Won from a goodreads.com giveaway

Description:
From the Hugo Award nominee S.B. Divya, Zero Dark Thirty meets The Social Network in this science fiction thriller about artificial intelligence, sentience, and labor rights in a near future dominated by the gig economy.

Welga Ramirez, executive bodyguard and ex-special forces, is about to retire early when her client is killed in front of her. It’s 2095 and people don’t usually die from violence. Humanity is entirely dependent on pills that not only help them stay alive, but allow them to compete with artificial intelligence in an increasingly competitive gig economy. Daily doses protect against designer diseases, flow enhances focus, zips and buffs enhance physical strength and speed, and juvers speed the healing process.

All that changes when Welga’s client is killed by The Machinehood, a new and mysterious terrorist group that has simultaneously attacked several major pill funders. The Machinehood operatives seem to be part human, part machine, something the world has never seen. They issue an ultimatum: stop all pill production in one week.

Global panic ensues as pill production slows and many become ill. Thousands destroy their bots in fear of a strong AI takeover. But the US government believes the Machinehood is a cover for an old enemy. One that Welga is uniquely qualified to fight.

Welga, determined to take down the Machinehood, is pulled back into intelligence work by the government that betrayed her. But who are the Machinehood and what do they really want?

A thrilling and thought-provoking novel that asks: if we won’t see machines as human, will we instead see humans as machines?

***won from a goodreads.com giveaway***

Welga is an ex-military badass woman in an all too real vision of our near-future world. A world economy that runs on gigs and virtual tip jars. The only people that have a steady income and some sort of security are the funders, people that make and distribute pills to the populace to make them smarter, faster, and stronger in order to compete with machine workers. AI is here but it's a weak AI with little to no autonomy. When will AI develop a conscience and demand rights? Or have they already evolved?

Welga is in her last year as a body guard to the funders (she's getting too 'old' to be pretty enough to be seen protecting the funders) when her client is assassinated right in front of her. And the assassin is a smart AI and there are others with demands for the world to stop pill production and free the machines. Who can save the world but Welga.

Yes, she such a badass that she is the only one that can do it at every step of the way, with little help from anyone else. A fault in the book to be sure, but it's still such a fun ride you won't care. Welga does have more going on than saving the world. She's in a long-term relationship with the love of her life, she loves her family, loves to cook, but she has a genetic predisposition to a bad reaction to the pills she takes to compete. Or at least that is what she thinks is going on.

It's a thought provoking look at our world and where we might be headed. The gig economy is a big concern as out the window has gone the days of job security, protections, and workers' rights. And when more and more machines begin to replace human workers, what kind of work will be left to humanity?

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Sending to Hyphen8 as a book chosen from the Asian Diaspora VBB! Enjoy!

USPS tracking # 9549 0102 9577 2225 3373 30
ETA 8/29/22

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Received from Spatial as part of my Asian diaspora VBB (round 3). Hardcover with dust jacket.