Title: |
Braking Day |
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Author: |
Adam Oyebanji |
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Category: |
Science Fiction / Fantasy |
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Rating: |
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Date Reviewed: |
June 1, 2023 |
Braking Day is the story of a generation starship fleeing a drastically transformed Earth, the colonists onboard are hoping to start a colony in a new star system. In Braking Day, the Archimedes and its two sister ships, Bohr and Chandra are on their seventh generation of crew; they are approaching the destination star of Tau Ceti. Back on Earth, humanity has been subjugated by artificial intelligence entities, called L.O.K.I.s that control all aspects of civilization. Has war and poverty been abolished? Yes, but at the cost of surrendering all decision making to inhuman calculating machines. Ravi MacLeod is an engineering student on board the generation ship Archimedes. He is from the lower caste (over the long years, the starship has solidified into a caste structure, with elite officers and second class crew members) but he has exceptional talent and abilities. It looks like he will actually graduate to the elite rank of engineer. Ravi is sent on a solo assignment at the aft end of Archimedes, kilometers away from the spinning rings that house the human habitats. Ravi is working the job, when he is startled by a strange banging upon the hull. He thinks it is some kind of elaborate prank, yet when he looks out the porthole, he sees a strange young woman floating in space - and she is not wearing a space suit. Clearly, Ravi is hallucinating... Back in the spinning habitats, Ravi describes what he saw to his brilliant cousin, Boz. Boz dismisses his claims as being impossible. Then she shows Ravi her latest invention - a rolling droid that she calls a Boz Ball - it seems to have a rudimentary intelligence. Ravi is stunned - Boz will be mulched for sure if she is caught with such a robot. Humans fled the Earth system to escape from sentient artificial intelligences, the dreaded L.O.K.I.s - and now Boz has built one of her own? Ravi tries get Boz to destroy the device, but she has other ideas. While testing the Boz Ball out in a corridor, it is spotted by Chen Lai, the chief engineer on Archimedes. Chen Lai attempts to grab the device, but it eludes him, and races away. Chen Lai is in disbelief - a L.O.K.I. on the Archimedes? Clearly no effort or resource will be spared in an attempt to contain the threat. Ravi experiences headaches - is it due to stress? He sees the ship doctor because he cannot sleep. Perhaps there is something wrong with his internal electronics (the members of Archimedes abhor AI, but they have modified themselves to include augment sensors, communications links and processors.) He sees the mysterious girl again - is she trying to talk to him? I liked how Oyebanji revealed more and more of the political dynamics on board the Archimedes. I also enjoyed how Ravi seemingly ended up having reasons to visit every type of room on the Archimedes from nose to tail, giving the reader
a tour of the kilometers-long spacecraft. The scientific explanations all sounded plausible to me, maybe a generation spaceship really would operate this way. Ravi is a protagonist who is easy to cheer for and he faces increasingly daunting
odds, trying to stop various threats to the mission.
I wanted to give a 4.5 star rating to Braking Day, deducting half a star because I was a bit annoyed by the ridiculous coding competence of Boz. Could even a savant write such effortless, adaptable code so quickly?
The events at the dramatic conclusion also seemed pretty unlikely, but since this is Oyebanji's first novel, I rounded up to five stars, rather than down to four stars. Hopefully he writes more books. It is possible that there could
be a sequel to Braking Day, but it is also possible that Ravi MacLeod's tale is complete in this book, there isn't an obvious To-Be-Continued ending, everything is wrapped up at the finish. Yet, there might be more... |
