Glitches of Gods
by Jurgen “Jojo” Appelo
Style: Science Fiction & Fantasy
ISBN: 9789083423616
Print Size: 524 pages
Reviewed by Andrea Marks-Joseph
A genius engineer’s righteous reluctance to fine-tune the subsequent huge factor in AI is interrupted by sudden bouts of rebooting himself into parallel realities.
AI-engineer (and our protagonist) Julien is finest described by his colleagues as a tough however sensible coworker. He could have “helped create a near-sentient AI[, but] the factor went rogue, bought some folks killed, pissed just a few others off, and stirred up fairly some hassle. It was essentially the most thrilling episode in our company historical past. The corporate decommissioned the AI, and Julien’s been working beneath the radar ever since.” That each one sounds honest, and any affordable particular person would suppose that Julien actually deserves a break to decompress, however that’s not fairly the way it’s going.
The corporate is now pressuring Julien to assist construct a greater model of the AI entity, correcting errors they haven’t fairly recognized but—with an pressing, corporate-led timeline to satisfy a deadline of attending an trade expo. Oh, and there’s additionally the small element of Julien operating “the annoying, people-killing digital assistant he was not presupposed to have” as his private AI system at house.
Julien and Orec (the AI) have an entertaining, intimate, familial relationship. Their shared historical past and humorousness is straight away obvious. On high of all that, Julien out of the blue finds himself thrust into new near-realities, the place there are slight modifications to his actual life. Not solely is it occurring unexpectedly, nevertheless it’s occurring repeatedly, and so every time he should re-investigate his actuality—usually reliving traumatic occasions.
Irrespective of which actuality Julien finds himself in, he should go to work. Julien does his job reluctantly, stalling updates as and when he can, primarily as a result of he’s (rightfully and righteously) conflicted about his function in any additional impending AI-related doom. He’s additionally grappling with grief and guilt for the results of the failure final yr, which led to the dying of twenty folks, his father being considered one of them.
Exterior of labor, Julien has two pals, Chris and Dennie, who spend most of their time collectively planning memes to warn folks of AI’s dangers. “Farfetched because it appeared, memes held a specific energy over folks. A couple of authorities had been toppled with the assistance of some extensively shared pictures and slogans.” That line by itself would have offered me on this ebook! However there’s a lot extra to like about this intricate, riveting story by creator Jurgen Appelo.
Glitches of Gods’ worldbuilding is so genuine that—regardless of this being a future far more superior than ours—it feels unquestionably relatable to the present-day reader. I really like that Julien’s social circle communicates as in the event that they’re sick of one another, however clearly maintain their friendships shut. I instantly fell in line with the dynamic between Julien and his in-house AI assistant, Orec, and understood how communication varies with Julien’s office-mate slash far-fetched work crush, and the way that differs from Julien’s disdain for his boring colleagues.
I really like that Julien’s colleagues sort of hate him for seeming like he’s not invested within the challenge they’re engaged on, despite the fact that he has each proper to be. They must be cordial with him as a result of they want his genius to finish the challenge. It’s all so actual! (“How are you aware our present method isn’t worse?” Julien asks of his crew. “How are you aware it received’t kill a thousand folks as an alternative of simply twenty? How are you aware it received’t go after my mom this time?”) Identical to in actual life—and particularly now—these individuals are well-placed to wrestle with pressing philosophical points about the way forward for society and the constraints of know-how, however as an alternative they’re confined to conversations about deadlines and half-hearted motivations as a result of they must hold their jobs. “If it’s going to occur anyway, it higher be us. We should lead this race.”
Julien’s crew is aware of they’re the nice guys on this battle to create essentially the most superior AI first (and due to this fact going to market first), however they’ll’t know for certain in such a secretive, high-stakes trade. There’s additionally a insurgent motion that’s completely in opposition to AI, whose activism turns into extra drastic because the story progresses. Their protests grow to be private (and immediately harmful) for Julien the deeper he will get concerned within the results of the growing disaster.
Julien could also be my favourite fictional character of the yr, besides I genuinely don’t know whether or not I’ve absolutely registered that he’s not an actual particular person. I stay in awe of him like a professor whose work I simply found, and I additionally actually wish to be his pal. Julien is laugh-out-loud humorous even when he’s having depressing banter together with his AI assistant. He’s doing his finest in an not possible state of affairs.
Jurgen Appelo’s writing ensures that we get a full sense of who Julien is—not solely as a personality, however as a completely realized human, somebody relatable and enjoyable and shocking. He’s somebody you’d wish to be pals with, too. Whereas we get to learn this story from varied factors of view, and every perspective grounds Glitches of Gods in its scale, scope, and emotional depth, Julien is the particular person I saved studying for. I needed to maintain hanging out with him. The foremost philosophical and technological conundrums that these characters take care of mirror my very own considerations and pursuits, and I needed to listen to from his viewpoint. Julien surprises his pals and he surprises the reader in ways in which really feel so true to the human expertise. To say that Appelo has introduced him to life appears like an understatement.
Julien is the one one that stood loyally by his coworker Mart throughout his transition, and at the same time as his actuality and sanity is known as into query, he commonly checks in with Mart about his wellbeing. Julien himself is queer and single, having fun with all the thrill of the total spectrum of queer intercourse out there to him. Although he does not get pleasure from when his digital assistant insists on itemizing the precise gender identities of each courting prospect out there each single time Julien asks him to plan a hook-up for the night time
“For the sake of the gods. Simply tick all fifty containers, alright?”
“Understood.”
“Cisgender are welcome too, assuming they nonetheless exist.”
“I’ll make each effort to seek out them.”
“To be clear, I’m searching for only one visitor tonight. I’m not a spa.”
“There may be somebody on my checklist of candidates who self-identifies as two people. How would you want me to categorize them?”
“Gods, Orec. Do I appear like an accountant?”
Jurgen Appelo completely encapsulates Julien’s frustration with the monotony of manually deciding on all genders on a digital courting app in an period the place know-how has exponentially expanded the probabilities of gender. Regardless of the admin of placing himself on the market, Julien has unimaginable, enthusiastic intercourse with many alternative genders all through the ebook.
This story reads very very similar to a for-us-by-us novel by way of its queerness. There are genuinely humorous, borderline-inappropriate jokes that really feel like they’re lifted from real-life conversations between queer pals, and it’s by no means on the expense of somebody’s dignity. The queerness is so informal and but so deliberate. It’s incredible to learn and can make this novel an everlasting favourite of many, many queer readers for years to return.
One in all my favourite examples of the care Appelo has taken on this side is that once we learn chapters from Mart, Julien’s trans colleague’s perspective, it consists of conversations together with his mother with out explicitly exposing us to any of her transphobia. We all know that Mart’s mother and father aren’t supportive, however we by no means hear their phrases (and due to this fact trans readers are spared from hate speech on the web page) as a result of these calls are solely written with Mart’s dialogue.
“Sure, I do know that—
“Sure, I—
“Mother—
“Mother, I don’t suppose—
“For the sake of the gods, Mother, shut up. Okay? Simply shut up. This isn’t about you; that is about me—my identification, my journey. It took me years to know this, to arrange for this, and now it’s achieved. Okay? It’s achieved.”
This ebook is a delight; it’s a present to the style and for our instances. I’d extremely advocate Glitches of Gods in the event you get pleasure from imagining the sorts of technological advances that secret groups of engineers are growing behind the scenes of our lives. This can be a nice ebook for anybody who’s fascinated by how our lives would possibly change with extra superior and built-in tech—each positively and negatively.
Glitches of Gods is about in a world the place body-modification is extensively out there, making bionic folks a typical fixture in on a regular basis life; the place billboards have the know-how to show digital actuality graphics; the place trans folks have medical tech like testosterone calibrators at house.
When machines start malfunctioning round Julien, it’s disastrous on beforehand unimaginable ranges: “Yesterday, a girl’s hand had tried to crush her parakeet, and that morning, a person had been thrown in entrance of a practice by his personal legs.” When Julien begins to see patterns in how his actuality falls aside, “the streets are clogged with malfunctioning automobiles” earlier than different folks discover how widespread the AI errors are. “It’s as if the machines are celebrating, tossing folks round like confetti,” Julien remarks, looking on the destruction in motion.
There’s a storyline that will really feel like a spoiler to debate particularly, however I’ll say that it’s lovely—unexpectedly pure-hearted, heartwarming, and foolish in the easiest way. The creator crafted an alternate actuality with such profound, magnificent found-family power that once we lose it in a brand new timeline, I had heartbroken tears welling up in my eyes and my chin actually wobbled—which I didn’t suppose truly occurred outdoors of books and melodramatic actors in cleaning soap operas!
It’s an absolute reduction that now we have this story presently. Whereas studying this novel, I couldn’t cease telling folks how relieved and grateful I felt to have this story discover its option to me at this very second. I don’t know if there’s been a extra well-placed, perfectly-suited ebook for our instances than Glitches of Gods is for us proper now. And the very best half is that it’s not all-warning, neither is it all-digital-paradise. This novel is a rollercoaster trip of enthralling, high-stakes plot-twists and unusual, sensible, open-hearted individuals who we develop to like. I might write one-thousand phrases alone nearly why Glitches of Gods is an ideal match for followers of every of those tales, however I’ll merely checklist them as an alternative: When you loved the Peacock sequence Mrs. Davis, the Disney+ sequence Wandavision, the novel One Verse Multi by Sander Santiago, Prime Video’s Add, AppleTV+’s present Mythic Quest, and different multiverse media—go get this ebook proper now.
The motion on this ebook doesn’t ever decelerate. I can’t categorical how a lot story and landscape-shifting twists Jurgen Appelo packs into this story. Glitches of Gods works simply in addition to a science fiction and fantasy novel because it does as a love letter to what makes us human—and as a showcase for the whirlwind of emotion that hits you each time you’re reminded that life merely doesn’t care the way you’re feeling; it’s gonna throw chaos at you while you least count on it.
Close to the tip, at a stage of the ebook the place—in another novel—one main reveal and doubtlessly one minor reveal would start to wrap this story up and go away you breathlessly ready for the subsequent one, Glitches of Gods races towards its conclusion with a number of last chapters’ price of world-rocking reveals that had me reacting bodily: There’s an ending so stunning that I needed to remind myself to breathe afterwards.
I can’t thank the creator sufficient for Glitches of Gods present as a reminder there’s all the time human-made artwork on the market for individuals who search it; that there are nonetheless individuals who care about humanity and who care about creating intelligent tales that convey a robust message. I couldn’t advocate this story extra, particularly in the event you love sci-fi and imaginative future-tech, however are feeling overwhelmed or disheartened by the present mainstream dialog round AI and the way it has permeated the zeitgeist. I’ll go away you with a quote from the novel that resonated with me and divulges the spirit of this sensible, creative, needed story: “We nonetheless have a lot to do: Make memes, make noise, get the phrase out.”
Thanks for studying Andrea Marks-Joseph’s ebook overview of Glitches of Gods by Jurgen “Jojo” Appelo! When you favored what you learn, please spend some extra time with us on the hyperlinks beneath.
