Autonomous Review: Drugs, Robots, and Freedom

Autonomous by Annalee Newitz is Robin Hood versus the Sheriff of Big Pharma, with sentient robots, biological body modification, and questions of what it means to be free.

Our Robin, named Jack, is a pharmaceutical patent pirate who operates from a sadly not-yellow submarine. She reverse-engineers and gives away life-saving drugs in defiance of Big Pharma, which sells medication at such exorbitant prices that anyone not jewel-encrusted is forced to deal with illness in a natural way—i.e. death.

To fund these freebies, Jack makes and sells bootleg “fun-time worker drugs.” Unfortunately, this time is not such a fun time: her latest product is a copy of a drug that kills people via hyper-addiction to a single task: study to death, paint to death, you get the idea. (Newitz’s examples of this are morbidly creative.) To make up for her part in the drug’s dissemination, Jack works her network of contacts to formulate a cure.

The Big Oppressive Government sends agents Eliasz and his robot companion Paladin to track her down and enforce Draconian patent laws. Lurking in the background is the company that originally created the drug, intent on making sure no one learns about its fatal flaw.

The hunter/hunted story runs a fairly straight line, with all the players and motivations apparent, so while the journey is interesting, the destination doesn’t hold many surprises. Autonomous is less action-heavy than its opening would imply, carrying us along through the strength of its characters.

In Jack, we have a flawed protagonist, whose life began on a trajectory of success, only have the veneer of the world stripped away, setting her on the path of an outlaw intent on destroying the “endless pharma deprivation death machine.” There’s a lot of emphasis on who she’s sleeping with at any given moment, but those relationships do have a big impact on her life trajectory and help to form her personality.

More interesting to me is how Newits manufactures sympathy for the antagonists, Eliasz and Paladin, by delving into their burgeoning man/machine relationship. The romance unfolds in a genuinely interesting and non-standard way, evoking questions of gender identity, anthropomorphism, assumptions about human sexuality, free will, and slavery. (There’s even some fourth-wall anthropomorphizing, where the author describes Paladin’s state of mind in a way that sounds like human thought processes.)

I didn’t want them to catch Jack, but I did want to see how their personal drama unfolded, and I was drawn into what would happen next in their investigation, even as they murdered and tortured people to reach their goal. It was like watching a supercar run over pedestrians while the occupants make out.
 
The biggest point of contention I have with Autonomous, the one that stuck with me, is Eliasz’s homophobia and Paladin’s attempt to “compute” its meaning. The homophobia felt wedged in to create conflict and force readers to think about the implications, but it seemed under-supported by his character development and incongruous to the world. Also, it took up more of the story than its narrative weight, as if Newitz came up with that idea first and then built the relationship plot around it.

The final character of note is the world itself. We get a sense of the massive role of pharmaceuticals in daily life and a window into a future where capitalism has become so cancerous that nearly everything and everyone can be owned. It's a critique, a warning, and scary even if the in-book technicalities are a bit unstable. A harsh indenture system looms over everything, hipsters rock bio-modifications (Purple roots for hair! Utility bacteria! More fun future-tech!), and sentient robots share their internal and external lives. I really enjoyed the descriptions and creativity of the various locales, laws, and cultural filigree, which hinted at countless percolating stories beneath and beyond this one. As for governments, Newits gives us some vague explanations of how they work, but don’t read Autonomous if you’re hoping for geopolitical machinations.

All in all, Autonomous was a well-written, easy-to-read story set in a colorful world inhabited by people whose lives made me wonder about, and want to explore, more of the setting.

4/5 Rivets

Nathaniel Henderson is an author currently working on a post-post apocalyptic sci-fi book series. For updates and exclusive content, sign up for his newsletter.