In the opening of Mechanize My Hands to War, a child flees his life as a soldier. He is already beaten down by the world and so, so tired. I could feel a bone-deep ache settle into me with the precise, unsparing prose. Even now I still feel it, though it is tinged with a glimmer of hope.

Told in non-linear character sections from the perspectives of humans and machines, the novel revolves around a series of events some 35 years into the future in largely rural Appalachia. It is not quite dystopian, there is no climate disaster or totalitarian government, but rather a simple continuation of the negative forces in our world; the end comes not with a bang but a whimper. Machines have replaced human work, the soil is poisoned, and despairing and angry people turn to a militia that scapegoats the machines.

It feels eerily prescient, and it is made even more real seen through the eyes of well-crafted characters beaten down by this world and sometimes pitted against each other. This makes the excellent world-building seamless and not caught up in exposition, each detail introduced because it matters to a character. I felt I could step into the world.

Some readers might be disappointed that it is a character and world study rather than the thriller teased at the beginning. The only thing that really bothered me was that in most of the character sections, the protagonists don’t get full character arcs, but rather snapshots. I cared about the characters and so I wanted resolutions, but none were forthcoming. Perhaps this was intentional, but even as I was immersed in the world, I sometimes felt unmoored by the plot, grasping after more concrete structure and meaning.

Fortunately, the two ending characters, Trey and Adrian, do get resolutions in a way that brings home the novel’s world-weary themes. Hope creeps in at the end too. Perhaps the machines aren’t just part of an ending but a chance at a new beginning too. Few novels I’ve read this year have lingered as strongly as this one.

This was a hell of a read and one I'll be highly recommending come this winter. We get a speculative future war that looks at the potential future splinter point of those pushing for the "feds" not to be trusted (which we are unfortunately seeing play out currently IRL via people attacking FEMA workers attempting to help communities in the wake of Hurricane Helene) and also examines the idea of free will via androids, androids built for combat, and child soldiers, and all the ways parameters can go horrifically wrong. You also get what feels like little side stories throghout that end up being examined via multiple POVs and all interconnecting with the larger goings on. Pick this up this winter and enjoy.

Thank you to netgalley for the ARC!

Mechanise My Hands To War by Erin K Wagner follows a non-linear narrative from the perspective of multiple characters, human and robots alike, with the story being centred around federal agents who are hunting down Eli Whittaker, an extremist leader recruiting child soldiers into his army.

On the other hand, Ora, an Artificially created agent, has shot dead a child much to the horror of his human comrades. Yet all his mechanical innards show that he did not break protocol. Ora was simply following the rules.

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The strongest part of this novel is it's prose. It's engaging, descriptive, precise and succinct. The writing is poetic when needed and comprehensive when required. There's a good balance between purple prose and beige prose. The novel is, to put it simply, a page-turner and really really interesting to read.

The philosophical questions it poses are interesting, and provide fodder for the brain. Can Artificial intelligence be used ethically? If so, then which sphere of life can it actually be Integrated? Should people direct their anger towards AI or it's invention, or the corporations that capitalise on it's use?

To be frank, the good points about the novel end here. Though the questions it poses are brilliant and rarely explored in fiction, it fails to answer them thoughtfully. There are throwaway lines about how men must protest against corporations instead of fear mongering against the use of AI itself, but this discourse is watered down as it comes from the mouth of Adrian and Trey, two federal agents.

I do believe that agents who are a part of the system which perpetuates violence on minorities, and in this novel have been equipped with 'war made flesh' indestructible robots to do so, can't meaningfully engage in discussions around widespread use of AI in government and private spheres, or it's effects on those who are already disadvantaged.

Further on, the non-linear narrative prevents immersion and is quite jarring at times. Especially as some chapters are just recountings of the same scene from the pov of different characters present at the scene. The last 6 chapters were the same scene from the point of view of Eli, Trey, Ora, Helios, and many more people.

And moving on to the characters themselves, they were interesting at first glance especially the robots, Helios and Ora, but they lacked depth and were one-dimensional. It was obvious that the author was torn between developing the characters or developing the plot. At times, the characters felt like mouth pieces parroting the author's political viewpoints rather than real people.

Moreover, I felt like there was a lack of research and for a novel that deals heavily with the politics of child soldiers, there was little discussions about DDR methods.
Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) methods are extremely important when it comes to child soldiers, and often times these methods are vague and ill-equipped to deal with children who are marginalised by other factors such as race or gender. The novel didn't properly deal with all of these factors which I found pretty disappointing.

From a narrative pov, there was a plot-twist that I felt the author was building upto from the very beginning. It would've bolstered the narrative so so well and I felt like there were so many signs pointing to it but it simply wasn't included. I felt like the entire storyline of Shay and Ernst was pretty much wasted without this plottwist because there was very little connecting it to the rest of the novel.

Overall, I felt like this novel had a lot of potential but poor execution. It wasn't bad but not something that I would go out of my way to recommend. Unique and engaging, Wagner's skill is immense but it is not properly utilised.

This was interesting. I haven't read too much of robot/AI tropes but I kind of liked this one. The only thing I got bored with was it seemed like the author was telling the same scene from multiple POVs but almost in the same way. I was like, "ok that's nice but time to move on with the story".

This ambitious book pays homage to Phillip K Dick and some of the best Southern Gothic.

This books could fill in the missing pieces between the bell riots and a robot controlled future.

You may or may like the narrative roshomon style of showing the same scene from 2-3 points of view.

This book was interesting and entertaining and feels like a realistic extrapolation of our current technology.


This book was an eARC from netgallery.