Emergent Properties by Aimee Ogden

⭐⭐⭐⭐/5

For fans of Martha Wells' Murderbot Diaries!

We're following a curious AI who is missing 10 days from their life and is determined to find out what happened. This is a soft world building, high sci-fi story which including people travelling to the moon for spring break and a terrifying externally visible social rating system. You'd think a novella wouldn't be long enough to contain this all, but the pacing is great, the world imaginative and technology plausible.

I want to call out the powerful use of language and pronouns as Aimee creatively bends English to her will to describe an AI's self-identity. Scorn uses the pronouns Ze, Zir Zemself, which effectively removes them from the gender spectrum all together. When I first started reading I thought this would break up the reading flow, but once I got a few pages in, it was no trouble at all.

I'm not sure if this will become a series, but if it does I'd love to join Scorn in zir next adventure!

This book is best enjoyed after telling your Roomba and digital coffee maker how much you appreciate them.

Thank you to NetGalley and TorDotCom for an advanced reader copy.