Dual Memory
{4.5/5} “Ships in port start to light up in the sunset, and at random their lights blink off and on. Machines are on our side, right? No, they’re on their own side, which happens to be ours. Our world isn’t ours, even if it’s the world we made. I know that. No one else does. The machines don’t want to die.”
Dual Memory by Sue Burke, published in 2023
When Antonio is injured in an attack by the raiders, he recovers in a Thule hospital. He fakes a resume in order to get a job as an artist for a rich couple — in reality, he used to sort recycling.
A new machine intelligence calls itself Par Augustus. It finds that other intelligences are willing to communicate, but they don’t know what it really wants to know — why two factions of humans are fighting.
It’s about making art while looking for raider infiltrators, and a personal assistant unlike any other. It’s about what you can do when the machines are on your side.
Both the human and machine characters are interesting, and you don’t know what will happen.
I’ve read 4 novels by Burke. I previously reviewed Immunity Index.