A review by kim_hoag
Serengeti by J. B. Rockwell

3.0

This is the beginning of the series that Hecate was the prequel for, but I liked the prequel better. While Hecate was about the captain, Henricksen, with the departed AI, Hecate, in the background, this is the opposite: the AI Serengeti is on her own while Henricksen remains in the background, though not fatally departed. The ship, it's AI, actually, is fighting to survive after being torn apart in battle. What is left of her crew is in stasis in the rescue pod but the damaged clamps can't release it. The scenario is an interesting one and plays with the question, what constitutes life. My problem with the book is one of language. I was disappointed in the too humanly way the AIs spoke of themselves and to each other. Would they use words that humans choose specifically because they are descriptive of a physical/ emotional state? For example, an image causes the AI to “shiver.” A robot “sobbed”. A robot's non-liquid eyes were “filled with curiosity and fear.” The youngest, procreated robot has to have a childish voice. It is one thing for AIs to discover they live and another to go the easiest route and anthropomorphize them. It is a good story but, for me, the author didn't go far enough in her exploration of AIs emerging as independent life forms. Heinlein handled it better in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, as did the more current author, Becky Chambers.