3.5 Stars

Not that I’ve read a lot of Scalzi, but this was different. I expected some action, a few twists and turns, but instead got a thoughtful meditation from an artificial intelligence main character sent out from earth to find a fitting planet to jumpstart humanity again.

Despite spending more than two million years traveling the galaxy, not much happens and when the goal is reached, the AI changes its mission to adjust to what it thinks it should do to honor its maker.

I’m sure there is a very very deep meaning here that I’m just not quite grasping. What stands out the most is that we are sooooooo insignificant in the vast reaches of space that we can’t even come close to comprehending how inconsequential our existence is. Regardless, our need to propagate and mean something nevertheless is always a common theme and goal in these sorts of speculative stories as we strive endlessly to persist in our existence.

Introspective, above my pay grade, and free for Amazon Prime members.