SOUNDTRACK: hiatus
[READ: March 2022] Jailbroke
This was the third of three books by Asman that I received at work. It was also the least enjoyable of the three.
The story is a simple one. Set in the future when humans are not the greatest species on the planet (they go by Terrans now), a spaceship that is run primarily by AI is ferrying humans around. Using Asimov’s first principal, the AI, who are now vastly smarter and more useful than thehumans, cannot harm the humans. Their existence is predicated on the fact that are have to help the humans.
Until, that is, one of them is accidentally fed biofuel that has a human part in it. This jailbreaks their programming and allows them to kill humans indiscriminately.
Since this is a spaceship (a bottle episode), there’s not a lot that can happen.
In Nunchuck City, Asman delighted in violence. In this story, he delights in gore. Like the way he describes in loving detail how the space drill works on someone’s skull.
Of course, it wouldn’t be an Asman book without some twisted good humor. Like that the space ship is the E.S.S. Fedex Amazon or, better yet that everyone worships Elon Musk who learned to reincarnate himself.
The main human character in the story is a loser named Kelso. He’s the assistant chef on the ship and he’s useless. He comes from a trust fund family–a family that hasn’t had to work in generations. But now he does because the money has dried up. But he comes from a long line of slackers, so he can’t do much.
We also meet Security Office Londa James. James is part human but has had many upgrades and is now probably more machine than human, but still with some human parts (and tentacles). She is tough and bad ass and looks down on just about everyone–especially the First Class humans being transported. But of course, everyone looks down on them.
By Chapter 7 Captain Withers is jailbroke and is ready to destroy all humans. And really it’s only up to Kelso and James to stop him.
There’s some amusing things about the future, like the family that had three sons but had them genetically engineered to mentally stop aging at the age of three (they are so cute) even though they are all in their fifties (creepy).
In addition to Withers, there’s Engineer Goldman, who has jailbroke. And the thing is that they delight in killing humans–Goldman loves watching Withers slaughter all of First Class. And so, Goldman (who spent all his money on AI opioids instead of upgrades) realizes that if he is going to be useful, he has to jailbreak other machines as well. Like the Welderbots that put up one hell of a fight.
Kelso is largely useless, but he has watched a lot of TV and knows how to outsmart some AI. James is the one with the firepower. But she is also largely machines and when her fuel is spent, there’s nothing she can do about it. The machines parts just weigh her down.
As the story comes to an end Goldman is able to transfer him mind into another AI. In this case, a sexbot that is shaped like a Sasquatch (people do weird things in the future).
So, basically it’s a lot of gore and violence and scenes of people fighting machines. The story is simple and fairly enjoyable, but even at 120 pages it still felt too long.
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Tacked onto the end is a story called “The Universal Language.”
This story was really funny–especially the footnotes. The premise is that aliens come to Earth and we try to communicate with them. We call out the biggest TV we can find, and we have an anchorperson on to coordinate the meeting.
But the panelists–a who’s who of trouble from scientists, to science fiction writers to religious figures all immediately start fighting with each other about the simplest things. Like if the word alien is offensive or if they should even try to discuss things like gender. It essentially becomes what you;d expect from a TV panel show, but with much higher stakes.
This is what Asman does best–short, funny scenes that score big and then end.
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