Andrew Smith's Reviews > DELIO, Phase One

We learn about ‘the event’ through the eyes of a number of people: some in New York City, some in London, and others in a secret secure facility in Roswell, New Mexico. In Roswell, the first fully-aware artificial intelligence has been created, called DELIO. It’s creators, and in fact, all of the security at the site has one guiding principle – DELIO must never be allowed to escape. It’s just too dangerous.

The timeline and location jumps around quite a bit, but in fact this turns out to be an effective way of telling how DELIO does escape and how this impacts the world, whilst at the same time describing how this AI monster was created. The characters impacted in New York and London are a mixed bunch who each have something of their own story told. The best is a NYC cop who’s about to kill himself when it all kicks off. The worst are all of the British characters, each being irritating beyond belief and totally over the top.

This is the opening episode of a longer story. In effect it’s a scene setter. I like apocalyptic tales. They give the writer free range to describe situations we’ve never witnessed, to create a world from scratch. Ok, it’s a damaged world, but the rules we are governed by are all ripped up, and a new order needs to be created. Unless it’s complete disorder, of course. It’s too early to know which way this one will go, but by the end of this episode we’ll have already received a big pointer suggesting one likely direction. It does sound interesting.

I listened to an audio version, which probably increased my dislike of the characters from my side of the Atlantic, but which was otherwise excellently performed. I look forward to seeing/hearing what happens next… but with that singular reservation.