Reviews

✭✭✭✭✭ Reedsy Discovery

This novel hits the zeitgeist in a big way, with concerns about the dangers of AI much on peoples’ minds at the moment. And it starts with a bang when the private jet in which Boogie Wu is travelling crashes horrifically. Boogie Wu was working for Magenta Corporation and three years after the crash Parham, a tech journalist, is present when Magenta fires much of its workforce, proposing to replace them with various forms of AI. Parham is caught up in the riot which follows and, suspicious of Magenta’s tactics, he tries to find out more about the charismatic CEO, Tobias Tycho, and what happened to Boogie Wu. A former child mathematics prodigy she’d been working on the Connectivity Conjecture for Magenta but had been having problems with management and her own psychological state of mind at the time of the crash. Cosmo, Tycho’s ambitious right hand man, is prepared to do anything to stop Parham finding out what happened, although even he is unaware of Tycho’s ultimate plans.

Set in the near future the world-building is cleverly done and eminently believable - self-driving cars, fulfilment centres operating without human employees, police riot drones, and robots with deep-learning neural networks performing functions only previously possible in humans. People unwittingly having their neural pathways cloned is just one of the frightening scenario’s foreseen by the plot. Boogie Wu is a fascinating character, deeply flawed and clearly suffering from Asperger’s syndrome in some way, but who engages our sympathy and respect. Due to the way in which the time-shifts are structured in the book we follow her actions by flashback throughout as well as finding out, along with Parham, what is going on in the present. Cosmo’s ambition and lack of morality make him a terrifying villain and Parham, an intelligent and tenacious investigator, is a worthy hero.

I did find the way in which the time shifts were signalled a bit clunky. The sub-heading to Chapter 8 Twenty-three months and three weeks before the plane crash. Six days after being fired, for example, could have been included in the main text more subtly. I was completely taken by surprise, however, by a couple of the plot twists which really added to the enjoyment, as the book is not only exciting but also intriguing, providing plenty of food for thought. Great fun, in fact, and a very worthwhile read.

REVIEWED BY

Jennifer Hill

Jenny Hill (Jaye Sarasin) Took early retirement from teaching to write YA (The Green Enclave) and commercial fiction Published Using Literature in Language Teaching (Macmillan 1986) Jennifer Hill The Green Enclave (Parfoys Press 2017) Passionate reader, gardener, traveller

✭✭✭✭✭ Reader Views

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In the near future of “Cloudthinker,” the debut thriller by Andrew McGlinchey, Artificial Intelligence seemed like such a boon for humankind. No longer did people trudge to work to do the mundane tasks society requires. People were freed from these menial duties to pursue higher purposes in their careers. Sounds awesome! But so many people lost their jobs in such a short amount of time that the economy suffered. Surely that’s just a short-term speedbump, right? As the geniuses in the Cloudthinker labs continued to improve their product, the task-oriented AI robots began taking on more complicated duties. No longer were they just domestic cleaners, prep chefs, and self-driving cars (to name a few). Soon they were learning and acquiring new skills as they worked for humans; a sort of on-the-job training that made them more than specific task-oriented machines. That was when the proverbial train went off the tracks.

At first, this story seems like an interesting mix between the Will Smith movie I, Robot and the mega-online retailer Amazon. But that’s a gross misunderstanding of the depth of this book, making it sound like a simplified read for the under-informed. This is a story for those who appreciate rich characters with depth and personality, a storyline that is in touch with the realities of our time, and intelligent dialogue interspersed with brilliant prose, allowing the reader to fully embrace the moment. Welcome to “Cloudthinker.”

This upheaval was not accidental. Magenta, the powerhouse company that created Cloudthinker, had certain goals in mind. As the economy went into freefall and the public outrage continued to grow, few knew that this was all a part of the strategy. Including many of the scientists, engineers, and mathematicians who breathed life into the project. One of the most essential of these was a world-class mathematician with the unlikely name of Boogie Wu. Don’t let that name cause you to underestimate her. She’s a true force to be reckoned with. Unfortunately, we meet Boogie Wu on page 1 as she tumbles wing-over-tail down the airport landing strip in a fatal crash. It’s an interesting way to get our attention.

With the horrifying crash of the first chapter as our guidepost, the author deftly moves readers into the past, present and near future as Magenta’s Cloudthinker technology rapidly changes the world. There are times when the use of this literary technique can muddy the storyline for readers. But Andrew McGlinchey has done this in such a way that the reader retains a full understanding of the timeline of events. Even as this complex storyline reels out like a 60lb fishing line with a 200lb tarpon thrashing on the hook.

The characters within this high-tech thriller are fascinating, flawed, and scintillating. Boogie herself is a lot of fun considering she is, at heart, a math nerd. She likes numbers because they don’t lie- like people do. As with many individuals whose IQs range into the unmeasured, Boogie simply wants to be left alone to her higher pursuits. She disdains the corporate structure and loathes being bothered by management.

Parham Nasiri, a bulldog of a tech journalist who believes there’s a big story hiding deep inside Magenta finds himself a target of the giant corporation after unwittingly being right in the middle of a coup between Magenta’s robots and the thousands of unexpectedly fired Magenta personnel the robots just replaced. His immediate upload of the event puts a bullseye on his back and makes him some unexpected friends.

Then there’s Cosmo. With a name like that, you just know he’s going to be the antagonist (apologies to any Cosmos reading this…). Cosmo is slimy, deceitful on his best days, and couldn’t tell the whole truth if his life depended on it. He is, without a doubt, the character we love to hate here. I’m not giving away anything by pointing that out. The author so vividly portrays Cosmo that readers will know the instant he makes his appearance that he’s an untrustworthy creep.

We’re all hearing so much about AI these days. But it seems like very few people have any idea what the real capabilities and possible consequences truly are. There are a lot of voices spouting a lot of concepts at us. It’s hard to know which “truth” to grasp. One thing is for sure- the time is perfect for this book. The author is adept at leading his readers into the technology, mathematics, psychology, and philosophy involved with AI. He does not shy away from vocabulary that may be unfamiliar to his readers, making me grateful for Kindle’s ability to instantly provide a word definition. This vocabulary is wonderfully balanced so that readers are not thrown into a jargon-rich environment that might be annoying or confusing.

This distinctly creative, imaginative, and profound debut novel will delight fans of sci-fi, thrillers/suspense stories, technothrillers, and cyberpunk. It’s perfect for those who enjoy authors like A.G. Riddle, Blake Crouch, and Neal Stephenson. Fans of general fiction who enjoy a fast-paced story with excellent characters will also find it fascinating. The flexibility of Andrew McGlinchey’s “Cloudthinker” cannot be overstated. It can be enjoyed as the un-putdownable sci-fi read it is, or savored as the thought-provoking and philosophically weighty call to arms it is as well. This book is what the reader makes of it. Whatever you take away from this read, just don’t miss it.

Reviewed by Terri Stepek for Reader Views (09/2023)