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Stefen’s Bookclub – May
May 1, 2018 @ 6:00 PM - 7:30 PM
Autonomous
by Annalee Newitz
One of the things I really like about the cyberpunk sub-genre of science fiction is how the ideas of what a near-future dystopia might look like change over time. Many of the fears of early cybepunk books are now reality, and other anxieties have replaced them. Autonomous deals with a few of these but one in particular, the growing power of the pharmaceutical / biotech industry. The protagonist is a pirate, in classic and modern terms. Jack sneaks about the world in her submarine providing illegal copies of drugs and medicines to those that need, but would otherwise be unable to afford them. A kind of pharmacist Robin Hood. Only something seems to have gone wrong with her latest knock-off drug and it’s having disturbing side-effects. In order to find out why she’ll have to find out more about the people she stole the drug from, who appear to be far more than the ordinary pharmaceutical company she took them for. As it happens they’re looking for her too, and they’re determined to make sure that neither Jack nor anyone else figures out what it is she actually stole.