Some of the less than smart choices Aelis made in the first book, and in this book, really do come back on her. This is a book that is all about the consequences of personal actions, on scales ranging from Aelis’ health, to the fate of a friend, to the main plot, the wave of undead threatening the borderlands that she set in motion.
I love the vivid characters in it, the way they face their challenges, the fiercely exuberant explorations of personhood and choice and negotiating relationships, and the sheer joy of life apparent in how Okorafor plays with ideas.
An artisanal bio-prosthetist and her personal house AI become aware of growing data gaps in a post-cataclysmic city run by an artificial intelligence system, precipitated by the murder of an acquaintance and the subsequent erasure of facts about the victim and his death.
“In She’s a Killer, Kirsten McDougall writes a near-future dystopia that does explore these layers of colonization and control, but the core of the novel rests on the personality/psychology of her protagonist and an overall satirical tone that balances the comedic and the disturbing.”
I urge readers who only know Wells for her wonderful Murderbot science fiction novels to give Wheel of the Infinite a try. It features Maskelle, a middle-aged, self-exiled priestess returning to the capital of the Celestial Empire for her Koshan religion’s most important rite.
You see, the protagonist/narrator is a shapeshifting monster who keeps rebuilding her body from the remnants of defeated enemies, but a lot of the people she deals with are monstrous in their own ways. … and when she meets a uniquely likeable and caring woman, Homily, and tries to help her and communicate with her instead of just eating her, readers like me end up cheering for both of them.
