I received this book from the publisher through Net Galley.
I'm always interested in science fiction books especially those about future colonies and New World type things this was sort of that way in that it takes place in the 31st century when space colonies are nothing new. What is new for the protagonist is that she's getting a new job she's always been very interested in artificial intelligence and supercomputers. Our protagonist, Vivian Skye, is from a small colony planet that doesn't like the idea of supercomputers. In fact, Vivian's family has ostracized her because of her interest in her study at school into this realm of science. Now that Vivian has graduated, her first job is very exciting to her; she is going to be working and isolated Extra-Galactic Observatory with one of the original AI computers that is close to sentience. But of course no one wants any of the AI computers to be sentient. That's what the Abacus Protocol is all about--to make certain that the computers do not become sentient.
At the Observatory, there are two scientists and a tech who maintains all of the space mechanical equipment, and there is her boss, Bryce Zimmer who oversees it all. Vivian's job is to study the computer, do updates and basic maintenance to see that everything is working well. Unfortunately, she discovers that no maintenance has been done on the AI, whose name is quirk--that's, quIRK--, for nearly 12 years. Quirk has a personality all his own that Vivian likes. Work has even had cats brought onto the station because he feels they are good for the human mindset. It's also a fact that quIRK likes the cats. A hint at his near sentence.
Everything would be working fairly well if it weren't for the fact that Zimmer, her boss, has grandiose ideas about himself and the planet that he comes from which is an oligarchy and he is trying to get back to the top rung of the political heap. Not only is his planet and oligarchs setup based on old Earth Rome, but he's also a chauvinist. He sees Vivian as a threat. He manages to put a sub-routine in quIRK's programming that causes various accidents to Vivian. His neuroses become so great that it threatens the entire space station. During all this quIRK become sentiment.
The writing in this story was very good. I could picture each scene and imagine the space station and all people very well. I like stories that are visually pleasing through words. Thea Greg's background in physics and other sciences has made this story very believable. Character development was good, and Vivian Skye, is quite likable.
The download I received for my Kindle had some formatting problems: lost paragraphing between dialogue, run-on sentences, and such. This surprised me, since I follow the Curiosity Quills (the publisher) blog, where several articles have been posted about e-book presentation. I hope the formatting for the final product has been cleaned up.
I had a bit of trouble with the ending. It seemed a little too tidy and rushed. There were several things that didn't really add up to the detail that had been in other parts of the book.
Overall, I enjoyed the story. This was subtitled, Sanity Vacuum, and I get the feeling there might be another ABACUS Protocol story in the works.
The ABACUS Protocol
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