal, their connection to infospace is cut as the Humanists are bombing comm towers.

The girl, who appears to be a toddler, is actually a heavily modified human, with an extended childhood, a long lifespan, and a variety of other very expensive technological augments. Kayleigh might look like a young child, but she's eighteen, prone to violence and profanity, and a little scary. Kayleigh figures out the soldier has been taken over by a free AI, and she and Mal work out a bargain; Mal must protect her from Humanists, who are intent on burning to death all augmented humans.

The two begin the perilous trek to catch up with Federals, who can take Kayleigh in, and Mal can then hop back to infospace. If only it were simple… Mal loses this body, and decides to puppet a guy they run into who has some basic augments in his brain, but is, in every other way, ordinary. The small group is hounded, and Kayleigh manages to overpower one Humanist soldier, whom they coopt into helping them. There are numerous perils yet to come, and Mal makes many mistakes along the way in their attempt to defend Kayleigh, while we gain an understanding behind the opening scene in the novel, and what is actually going on between the two human factions.

Mal has a lively sense of humour, and a rich imagination based on the stories they have enjoyed. Mal also has only a rudimentary understanding of meat-based life, including humans' wish for sovereignty of their bodies and minds. Mal is often dismissive of their emotions or limitations, and prioritizes their own need to return to infospace over all else, often to the detriment of his desire to protect Kayleigh, at least initially. This lack of empathy gradually changes, as they get quite the education in morality and emotions with each human interaction they have, whether with the small group, or with various parts of the Humanist army. Mal's development is great to experience as they begin to understand the skills and value of each member of their group, culminating in Mal's willingness to think of the humans it knows as friends.

Much of the humour, and there's a fair bit, comes from Mal's misunderstandings or mishaps during puppeting. There is also plenty of action, as author Edward Ashton keeps things moving along at a good pace. The novel entails the group's moving from one crisis to the next, with the humans bashing things and Mal corrupting other software.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, unlike the author's earlier "Mickey 7", which lagged for me the closer I got to its end. Mal is a wonderfully flawed and oddly lovable character, and their journey worked wonderfully for me.

Thank you to Netgalley and to St. Martin's Press for this ARC in exchange for my review.