Imagine if Siri…took over Heaven.
Akemi Dawn Bowman blew me away with her high concept sci-fi/fantasy genre blend, THE INFINITY COURTS. On her way to a party, Nami Miyamoto is killed in a freak accident, but she doesn’t die peacefully – instead, her soul appears in a place called Infinity, which is an afterlife taken over by Ophelia, the world’s leading smart-device AI. Saved by a rebellion of ‘awake’ human souls not under Ophelia’s mind control, she works as part of a team to take down the AI by infiltrating the AI city. Full of mind-twisty action, ethical dilemmas, and commentary of what makes us human, this book is great for fans of West World, Marie Lu’s Warcross, and The Matrix. Also, there’s some MIND BENDING plot twists that had me up wayyyy too late at night, practically screeching ‘what did I just read?!’ 4.5/5 stars.
Nami is a great strong character, in a way that I’ve never read before. She’s empathetic, overly sympathetic, and feels deeply, yet is not portrayed as weak. Some of the other characters test her by leaning on those emotions, but I like how her voice played so well against the harshness of the rebellion. Her relationship with Gil started off rough, and I was going to say he was almost too mean to her for it to be a true enemies-to-lovers, but I acquiesced by the end. Caelan was a wildcard I didn’t expect to love, and their connection was so full of tension! I went through so many emotions reading this…
And god, what a WILD concept. The way this afterlife works allows the souls and AI characters to bend the world around them to create new realities and landscapes. The four kingdoms of Infinity (Victory, War, Death, and Famine) mirror the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, but everyone is already dead – what does living mean when you can’t die? The part that got me was that the AIs can only imitate, not create anything new, so therefor hate humans for this ability, Watching Caelan pour his heart out to Nami made mine almost break, even though you know he’s only a program. But what if he wasn’t?? Sentience, man – it’s a weird space.
There was a lot of commentary on war and its psychology, with Nami attempting to humanize the other side while still finding out about the cruel courts the AIs are putting humans in. The suffering and revenge from the AIs puts our attitudes about our current technology into perspective, and what we will create in the next decades. I especially connected with pretending your fighting for justice when you’re actually fighting for your own fear or selfishness, something that is questioned multiple times throughout the book.
After and ending like that, I don’t know if this is a stand-alone. If it isn’t, I’m going to act up! Akemi Dawn Bowman has the AUDACITY to leave us with that ending?? I surely hope our AI overlords grant us a sequel.
amodelwhosread 