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Shamus Young

The Other Kind of Life Paperback – December 3, 2018

by Shamus Young (Author)

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THE THING THEY SAID COULDN'T HAPPEN, HAPPENED.

Fresh out of jail, Max finds himself drawn into the mystery of what's gone wrong with the robots in his city. He's forced to rely on the help of Jennifer/Andrew, a body hopping robot driven to solve the case before her product line is recalled.

They need to figure out what went wrong while staying one step ahead of the corporations, gangsters, and crooked cops that are hunting them across the city.

Print length

391 pages
Language

English
Publication date

December 3, 2018
Dimensions

6 x 0.98 x 9 inches
ISBN-10

1790478510
ISBN-13

978-1790478514
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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Independently published (December 3, 2018)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 391 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1790478510
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1790478514
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.26 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.98 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,707,617 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #6,961 in Cyberpunk Science Fiction (Books)
- #72,171 in Crime Thrillers (Books)

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Shamus Young

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Shamus Young is a programmer specializing in old-school graphics techniques. He's the author of the blog Twenty Sided. He's the creator of the webcomics DM of the Rings and Stolen Pixels. He's one of the hosts of the videogame commentary series Spoiler Warning. He's tired of writing about himself in the third person.

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Dennis Stewart

Tagline and synopsis don't do it justice

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 23, 2019

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I was worried when I first saw this book's plot synopsis and generic cover. "AI goes crazy and kills people" has been done to death. Fortunately, I was very wrong. The Other Kind of Life is an original, realistic, and refreshing take on some classic ideas in science-fiction.

The Other Kind of Life could be described as a cyberpunk mystery, but is a bit closer to our present reality than most stories in the genre. There are robots and self-driving cars, although they work just about as well as cutting edge technology does in our world: passably, and only under ideal conditions.

Science-fiction fans will be familiar with Asimov's Laws of Robotics (First Law – A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm). The scientists and engineers of Young's world are too, and nobody would be as stupid as to design a robot with a switch that can be flipped from "good" to "evil." There's a lot more to the mystery of the robot murders than just "they got hacked" or "they decided to rise up".

The protagonist, Max, is intelligent but not a computer hacker; he needs instruction in how robots work as much as you or I. Young does a better job explaining how real world AI "thinks" and machine learning works than most people who do it for a living, let alone novelists. Characters also discuss ethical dilemmas and philosophical questions that come up in this field, exploring multiple angles while never beating you over the head with a "correct" answer.

What Max lacks in computer skills he makes up for with street smarts and local knowledge, which he uses when running cons and planning heists. Worldbuilding flows naturally in conversation rather than through exposition dumps. Over the course of the book, we learn much about Rivergate (the fictional South American city where the book is set), from underworld etiquette to its architectural history.

The ending wraps things up nicely, though it felt rushed compared to the rest of the novel. The characters, their conflicts, and the central mystery kept my rapt attention for 387 pages. Even if you were turned off by the plot synopsis, I highly recommend you give this book a shot.

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Eric Finn

Fantastic sci-fi mystery

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 4, 2019

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This book kept me up late at night on multiple occasions, as it was too interesting to put down. The way AI is portrayed is distinct from a lot of other sci-fi I've seen in media. It's clear that Shamus Young has a good grasp on the theory of modern real-world machine learning, and used that knowledge to craft a mystery that ties in with the snippets of philosophical exploration of personhood and AI psychology (which are, in themselves, interesting and manage to be a lot more concise than you'd expect from that sort of thing).

I felt the worldbuilding was also excellent; every detail provided gave depth to (or was necessary for) the plot, and it was delivered without long slogs of exposition, but rather with details in passing or vignettes that also were interesting stories in their own right.

The pacing felt perfect. There isn't much to expand on here.

All in all, if anybody is interested in cyberpunk grifters, AI, and/or detective stories, I heartily recommend this book.

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Joe H

An absolute masterpiece!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 5, 2019

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I found myself absolutely shocked by the concepts for the AI in this book. It's so relevant to how we are actually expecting AI to work. It's also so far detached from the usual doom and gloom AI stories and more akin to something I can see happening. The world Mr. Young builds in this book feels real and alive. If you don't have a copy of this book you're doing yourself an injustice.

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Customer

Well crafted story, excellent tech noir

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 8, 2019

So I just stayed up till 5 in the morning reading this book. I'm biased because I'm already a fan of the author, but it's really, really good and I wanted to recommend it.
It's thoughtful, well built, and it never cheats the audience out of seeing how the protagonist pulls something off. The story and setting are incredibly cohesive, take no shortcuts, and build a very distinct world.
The elevator pitch about a con artist solving robot murders sounds pretty trite in summary, so I'll give you the cool parts:

1: It's set in a custom world, fantasy style, with no connection to our world, which gives the author a lot of freedom and neatly exposed how accustomed I am to seeing this in fantasy books with the slightest hint of magic, and how much it throws me when a hard scifi story exists in the same kind of place.

2: Everything about the AIs carefully considers how they would develop, rather than just writing mechanical humans. They're wonderful and alien in small, interesting ways. And the book is saturated with conversations about them, their drives and design challenges. It feels like a sucessor to Free Radical, one of his earliest books, but more polished.

3: This book takes no shortcuts. It shows you how the protagonist talks his way past people, plans his heists, and even how he finds and maintains his contacts. (Transmet had a habit of letting Spider summon up past contacts whenever he needed a lead, before burning them, making me wonder how he ever made those connections. This stood out in contrast.)
I love stories about characters who are smarter than me, and this one shows him being smart. Tropes flow naturally from the characters, world, and circumstances, so much so that I think the book essentially demonstrates how to do them right. Every step of the investigation feels earned. As trite as the buddy-cop-robot-murder-investigation premise feels, for me, this might be The buddy-cop-robot-murder-investigation book.

Bonus stuff: There's a DM's fascination with how things got the way they are in the setting, from infrastructure to beaucracy, to technology, to politics. An analyst's perspective that informs pretty much everything else.
Young has a real knack for making careful analysies of situations and emotional states almost absurdly engaging, and he has a focus on workable AI designs that I really enjoy. His writing voice shows through in places in the novel's narration and dialogue, but it has the affect of making the characters seem more thoughtful and intelligent than you often get with this genre so I don't mind it.
There's not much hacking in this one, which is a shame because he does it well elsewhere, but what's here is solid and believable, and the social engineering probably make up for whatever's missing.
I'm probably overselling it, but if you enjoy scifi, I'd say it's worth it for the AIs and the world at the least.

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James Moore

No Crying Robots

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 6, 2020

Shamus Young does an excellent job of taking a cliche concept and reimagining it. With a background in computer programming and blogging, Young describes a world of robots and androids that is both refreshingly realistic and easy to understand. His version of technology is the clear evolution of our own, and it's more interesting for it.

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Jonathan G

Engaging story, interesting philosophy about AI

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 18, 2019

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This book has an interesting plot about murder investigation, set in a near-future sci-fi city which explores the implications of advancing robot and AI technology on society. The main characters are fascinating, and have an interesting relationship as they work together on the case.

One thing I particularly enjoyed is how the author uses the time the characters spend travelling around the city as an opportunity to open up conversations about philosophy and ethics in regard to AI and robotics. These discussions are thought-provoking and offer multiple viewpoints, and they contribute to the excellent pacing of the book - there's always something to look forward to without the story feeling rushed.

A great read!

One person found this helpful

Lars Hoffmann

Gedankenexperiment im Cyberpunk-Gewand

Reviewed in Germany 🇩🇪 on July 19, 2019

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English Below

Der zweite gedruckte Roman von Shamus Young (Free Radical wurde nicht offiziell gedruckt). Diesmal in einem Cyberpunk-Szenario mit Menschen nachempfundenen Robotern, selbstfahrenden Autos und fliegenden Überwachungsdronen. Nur nicht mit ganz so viel Feuerkraft.
Es ist diesmal nicht so leicht sich in das Buch hineinzulesen, da es diesmal nur einen Protagonisten gibt, Max Law, und die Perspektive auch nie geändert wird. Wer den Goldenen Kompass gelesen hat kennt das. Dort gab es auch nur die Perspektive von Lyra Belaqua. Dadurch dauert es eine Weile bis andere Figuren zu Charakteren werden und nicht für Leute mit denen Max 2 bis 3 Sätze wechselt. Durch die viele Gedankensprache fällt der Name „Max“ auf den ersten hundert Seiten auch exorbitant oft.
Erst als die zweite Hauptfigur, Jennifer Five die Bühne betritt nimmt die eigentliche Geschichte Formen an. Drei Mordfälle nach gleichem Muster wollen aufgelöst werden. Dummerweise hat der Leser die große Frage des „Wie“ wahrscheinlich deutlich früher gelöst als es die Protagonisten tun (Bei mir nach ca. der Hälfte des Buches). Was etwas wundert, da diese eigentlich als sehr schlau dargestellt werden. Nur das „Wer“ ist bis zum Ende nebulös. Dem Wie wird in der Geschichte allerdings weit mehr Bedeutung zugesprochen, als dem Wer. Es werden etliche Gedankenexperimente über mehrere Seiten durchgesprochen. Das Trolly-Problem, das Ball in Loch-Problem, Kopierschutzmaßnahmen von Spieleherstellern (es ist schließlich Shamus) und vieles mehr. Oft sind diese Stellen etwas zu lang, da die Bedeutung und das Ende der Diskussion vom Leser früh vorausgeahnt werden kann. Dadurch lernt der Leser die Figuren und die Welt allerdings auch sehr gut kennen.
Action im Buch ist vorhanden, aber nur kurze und seltene Passagen – ungewöhnlich für das Cyberpunk-Genre.
Positiv ist das Worldbuilding des Buches hervorzuheben. Die Stadt Rivergate und ihre Umgebung sind gut beschrieben, inklusive Wirtschaft und Geschichte. Auch die berühmte Frage „But what do they eat?“ wird beantwortet.

Da der Leser über weite Strecken des Buches schlauer ist als die Protagonisten fehlt dem Buch leider deutlich an Spannung. Da die Protagonisten nach ihrer Beschreibung allerdings schlau genug sein sollten geht auch die Immersion verloren. Ständig fragt man sich: Warum sehen Max und Jen den Wald vor lauter Bäumen nicht. Das ist jedoch kein Grund das Buch beiseite zu legen. Es ist bis zum Ende hin gut geschrieben und das Wer will ja auch noch geklärt werden. Kein schlechtes Buch, aber The Witch Watch desselben Autors würde ich eher empfehlen.

The second printed novel of Shamus Young (Free Radical wasn’t printed). This time he uses a Cyberpunk scenario with human shaped robots, self-driving vehicles and flying surveillance drones. But with less firepower than your average Cyberpunk. Do not expect GITS or Alita, more Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
It is not that easy to get into this book as it was with the previous The Witch Watch. The reason is that this book is told from one perspective and only this one. Kind like in His Dark Materials: Golden Compass did follow Lyra Belaquas perspective throughout the whole book, The Other Kind Of Life follows ist protagonist Max Law. It takes a while until other figurines Max meets will become characters and not just randos he exchanges 2 or 3 sentences. The name Max will probably be the only name you read in the first 50 pages and you’ll read it a lot.
Only after the second protagonist Jennifer Five enters the story (roughly 120 pages in), the story gets rollin‘. Three murders are to investigate. The big question is how anyone could manipulate a robot into a killbot. Sadly the reader can answer the how-question way before Max and Jen can do. Which is surprising because both are pictured really smart (not just by words). Half the book I asked myself why those two couldn’t figure it out and suggested that Max just plays dumb to put the blame on some specific people. The only question the reader has until the end is: Who did it? But the How seems much more important in this story.
Max, Jen and other people exchange a lot of thought experiments to figure out the How. Some thought experiments are explained over several pages, like the Trolly Problem, the Ball In A Hole Problem or Copyright issues of game publishers (it’s still Shamus ). These sections often felt to long as I got the message it tries to deliver early on. Good thing is: the reader gets to know these people very well.
Really good in this book is the world building. The city of Rivergate and its surroundings are well described, including economy and history. The famous question of „But what do they eat?“ is answered as well.

As the reader is smarter as the protagonists for most of the book it lacks suspense. The immersion is broken as reader asks himself: Why doesn’t they figure it out? But no reason to set the book aside. It is well written until the end with likable characters and the who-question lingers until the end. Not a bad book, but I liked The Witch Watch better.

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THE THING THEY SAID COULDN'T HAPPEN, HAPPENED.

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