"The Expert System's Brother" by Adrian Tchaikovsky (BR)

[Anna]

Please use spoiler tags!

[Dawn F]

Curious to see what everyone thinks of this!

[Gabi]

Just bought this, saw the dedication and burst into tears. ^^' So I'll be going into this full emotion.

[Rachel]

My library is purchasing this but I’m hold number 9.... so...maybe this year I’ll get it??

[Dawn F]

@Gabi I KNOW ;________;

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

I'm hurrying as fast as I can!

[Gabi]

Dawn wrote: "@Gabi I KNOW ;________;"

I also have a special son, and I was unprepared for this ...

[Dawn F]

@Gabi Oh I can imagine <3

[Dawn F]

@Allison Don’t die of stress! I’m behind schedule too! We can be behind together XD

[Anna]

Did someone start as scheduled? I'll have to wait until later in the month, but I'm getting to it!

[Gabi]

I did and I finished it (didn't realize that it's a novella). When I get at my PC I'll write my impression.

[Rachel]

I’ll raise the dead at some point when my library gets it/ gives it to me.

[Oleksandr]

I plan to start it today

[Kaa]

I will get to this... eventually....

[Ariana]

I will have time to start today!

[Anna]

Yay, at least someone is sticking to the schedule! :D

[Jemppu]

Well, I seem to have started already. Appears short enough.

[Rachel]

I just checked and I' m only number 2 in the hold line! might get it this month after all!

[Jemppu]

Finished. Oh, wow. Totally from the bushes: (view spoiler)[this managed to pull me in by feeling surprisingly touching on a very personal level. Completely thanks to the author's preceding dedication, that the themes in the narrative - beyond the story itself - were able to so completely captivate and make one reflect them directly to some matters in personal history. As well as feel deep empathy for Mr Tchaikovsky, son and any extended family involved in the struggle, in what ever form it manifested in their life.

As I'm sure this will touch many a person, who's ever felt like an outsider or struggled to find themselves / their place, or who have regrets they'd come to own up to later.

The initial awe aside, I was able to get into the story itself too further along the way, and boy, if that wasn't rewarding as well. Apart from being full of excellent self-reflections, the narrative has some quite appealing character chemistry and wonderful, gut-wrenching development.

This line full of admiration stuck out to me as something all should aspire to (true, despite being somewhat soiled by the later events in this particular context): "Here was this man, so impossibly healthy for an outcast, so in control of his own journey, telling me I was special".

Overall this felt very wholesome, and (personally) significant. Any initial minor intrigue the title might've held before diving into this, has now been turned to a full blown infatuation. (hide spoiler)]

[Ariana]

Started this, through Ch. III. Intriguing! Reminds me of Bannerless with the (view spoiler)[emphasis on the good of the community, and the group living in an agrarian society (after a fall perhaps?) where they use but don't understand old technology. (hide spoiler)]

[Ariana]

I liked this quite a bit. Spoilers for the end.
(view spoiler)[I liked how it emphasizes people's need for community. I had a little bit of a hard time buying that people would stop innovating all together just because they had expert systems in their midst, but it was still a fun read.
(hide spoiler)]

[Leticia]

I read Children of Time by the same author and it was awesome. This is probably good.

[Dawn F]

@Jemppu I' glad you liked it! It did feel like a very personal story from Tchaikovsky, and that definitely held some of the appeal for me as well.

[Oleksandr]

I finished it recently
(view spoiler)[I liked both idea and execution, just like Children of Time by the same author he mixes old SF tropes in a new way and adds emphasis of social problems without dropping the old SF feel.

re people stopping innovating - I agree that it calls for some generation gap, so that a generation forgot the 'theoretical knowledge' and starts blindly follows suggestions as orders.
(hide spoiler)]

[Oleksandr]

A side note, after finishing this book, I started Ironclads by the same author and it is a little weaker. He had a new novel this year, Dogs of War and if you like his writing, I invite you to join the Buddy read!

[Kaa]

Oh wow, I was not prepared for this book. I liked it a lot.

As y'all maybe can tell by now, I like thinking about how different books relate to each other, and I found it interesting to relate this to The Word for World is Forest. (view spoiler)[I think there are some really fascinating parallels and contrast around ideas of settlement/control of the environment, and around leadership and control of people. The pairing of someone declaring themselves a god in that book and a priest in this one also caught my attention. (hide spoiler)]

@Oleksandr: (view spoiler)[Agreed, the way he takes classic tropes and updates them was really fantastic and enjoyable. I will have to go read Children of Time now as well. (hide spoiler)]

[Dawn F]

Dogs of War is also very interesting! Ironclads is the only of his scifi I’ve yet to read.

[Rachel]

Got my copy from the library! Only had 8 people before me lol.
Will start tonight

[Rachel]

I enjoyed it.
(view spoiler)[Some may find the plot a bit obvious but I still found it compelling- superior prose maybe?
There are some interesting or timely things to be said about human nature and the effects of ‘destiny’ on it. ugh ...manifest destiny makes me cringe.. (hide spoiler)]

[Ariana]

Rachel wrote: "(view spoiler)[...manifest destiny makes me cringe... (hide spoiler)]"

(view spoiler)[Ugh, yes. The whole bit with the harboon village was sad. Having just read The Word for World is Forest, I sort of wanted a story from their perspective. (hide spoiler)]

[Gabi]

Rachel wrote: "I enjoyed it."

Yes, definitely! Tchaikovsky's writing is superb!