Bradley's Reviews > Machinehood

While I was pretty enthusiastic about the SF concepts in this book, hitting the intersections between normal humans, drug enhancements, human-machine hybrids, and artificial intelligence, I was unfortunately not as enthusiastic about the characters or the dark political landscape.

Mind you, I don't mind futuristic dystopias at all. I just happen to prefer them to wrapped up in slightly more interesting plots and characters and the fight for machine rights is obviously subtext. If I am to be at all honest about it, I prefer such things to be a bit more subtle and layered. The core of it was fine, but in the end, it was a bit too plain and on the nose.

I saw a lot of similarities between this and Ramez Naam's trilogy. A focus on Buddhism and getting along, class warfare, and obviously, the tech, but in the end, I much preferred Naam's trilogy.