Hello, my lovely peeps🐣!
Today's a good day because I get to work from the cozy nest I call home, although, where my office is at, it's always an ice box…
It's been a couple of days since I last posted anything. I've been fairly busy, but finally having the chance to peck away at my backlog of books feels pretty good. In fact, I recently finished a gem of a read and today's post is actually a review for it! So, sit back with a bucket of popcorn as I introduce to you a book that left me speechless, Artificial Wisdom by Thomas R. Weaver!
Title: Artificial Wisdom
Author: Thomas R. Weaver
Genre: Fiction, Science Fiction, Mystery, Thriller, Mystery Thriller, Crime
Length: 360 Pages
Published: 5 April 2024
LINKS:
Goodreads: [LINK]
Amazon: [LINK]
Disclaimer: A huge thank you to Books Forward and the author for this copy of Artificial Wisdom! This copy was provided in exchange for a fair and honest review and all opinions are my own.
It's 2050, a decade after a heatwave that killed four hundred million across the Persian Gulf, including journalist Marcus Tully's wife. Now he must uncover the truth: was the disaster natural? Or is the weather now a weapon of genocide?
A whistleblower pulls Tully into a murder investigation at the centre of an election battle for a global dictator, with a mandate to prevent a climate apocalypse. A former US President campaigns against the first AI politician for the position, but someone is trying to sway the outcome.
Tully must convince the world to face the truth and make hard choices about the future of the species. But will humanity ultimately choose salvation over freedom, whatever the cost?
Coming out of a month of cyberpunk, all I knew, going into this book, was that I picked it up for being related to cyber and tech, not knowing much about whether or not there would be any punk in it. In short, going in, I had no [good nor bad] expectations of what I was going to be reading, and man was I in for a treat. This book exceeded my wildest expectations of it, and I'm still reeling. I could have finished this last Friday (10th of May), constantly dragging out those last 40 or so pages, but I couldn't let it end. And when it did, I procrastinated in writing the review because I couldn't articulate what I just read, not in the same way and that Weaver spun the tale for us. I don't think I'll be able to do it enough justice. There was the cyber and the tech. There was the politics, philosophy, and major key themes as well. I wrote so many annotations, I don't know which moments to cherry-pick for this review! So many whiplashes and jaws dropping to the floor…
It's the year 2050, and it has been a decade since a massive heatwave took the lives of four hundred million people across the Persian Gulf, including Tully's wife and unborn child, with the current global climate situation fairing worse and worse each day. And now, having finally started to slowly heal, he's met with a whistleblower that has information to share; whether or not that heatwave was natural or man-made. With the upcoming election for world dictator coming soon, this discovery could mean a second disaster, a world war. It's a battle between the former US President vs the very first artificial intelligence [AI] politician and whoever was behind the heatwave tip, may very well be connected and trying to sway the outcome of that election. With the dictator's ruling philosophies to be polar opposites; Lockwood (America)'s hand-off approach that could spell disaster vs Solomon's enslavement now to save your children's children, Tully's truth, may be what it takes to tip the election…
I loved this writing, from the beginning, I'd been hooked to every word and it didn't even feel like I was reading. Fully immersed in this world full of disasters, climate crisis, elections for a dictator to rule the world in order to hopefully reverse climate damages, Neuro-Realty (VR, but much more immersive), I was easily sucked in and 100 pages felt like 10; a movie that went too fast and ultimately left me screaming at the last sentence ("No! It can't end that way!!! You're kidding right? There's a book 2??").
I always enjoy a book that makes me think, having bits of politics and philosophy, but I always feel lost and feel too dumb for books heavy on those. Here, I kept eating each page, never lost, and the dialogue only made the writing feel smoother. The characters were fantastic, and Tully is such a well-written and fleshed out character. He battles himself so much, making impactful, world-altering decisions. In the end, he questions himself and his actions, just like I have throughout the book; not in a judgemental way, but pondering on what I would've done in that situation (fair to say, I'm just glad I'm not in his boots). His obsession over "truth" and making sure the public knows about it, money or not, is a major characteristic. Sometimes, he's so into the truth, he doesn't care about that last remaining 5% of doubt, so long as 95% of it makes sense, even if the actual truth was hiding in those 5%.
There are a lot of important themes in this book from the obvious one about climate damages to having an AI ruling over all of humanity. Worse, putting him to power means certain enslavement, for the sake of humanity's survival. But what he does may potentially save the human race. So what would you choose? "Salvation or freedom"? And then, at some point, let's not forget technology as a core theme. Solomon is essentially programmed to save humanity, but can you truly trust an AI? Or the theme of truth vs lie; is truth actually better for the mass if it can cause a disaster? Or about the rich, once again, living comfortably in the secluded New Carthage, literally in a bubble (dome) while the rest of the world essentially cooked or flooded with other natural disasters? Coffee and wine in hand while real log fires are banned everywhere else?
The plot isn't all about morality, climate, and AI though. At one point, it goes from the truth about that heatwave to a whodunit where Tully teams up with a New Carthage commander and chief security officer, October, to investigate who was behind the death of an important person, as well as a friend. When another death occurs, the case becomes even more personal than it already was and it will loop into so many directions until you suspect everyone except Tully and October as the perpetrator. Then, old suspects get ruled out, only to be looped back in, then back out again. And when the "impossible to manipulate" data seems to show traits of having been manipulated and forged after all?
All in all, a fantastic book. I can't get it out of my head. Solid writing, great characters full of details and flaws, engaging dialogue and world, so many things are connected to everything else in the book that it's mind blowing. I don't know if the end was to be a cliffhanger for the next book or it's meant to actually end like that, but I enjoyed the suspense of those last few chapters leading up to a pretty good ending, in my opinion. After that last discovery was made, all of the dots and puzzle pieces fell into place and it feels like ice water is thrown on you; a helpless feeling where you're left to watch the end unfold, bound to your chair with no other option. If this was in fact a series, I'd totally be down to read the next book, but as a standalone, the suspense felt just right. Fantastic book either way.
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