Sasu reviewed Flybot by Dennis E. Taylor
Mysterious tech, a devious AI and a couple of scientists in over their heads collide …
Entertaining but Predictable with Some Interesting Points
3 stars
Content warning Significant plot elements
This was a bit of a different genre compared to Dennis E. Taylor's other books. Feeling-wise, I thought it was pretty similar to Roadkill, but a bit more in the direction of a serious sci-fi thriller.
The pacing was done quite well and I thought that the juxtaposition of artificial general intelligence and #genetic #engineering was interesting. He also makes a few interesting points regarding how a real #AGI might behave. The near-future #worldbuilding also deserves a shout-out for how well it painted the context of the novel to be the next logical step from where we're at right now technologically, with bonus points for how mundane the technologies seemed in the book.
On the whole, though, the plot felt formulaic and kind of predictable for me. The main antagonist also didn't really do it for me; I would have wished for more biting satire or more absurdity of caricature rather than the bland antagonist there was, although the blandness may have been the point in order to emphasize another point about the potential of #AI.
For all that complaining, I liked it and thought it was a useful contribution to all of the current discussion and hype around AI.