“Hello World” by Rose Sinclair and Alexandra Tauber

This is the most recent book from the Great Ace DigitalBook Box! It’s a neat one, this story’s about Scott a hacker who is looking for his sister. Thing is, she’s been taken by a company called UltSyn, who enlists humans only to wipe their memories and turn them into computers. In order to find out more about where his sibling went, he kidnaps one of these human computers (called HIDs) named Sonia. Sonia and Scott end up becoming friends, and then fall in love. They team up with another hacktivist group in their quest to take UltSyn down.

Now I didn’t love this book at first. I thought Scott was a bit of an asshole and didn’t really care for him, but Sonia was intriguing. So I kept reading, and as you learn more about Scott and his quest for his sister you learn to care more about him. By the end when it is revealed (very casually) that Scott is asexual, I was pretty happy with it. Asexuals are usually depicted as cold and calculating, but having an ace at the center of an action story was pretty cool. And letting us get to know him first was definitely a good call. He is also portrayed as a full character without his asexuality, there’s nothing really in the book to indicate his sexual orientation other than that is how he identifies. I quite liked this, since it meant that it wasn’t a big deal and it wasn’t the center of his character.

A major theme of the book is smashing binaries. Interestingly, there aren’t any prominent gender non-conforming characters, which I think would have been an excellent addition. It almost feels missing without it. But the main binary being addressed is that between human and machine. Sonia is referred to as a computer at first, but grows into her humanness as she regains more of her memories. A similar parallel happens with Scott, initially he seems distant but also grows into his emotions. He has a close relationship with the technology around him, his computer Hallie basically counts as a character, but his distinction as a human is also never really challenged. It’s a cool conceit for a book, but I would have liked to see these ideas played with more.

It is a neat book, some cool ideas and characters within it. Give it a read if you like action or science fiction, it’s sure to open some doors to ideas. I just wish that it stepped through the door a little further.