Picture of author.

J.B. Rockwell

Autor(a) de Serengeti

10 Works 51 Membros 3 Críticas

About the Author

Image credit: J. B. Rockwell

Séries

Obras por J.B. Rockwell

Serengeti (2016) 30 exemplares
Hecate (2017) 6 exemplares
Breakshield (2014) 3 exemplares
Seiokana (2015) 3 exemplares
Serengeti 3 exemplares
Serengeti 2: Dark And Stars (2016) 1 exemplar
Crimson King (2021) 1 exemplar

Etiquetado

Conhecimento Comum

There is no Common Knowledge data for this author yet. You can help.

Membros

Críticas

Serengeti, complete with AI brain and human crew, is a Valkyrie class warship with the Meridian Alliance fleet. Their task was to analyze the area surrounding the spot where the Meridian Alliance scout ships disappeared during their mission to search out the Dark Star Revolution fleet. However, they find almost nothing of the scout ships, which is disturbing. Then the Meridian Alliance fleet shows up under the command of the AI Brutus. The arrival of the Dark Star Revolution fleet completes the guest list and the party gets started. Things don’t go well for the Meridian Alliance in general and Serengeti in specific. Pretty soon, she is stranded in deep space with little power, heavy damages, and a reduced crewlist. Drastic measures must be taken to preserve what is left of the crew.

I really, really enjoyed this book. The initial scouting mission by Serengeti and then the near-epic space battle between the two fleets was totally gripping. The second half of the book is all about Serengeti the AI and her attempts to save her human crew. It’s a much different pace but I still quite enjoyed it. First, I really liked this symbiotic relationship between the AIs and their human crews. For Serengeti the AI, her captain, Hendrickson, was a jewel of a commander and somewhat of a friend. From the beginning, we see how Serengeti cares for her crew, tries to assist without embarrassing or overshadowing them (such as is the case with Finley). Later, once the crew has been placed in cryopods to conserve resources, we learn more about how Hendrickson became Serengeti’s captain. I was much amused by the friendships between the AIs and how some of them found the AI Brutus to be too set in his ways.

After the big space battle and Serengeti’s failed attempt to flee, the remaining crew are put in an escape vessel, but the locking clamps can’t be released. Serengeti has lost too much power and she herself must sleep in order to survive. She tasks a small worker robot, who she names Tig, to be in charge of the remaining bots. My one little quibble is that the bots from here on out become a bit anthropomorphized. I still liked the book, but now it was much more WALL-E instead of Hal, not that Serengeti is homicidal. The book goes from this mostly serious, nearly epic to this tiny hope of survival in these cutsy-wutsy bots. It did take me a few minutes to switch gears. Both halves of the book are good, but they are totally different paces.

The story’s end does build the suspense. Serengeti and her remaining bots are doing their best to keep the crew alive and the ship on target for the nearest inhabitable scrap of dirt. The tension mounts as Serengeti looses more and more abilities, as resources dwindle. They are in space for decades. At the end, we aren’t sure if Serengeti the AI makes it, though there is hope. The author did a great job in wringing some emotions out of me with Serengeti the AI.

I won a copy of this book from the author via The Audio Book Reviewer with no strings attached.

The Narration: Elizabeth Wiley did a great job with the narration. I liked all the funny robot sounds. Her voice for Brutus and Hendricks were also very good and masculine. As the story required it, she did well with imbuing the characters with emotions.
… (mais)
 
Assinalado
DabOfDarkness | 2 outras críticas | Oct 31, 2016 |
I'm giving this 2 stars because, although I read the whole thing, it was hardly worth the effort. I guess I didn't actually hate it or I'd have given up on it. I'm kind of surprised at the 5 star ratings its gotten. The description made it sound like military hard science fiction. It had the trappings but not the reality. The idea of a star ship being in control of an artificial intelligence certainly isn't new. Think of the 1968 Star Trek episode "The Ultimate Computer". But it's done poorly here. The major military action is between the good guys (of which the ship Serengeti) is one against poorly armed rebels who have some kind of unanticipated super weapon. For reasons which are never explained, the AI controlling the good guys seems to be completely crazy but all the other AIs go along with his battle plan, which consists of holding formation, allowing the rebels to partially surround them and just trade fire. The super weapon makes the difference for the rebels. Serengeti gets badly damaged but manages to escape, although in the process gets totally lost in space.

The humans in the ship are pretty much complete ciphers. The ship has a captain but he does not command Serengeti. She (that's right, Serengeti is presented as "she") does what she wants with the ship. There are human gunners, but in the kind of battle presented here, no super calculating power is needed, just fire away.

Serengeti manages to get her remaining human crew into the escape ship and put to sleep. All her shipboard robots have been destroyed with the exception of one multipurpose machine, which also has an AI mind but apparently a child level AI. The rest of the story concerns the (unfortunately cute) robot attempting to make repairs under Serengeti orders. Serengeti spends most of the next 20 years asleep herself to conserve what little power the ship still has.

From a sci-fi standpoint there are a lot of problems. I'll just mention one. The ship appears to have artificial gravity. No problem with that, it's a common, sci-fi concept. With virtually all the ship's systems down and with little power, somehow the gravity manages to continue working until the human crew makes it to the escape pod. With not a single mention of the gravity still working. It's only later, when convenient to the author, I guess, that the gravity fails.

Also, the robots are way, way too cute. Oh, did I mention that only 1 robot survived? During the long periods of Serengeti sleep, he, the robot, got another robot working for company. The second robot was a she. They hold hands when together. Geez. Then, between them, they build a baby robot. That almost did it for me but I wanted to find out the predictable ending.
… (mais)
 
Assinalado
capewood | 2 outras críticas | Sep 23, 2016 |
My original SERENGETI audiobook review and many others can be found at Audiobook Reviewer.

The premises of this book were so good. During a battle between the Meridian Alliance and the Dark Star Revolution, Serengeti, a war spaceship, suffers important damages which make her to retreat, but with the bad luck that the ship gets lost and the navigation system breaks down. The few survivors go into the cryogenic pod to be ejected and send a stress signal, but the power failure prevents it. For some reason the stress signal cannot be send if the pod is still inside the main ship, so Serengeti and her robots will need to find a solution to this.

Ships AI are very special in Rockwell’s world. Their personality depends on the kind of spaceship they are in, and they have complete authority over the captain.

Here are two different story lines for different public. The first third of the book is about the battle and some character introduction. This part could be a little bit confusing because we also get presented with how ships AI work and the different kinds, but I would say it is the most science fictional part of the book. The second part is about how Serengeti and her robots try to get the lifeboat ejected. There is little science or science fiction here. If you are looking for science fiction facts, like me, you will be disappointed. There are some faulty attempts at techy babble, but it is just that, babble. On the contrary, there were a lot of characteristics and actions from the AI and the robots that you will never see in other science fiction books, like: shrugging, shivering, laughing, getting angry, blushing, melting with pleasure, being on the edge of robot tears. I also wonder how Serengeti stroked her electric fingers across the robots’ cheeks. This second part seems indeed a Disney movie for children, due to the fact that the AI is too humanized to be realistic, has feelings and a will, and addresses the robots like they were her children. And they behave like so repeating ‘tada!’ again and again.

Something that made me cringe too were the failed attempts to express techy concepts that were in fact, like explaining them to children: Serengeti’s interference over the lifeboat was explained like there was too much of her for the lifeboat to be able to send a signal; the cameras were called electronic eyes; Serengeti had ‘subminds’ (strange word for multitasking). It is also mentioned a couple of times that Serengeti’s mind is a hundred times more powerful than human. Well, that’s quite poor, I would say. There is also the fact that Serengeti asks one of the robots to fix his translation routine because talking to him is becoming tireless. From here the robot switches from beeps to actual words. This is just nonsense, since machines communicate at a much lower level. With all these details you see that Rockwell does not know much about science or IT, something essential if you want to venture into writing science fiction.

The second part of the book is full with Serengeti’s ramblings with many repetitions and reiterations, making it very slow paced. The goal here were saving the humans, which Rockwell tried to introduce in the first part and then later on in Serengeti’s dreams. Even like that, except for the captain, they were one dimensional and it is difficult to connect with them.

Elizabeth Wiley did a very good job in transmitting the endearing atmosphere between Serengeti and her robots, but sadly it also accentuated the fact that this book is like a movie for children. Male’s voices sounded like cartoon characters and the robots’ voices were just too cute and sounded like a movie from Pixar.

All in all, even with all the eye rolling I did while I was listening to it, I remember now the book with a smile. It is not a book for science fiction lovers, but I expect it to have much success among those who are not into science fiction. The story between Serengeti and her robots is beautifully told, and it would work well with the younger readers.

Audiobook was provided for review by the author.
… (mais)
 
Assinalado
audiobibliophile | 2 outras críticas | Jun 2, 2016 |

Estatísticas

Obras
10
Membros
51
Popularidade
#311,767
Avaliação
3.9
Críticas
3
ISBN
17

Tabelas & Gráficos