Hydrogen Steel [Paperback]

K. A. Bedford (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 15, 2006

When retired top homicide inspector Zette McGee, late of Winter City, Ganymede, gets called out of her mysterious retirement to help Kell Fallow, a desperate former android accused unjustly of murdering his wife and children, she knows she has to help him, for Zette has a secret she is desperate to keep, and Fallow knows all about it.

With the help of her best friend, the elderly but very suave former secret agent Gideon Smith, and his ridiculously impressive personal starship, the Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time, Zette sets out (a) to help the accused man, but also (b) to keep Gideon from finding out her own awful secret, even as everything they learn in the investigation keeps pointing to it.

But when Kell Fallow is killed by a bomb he didn't know was buried in his guts, and when a homebrew android identical to Zette destroys her home on the luxurious Serendipity habitat, Gideon and Zette go on the run, only to run afoul of sabotage, spies, nasty infections, and bad guys galore and ordinary machines come to relentless, murderous life.

The case will take Zette and Gideon on a terrifying journey into the darkest reaches of human space, in pursuit of an ancient truth -- and will bring her into deadly contact with that truth's keeper, the awesomely powerful firemind, Hydrogen Steel, an artificial consciousness evolved far beyond its original design, and which is utterly determined to keep that same truth from getting out, at any cost.

Hydrogen Steel is a tense and thrilling mystery within a mystery, a tale of secrets and truth, and a journey to the limits of existence--and a bit beyond!

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School—Hydrogen Steel features a main character who has only recently figured out that she's a machine. As she spirals into an identity crisis, she wonders which of her memories were implanted and whether an android is worthy of love. The story takes off when an old friend arrives with a bomb in his stomach. This novel covers much of the same terrain as Phillip K. Dick's work, including Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Bedford's novel features a similarly vulnerable and confused protagonist, reality is fluid, and no one can quite say what it means to be human. But he also offers a more humane take than Dick ever gave his subjects, with characters who are amiable and sane compared to Dick's usual misanthropic outcasts. Action is nonstop, and there are endless plot twists in this satisfying story. Bedford makes the far-out seem familiar: spaceships have make and model numbers, interplanetary travel can be done business class. This familiarity brings readers back to the story's heart. These people may be enhanced with robotics and nanocomputers, but they're really not so different from us. The author builds a well-realized portrait of someone trying to understand who she is, something that will resonate with almost any teen.—Emma Coleman, Berkeley Public Library, CA
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About the Author

K. A. Bedford was born in Fremantle, and attended both Curtin and Murdoch University in Perth where he studied writing, theatre, and philosophy prior to his becoming actively involved in the Australian SF community. HYDROGEN STEEL is his third novel. He lives with his wife, Michelle, near Perth, Western Australia.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 14 and up
  
• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing; 1 edition (August 15, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1894063201
• ISBN-13: 978-1894063203
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,242,810 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A gem of a novel, July 12, 2007

By 

Paul Lappen (Manchester, CT USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hydrogen Steel (Paperback)

Zette McGee is a private investigator, and former cop, in a habitat on Ganymede. She abruptly retired from the force, rather than risk exposure of a personal secret. McGee is called out of retirement by a frantic phone call from android Kell Fallow, who knows her secret, and who swears he did not kill his family. Before Fallow can reach her, he is killed by a bomb in his gut.

At every step in the investigation, McGee, and Gideon Smith, a friend with a shadowy past, are stopped cold. It is the work of a firemind called Hydrogen Steel. Think of an artificial intelligence that has had eons of time (about a hundred years in human time) to grow and evolve. It can do a lot more than just read minds, for instance. Wherever they are, it can disable their ship, leaving them stranded in space. It can infect their neural implants with all sorts of major viruses. It can send an android that looks identical to McGee to destroy her residence. It can create intruders out of thin air, then disappear into thin air, to kill anyone it wishes. Hydrogen Steel can also infect McGee and Smith with bombs identical to the one that killed Fallow, forcing them to get quantum scans of their brains, and those scans downloaded into new bodies.

Hydrogen Steel's mission is to prevent any release of information regarding how the Earth disappeared years before. There wasn't any rubble from its destruction, just "poof." Another firemind, Otaru, finds out the truth, but knows that it will not survive the expected battle with Hydrogen Steel.

This is a gem of a novel. It's a really good mystery/thriller; how does anyone deal with an entity that can reach into your DNA, and do something nasty? It's also quite mind blowing, and is very much worth reading.

2.0 out of 5 stars A Japanese themed Artificial Intelligent helping detective in infowar, July 1, 2010

By 

Jari Aalto (Finland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hydrogen Steel (Paperback)

Zette McGee, a former Homicide inspector, gets a phone call. An android Kell Fallow is in trouble. He is being accused of murder. And he knows Zette's hidden secret: she is a property of Cytex Systems. An android that should not be self-aware. Zette promises to meet Kell at the cargo dock but she needs a little expert assistance. Gideon smith is retired "diplomat" who has hazy past that he won't talk about. He is just the person to trust. But nothing is as seems. Kell is blown up, or rather, the liquid bomb he had not known to carry was ignited as he landed. Next Zette's property is invaded and the HouseMind has no records of the intruder -- other than it was herself down to the DNA samples gathered from the air. Double. Why? What purpose? Gideon and Zette decide to depart to Kell's home world to find out, but during waiting for wormhole tube clearance, Gideon's military-surplus ShipMind was penetrated like butter. Who would have intrusion infoware like that? What powers are they faced against that try to stop their investigation?

After a very good detective story, the pace picks up and and everything that can be though of is crammed into the story: high speed chase through wormholes, the philosophical aspect what it means to be android but think like a human, rejuvenating medical procedures that allow one's brains to be transferred to another body, cyberpunk attacks that are beyond military grade, void space samurai entities, Japanese Otaru firemind which is one of the remnant of self aware AIs escaped beyond human control, and secret government cover up to "what happened to earth" (see previous book Eclipse). The Japanese culture is magnificent, but having a firemind Otaru modeled after it -- Geishas, Samurais and all -- is corny. The science that is introduced in the book is very creative, but stretches so far that it has no limits at all. Humans can live forever? Fireminds have already travelled the whole universe? Nanotech is so advanced that it is undetectable? The world is full of miracles that have no obvious boundaries what is possible. Yet more and more is introduced, like immortality "between the time gaps" as Otaru saves the lead figures. The philosophical questions of what is to be a human if the brains can be be scanned to other bodies, or if an android can think like a human, are fundamental questions of sole existence. Yet they are introduced like throwing a ball with left hand. Everything is miraculously solved, ice cube (Hydrogen Steel Firemind) is Godlike, yet naively trapped at the end and the android hero becomes immortal.

Two (2) stars. Written in 2007 this is loosely a book 2 in the same universe as Eclipse. The same problem that was present Eclipse book is manifested again: too much is going on and concepts introduced are beyond comprehending -- the reader detaches from the story as soon as he starts to ask "is this is possible?" The marvels of the science stack on one another in increasingly bigger blocks and the story starts to become indifferent. There are many clever ideas, very innovative science, but not all that would not have been necessary. Sticking to the promising detective start and building the mystery slowly would have accomplished the same elegantly in Asimov style. Not dull, but an exemplary of a herring salad.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A top pick for both science fiction and mystery lending libraries., March 12, 2007

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hydrogen Steel (Paperback)

It's rare to see a genuine mystery embedded into the rich fabric of a science fiction setting, but HYDROGEN STEEL accomplishes both in the tale of a retired homicide inspector Zette, called out of retirement to help a former android accused of murder. Her attempts to save Kell will endanger her own closely-held secrets and leads to personal danger when Kell is killed and her home is destroyed. You won't find many more science fiction titles holding so much gripping mystery action and twists of plot, making HYDROGEN STEEL a top pick for both science fiction and mystery lending libraries.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch