Book Review: "Rubicon" by J.S. Dewes

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Cover of "Rubicon" by J.S. Dewes
4/5 stars

*Spoiler alert!*

Rubicon is the latest science fiction read by J.S. Dewes. I really enjoyed The Last Watch and The Exiled Fleet, so I knew I had to check out Rubicon! Similar to her previous works of military science fiction, Rubicon introduces readers to a humanity at war, this time with a species of sentient robots known as the Mechan.

The Mechan have steadily been confining humanity to a home system whose star is dying. Humanity has fought fiercely against the Mechan but hasn’t been able to take offensive actions until the invention of “rezoning” technology. Meaning that when a soldier dies in battle, their consciousness is transferred into a synthetic body grown with their DNA.

GIF: "Altered Carbon"

Our protagonist is one of these soldiers on the frontlines, Adriene Valero. She has died and been brought back a total of 96 times (earning her the nickname “Ninety-Six”) when she is transferred to a branch of humanity’s fleet known as Forward Recon. She is quickly taken under the wing of Major West, who grants her a special upgrade to the AI—known as Rubicon—that assists the squad’s soldiers in the field. An AI that happens to become sentient, which is super illegal.

GIF: Artificial intelligence

Valero merely assents to West’s plans so she can finally destroy the chip inside her that allows her to die traumatically and be brought back again and again. (Jeez, I can’t imagine the amount of psychological trauma.)

GIF: "We need to protect her"

Little does she know, Major West is merely using her as a pawn in a larger scheme to weaponize collective consciousness in order to beat the Mechans once and for all.

“She gritted her teeth against her ambivalence. This damn husk. She should feel something. Anything.

But in truth, she didn’t care why the scrappers had left humanity alive or what the result of this war would be if it lasted two more years—or two more decades. She couldn’t pretend to share West’s apparent altruism. Sure, she shared a rational hatred for the Mechan, but hers was personal, visceral, intimate. A never-ending vendetta between husk and hive mind that could, conceivably, never end.

West saw a larger picture, one she couldn’t even imagine. Macro to her micro. Not because she didn’t want to but because she didn’t need to. It simply didn’t affect her.

Callous? Maybe. Perhaps self-centered. Or maybe she just didn’t give a shit. She only needed to know what was in it for her.”

Not to mention that rezoning technology is not what anyone thinks, but much more sinister in origin.

GIF: "I have a bad feeling about this"

“They didn’t want anyone to know, for this exact reason. This reaction. There’d be panic. Disconnect. A fractured sense of mortality. The scrappers were the synthetic ones. The artificial, devious, evil sins against nature. The enemy.

So much made sense now. Why West had never rezoned, why Thurston and Champlan never had, why so much of High Command continued to die of old age despite the fact that they could live forever if they wanted to. Because they all knew the truth. That if they rezoned, they would be nothing but a reprint of their former selves, synthetic fabrications stuck in a cycle that could never end.”

Valero’s struggles with autonomy and mental illness amongst so much trauma in the field makes her a compelling protagonist and Rubicon an action-packed read full of big ideas. And that ending! (Wow!) This book has become my newest favorite in the world of science fiction, and I will be making sure to follow J.S. Dewes’ work closely. I can’t wait to see what she comes out with next!

Happy reading!

--BookOwl


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