vN cover art

vN

The First Machine Dynasty

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vN

By: Madeline Ashby
Narrated by: Christina Traister
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About this listen

For the past five years, she has been grown slowly as part of a mixed organic/synthetic family. She knows very little about her android mother’s past, so when her grandmother arrives and attacks them, young Amy wastes no time: she eats her alive.

Now she’s on the run, carrying her malfunctioning granny as a partition on her memory drive. She’s growing quickly, and learning too. Like the fact that in her, and her alone, the failsafe that stops all robots from harming humans has stopped working… Which means that everyone wants a piece of her, some to use her as a weapon, others to destroy her.

©2012 Madeline Ashby (P)2012 Brilliance Audio, Inc. Fiction Genre Fiction Hard Science Fiction Romance Science Fiction

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Critic reviews

“Ashby’s debut is a fantastic adventure story that carries a sly philosophical payload about power and privilege, gender and race. It is often profound, and it is never boring.” (Cory Doctorow)
"vN might just be the most piercing interrogation of humanoid AI since Asimov kicked it all off with the Three Laws.” (Peter Watts)
All stars
Most relevant  
Vaguely reminded me of Stephen Fine's "Molly Dear: The Autobiography of an Android" in the beginning, but gets better and to be its own thing along the way.



Was entertaining enough for a story that, with a mild degree of tongue in cheek, could be described as "a 'quiverfull' guy and a bleeding heart girl battle a strong, separatist woman."



Liked the voice talent.

Entertaining, but could've been more.

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Very good story but there were instances where the recording would just cut and skip a few seconds

Awesome Sci-Fi

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This story has some new ideas, but is not put into the correct words.

The prose and structure makes it very hard to keep with the story, and the main characters feel a little shallow or incomplete.

I understand the main character is very young, but she lacks curiosity, personal development, personality and consistency, I found myself not really engaging with her on an emotion level.

In a similar way the story does not have enough progression or development, I found that often the same story paths were tread, or scenes seem to end without any resolution for characters or narrative.

The performance is also a little 'flat' as if the narrator also does not know where to put the emotional beats, which honestly I understand the story gives not clue, but some almost ironically 'robotic' narration does not help.

I see why it sort of middling quality

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