"In Our Likeness"

In Our Likeness by Bryan VanDyke

Amazon First Reads August 2024

Pages: 224 Genre: science fiction

Rating: 1 Star

Kindle Highlights

Graham Gooding is your average tech bro, working at a startup with his brilliant coworker and crush, Nessie, and their boss, David Warwick. When Nessie asks him to test her latest algorithm one day, he jumps at the chance to impress her. When poking around in the algorithm, he discovers something horrifying — the changes he makes to the database can change the real world. Graham is afraid of the power, but Warwick is excited. He can only see the possibilities. Which means that everything that Graham thought he knew about the world is at risk. Him and Nessie must work together to restore the truth before everything is lost.

I can't express how much I didn't enjoy this book. I read it all (honestly, I probably paid less attention as I got closer to the end) because I think it's a waste to DNF a free book. I hate giving books 1 star reviews because it makes me feel like I'm just a hater instead of like I'm writing a critical review, but I can't really think of a single redeeming aspect.

The main problem is that the concept was executed incredibly poorly. The AI influence never felt fully realized or properly explored. Things would happen because we needed a crazy plot without any justification for why. I understand that, to a certain extent, I need to suspend my disbelief for the sake of science fiction, but nothing made sense. What makes this AI algorithm so special? We're told that changing the database changes the real world, but like ... why? Just because? Sure, but what an unsatisfying explanation. Furthermore, why does Warwick know what's changing all the time, but other people remember and forget at random (based on what's most convenient)? Without spoiling it, it becomes clear that Graham has to go through a lot of tedious details in order to actually change something. But then later in the book, Warwick is able to seemingly change things at will (which is extra confusing because Warwick seems like an idiot). I don't need everything to be explained, but when the "science" part fully boils down to "it happens because I said so," it just seems lazy.

This book also would've been a good opportunity to explore the real life implications of AI, especially now in a society where generative AI and it's impact on the creative arts, the environment, and the spread of information is such a hot topic. In Our Likeness gets closest to discussing the latter, but only because it's the original in-universe original purpose of the algorithm. I found this book to be lacking in any critical thought on the subject it claimed to be focusing on, which ultimately made it feel empty and soulless.

So, you know, perhaps you could say were embracing the AI theme a little too much.

The writing was generally just very weak. Instead of having a progressive feeling of uneasiness and uncertainty, everything felt fairly straightforward until about 75% of the way through, at which point everything went completely off the rails and I could barely follow along. We also started the book in the past (as in, Graham's first person narration would say things like "I couldn't have known then what would happen later"), but somewhere along the way we caught up to real time. In theory that's clever, but in reality it was just an abrupt change in narration style. Additionally, in the beginning he definitely talked to the reader in a way that was never acknowledged or justified later on.

Instead of having a story made up of Graham doing things, there were a lot of flashbacks and existential musings. Most things happened to Graham or in spite of him (people like Warwick had to tell him what to do), and no one likes a passive narrator. When he wasn't trying to prove to me how smart and deep he was, Graham was being really weird about his crush. Nessie, despite being trapped in this story, wasn't so bad. But the way Graham's crush manifested was so creepy and uncomfortable. He had an alarming lack of boundaries, constantly crossing lines that apparently no one else seemed to think was strange. Then his whole "I just can't tell her how I feel" conflict felt so juvenile and friendzone-y. I just wanted him to start acting like an adult and not a teenager. Use your words, Graham, and please leave this poor woman alone.

It's also worth acknowledging that this book takes place in 2018. I mean, sure, set your fake story in whatever time you like, but it felt weird to bring us back in time to discuss a future version of modern day technology.

Honestly, I'm just tired of having to think about this book. I feel like I've put more thought into it throughout this review than the author put into it, which is a bad feeling to leave a book with.