World Running Down
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4.3 • 3 Ratings
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
A transgender salvager on the outskirts of a dystopian Utah gets the chance to earn the ultimate score and maybe even a dash of romance. But there's no such thing as a free lunch…
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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.
File Under: Science Fiction [ Finding Your Way | Everybody Hurts | Body Bound | City Dreams ]
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Spunky, scrappy, and earnest, the heroes—both human and AI—of Hess's wildly entertaining latest (after Hep Cats of Boise) make pitch-perfect guides through a dystopian near-future Utah in which prospects are dismal for the nonprivileged classes. At its heart, this is a love story between a trans man and a fully sentient and self-aware android: scavenger Valentine and Osric, respectively, who are thrown together on a job to track down runaway android sex workers. The pair bond through their shared experiences of discrimination and discomfort in their bodies and, when they learn the androids have achieved sentience and want to be free, they're united in their desire to help. Hess uses android bodies to offer additional insight into the trans experience, focusing on issues of autonomy and self-discovery. At the same time, readers are confronted with timely questions about ethics and morality in the realm of AI. The author handles these threads masterfully, intertwining them through a rip-roaring adventure plot helmed by characters whose vitality and hope one can't help but root for. Fans of speculative fiction and inventive queer stories will delight in this playful and lovingly crafted romp.
