Autonomous, Annalee Newitz
Autonomous, Annalee Newitz
4 Rating(s)
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Autonomous
A Novel

Author: Annalee Newitz

Narrator: Jennifer Ikeda

Unabridged: 10 hr 27 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 09/19/2017

Categories: Fiction, Science Fiction


Synopsis

From award winning tech-journalist and io9 founder Annalee Newitz comes a highly anticipated science fiction debut!

Autonomous will pull listeners into a dark and dirty world that feels, at times, a bit too familiar.

Earth, 2144. Jack is an anti-patent scientist turned drug pirate, traversing the world in a submarine as a pharmaceutical Robin Hood, fabricating cheap scrips for poor people who can’t otherwise afford them. But her latest drug hack has left a trail of lethal overdoses as people become addicted to their work, doing repetitive tasks until they become unsafe or insane.

Hot on her trail, an unlikely pair: Eliasz, a brooding military agent, and his robotic partner, Paladin. As they race to stop information about the sinister origins of Jack’s drug from getting out, they begin to form an uncommonly close bond that neither of them fully understand.

And underlying it all is one fundamental question: Is freedom possible in a culture where everything, even people, can be owned?

About Annalee Newitz

ANNALEE NEWITZ is an American journalist, editor, and author of fiction and nonfiction. They are the recipient of a Knight Science Journalism Fellowship from MIT, and have written for Popular Science, The New Yorker, and the Washington Post. They founded the science fiction website io9 and served as Editor-in-Chief from 2008–2015, and then became Editor-in-Chief at Gizmodo and Tech Culture Editor at Ars Technica. Their book Scatter, Adapt, and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction was nominated for the LA Times Book Prize in science. Their first novel, Autonomous, won a Lambda award.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Mary ~Ravager of Tomes~ on January 31, 2024

Jack has a history of aligning herself with rebel causes. She is pirate in the sense that she reverse engineers drugs and distributes them to the public for reasonable prices. When a stimulant begins to manifest deadly addiction, Jack sets out to try and bring down the manufacturer responsible for o......more

Goodreads review by Wil on April 05, 2018

I loved this. It did for AI and Patents and Biotech what Neuromancer and Snowcrash did for the Internet. The stuff I loved the most is all spoiler-y, so I'll just say that there are two competing narrative characters, who are at clear odds with each other, and each is the villain in the other's stor......more

Goodreads review by Lena on December 03, 2017

Man: Hey Blue Bot, you’re looking good. Blue Bot notices Man’s erection. Blue Bot: Did you want to have sex? Man: No! I’m not gay! Blue Bot researches humans on the internet. Blue Bot replaces its blue carapace with a pink one. Man: You’re pink?!?! Why are you pink? Pink Bot: I decided this was me. Do you......more

Goodreads review by Justine on October 10, 2017

This is a book that you are either going to love or just not get. Newitz has painted a pretty grim picture of the future, similar to that portrayed in Company Town by Madeline Ashby and in After Atlas by Emma Newman. What all three of these books have in common is a future where people are basically......more

Goodreads review by Philip on May 21, 2020

3.5ish stars. An interesting, well-written, near-ish-future SF novel with some compelling ideas. It reminds me a little bit of Malka Older's idea heavy Infomocracy, although I liked Older's book a little bit more. I didn't find this extremely engaging and never felt strongly pressed to continue readi......more


Quotes

"The uncertainty, fear, rage, despair, and, ultimately, hope that the robots experience are all perfectly voiced by [Jennifer] Ikeda. A thrilling examination of intellectual property rights and personal identity." -AudioFile


Awards

  • Lambda Literary Award - Nominee
  • Locus Awards - Nominee
  • Library Journal Best Books of the Year
  • Hudson Booksellers Best of the Year
  • Nebula Awards - Nominee
  • Lambda Literary Awards - Winner
  • NPR Best Book of the Year
  • Northern California Book Award Master List