Buzz Kill: A Novel by David Sosnowski
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This novel punches a lot of my buttons and tweaks a lot of my pet mental projects in a great way, but surprisingly so. I simply chose it on Netgalley based on the cover! Shame on me, right?! It looked funny.

So what did I get? Some good humor? Yes! But this is almost incidental to the main plot. Indeed, the main point is about some rather serious topics from dementia to suicide to the very nature of consciousness and cutting-edge AI research. Wow, right? And none of these are cursory beasts. The author takes everything very seriously, thoughtfully, and does it with some really fantastic characters in George and Pandora.

Two hackers, who never meet, but collaborate in creating an AI? Hell yeah. But make the AI serve the purpose of suicide prevention? I like the concept. Even such hard-coding might get VERY hairy. And what about consciousness? All the usual problems apply. All us Zombies, etc. :)

But none of these wonderful explorations of depression, dementia, or suicide would be quite as interesting without the wonderful cast of oh-so-real characters with all their human joys and frailties. This isn't some massive adventure. It's about what makes us, us. :)

*With some humor* :)

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