I started reading Al Hess with Key Lime Sky and loved him. I decided to pick up his World Running Down series next. It is completely different. Key Lime Sky was about alien invasion. This is about the world after the rich have left a dying Earth.
The cities are partially run by sentient AI called Stewards. People who don’t want to live in the cities are living in small settlements in a rough existence that is partially fueled by piracy on travelers between cities.
The series starts with the novella Neuro Noir.
Neuro Noir (A World Running Down prequel novelette)
by Al HessSetting: Utah
Genres: Fiction / Romance / Science Fiction
Published on July 19, 2023
Pages: 57
Format: eBook Source: Owned
Prominent council member. Omniscient custodian of City Entry. Mystery book aficionado. As the oldest A.I. Steward existing within the network of Salt Lake City, Lysander has seen most everything.
When a death in the overcrowded and chaotic subway leaves fellow Steward Beatrice distraught and imploring Lysander to find a way to lessen the odds of it happening again, he’s happy to do what he does best: advise, console, and achieve solutions. But doing so means working with the human council member he absolutely, most assuredly does not have feelings for – no matter how perceptive and charming said council member is. And something about the issue in the subway is giving Lysander the itchy sort of dread he gets when reading his mysteries.
But Lysander’s life isn’t an impartial story plucked from his “to read” pile. As he closes in on the source of Beatrice’s problems, he realizes the situation is far more personal than he’s prepared for. If he isn’t careful, even the wisest and most experienced of Salt Lake’s Stewards will miss the clues, putting himself – and those he cares for – in danger.
This gives you a good look at how the Stewards run the automated aspects of the cities. It is also a bit of a thriller. It also introduces us to Osric, the main AI character of the next novel.
World Running Down
by Al HessSetting: Utah
Genres: Fiction / Romance / Science Fiction
Published on February 14, 2023
Pages: 400
Format: eBook Source: Owned
Valentine Weis is a salvager in the future wastelands of Utah. Wrestling with body dysphoria, he dreams of earning enough money to afford citizenship in Salt Lake City – a utopia where the testosterone and surgery he needs to transition is free, the food is plentiful, and folk are much less likely to be shot full of arrows by salt pirates. But earning that kind of money is a pipe dream, until he meets the exceptionally handsome Osric.
Once a powerful AI in Salt Lake City, Osric has been forced into an android body against his will and sent into the wasteland to offer Valentine a job on behalf of his new employer – an escort service seeking to retrieve their stolen androids. The reward is a visa into the city, and a chance at the life Valentine’s always dreamed of. But as they attempt to recover the “merchandise”, they encounter a problem: the android ladies are becoming self-aware, and have no interest in returning to their old lives.
The prize is tempting, but carrying out the job would go against everything Valentine stands for, and would threaten the fragile found family that’s kept him alive so far. He’ll need to decide whether to risk his own dream in order to give the AI a chance to live theirs.
In this book we see the world from the opposite perspective. Valentine is on the outside of the city and wants to be able to earn his way in. But as he works more and more with people from the city, he starts to see that not everything from the city is good and not everything from the outside is bad. Osric is having the same realization. He is a Steward who was forced into an android body and he wants to go back to the network. But as he has to wait for the bureaucracy to slowly move on his case, he starts to appreciate some aspects of living in a body instead of as pure consciousness.
I liked this look at what would become of the people left behind on a planet. They have made a decent life for themselves and they know that would probably surprise the rich people who abandoned them to colonize other worlds. They have fragmented into very different societies. The liberal people are in the cities. People who don’t care for “those type of lifestyles” are in small, rural settlements. Because this is Utah a lot of the rural people are Mormon but that doesn’t necessarily play out the way you might think.
I liked the storyline of the android sex workers gaining sentience and then trying to figure out where they wanted to be in the world. They were funny and sweet. Overall, I didn’t love this series as much as Key Lime Pie but it was still very good and I recommend it.
