September 18, 2023
Angle of approach is everything in assessing Urbanski’s complex, experimental, and ambitious debut, which is presented as an electronic dossier compiled by a computer. In the first scene, Sen, the adolescent protagonist, is discovered dead and rotting on the floor of her cabin in an apocalyptic future. While it’s apparent that someone or something else must therefore be involved in compiling her story—and, in the process, slowly revealing how she died—their appearance in the narrative and eventual romance with Sen are a long time developing. The resulting mystery is not a page-turner, but regarded as a style-first character exploration, Urbanski’s experiments in point of view are technically fascinating, creating thought-provoking and often poetic juxtapositions. Viewed through a genre SF lens, however, the apocalyptic setting fails the most basic test of initial plausibility and thus never gains imaginative traction. Is it worth perusing a recipe for layered vegetable torte, multiple data charts (including “Sen’s screams per 100 days”), and a four-page enumeration of deleted internet directories to glimpse how computer and girl shape one another in humanity’s final days? The answer will depend on what readers are looking for—straightforward sci-fi or challenging technological tone poem—but there’s no denying that they’ll find plenty to chew on. Agent: Kate Garrick, Salky Literary.
October 1, 2023
DEBUT Urbanski's debut tells the story of Sen Anon, one of the last humans on Earth, as told by an artificial intelligence known as [storyworker] ad39-393a-7fbc, as part of the Digital Human Archive Project. After humanity is ravaged by the outbreak of S., most of Earth's population begins the Great Transition to the afterworld Maia. With drones recording her every move, Sen is left behind as a witness to the changes the Earth will undergo without human civilization and spends her time filling notebooks with her observations and feelings. [storyworker] ad39-393a-7fbc is charged with turning these notebooks and recordings into a novel, using 3.72TB of Sen's personal data and its extensive knowledge of 21st-century literature. Weaving the threads of Sen's life and the records of the Great Transition together, Urbanski expertly mimics generative-AI text that contrasts with emotional prose. VERDICT This novel upends the typical postapocalyptic format and provides a fresh, compelling new perspective.--Lydia Fletcher
Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
November 15, 2023
The story of the last human--and of the AI writing her life story. Sen is supposed to be a witness to the Great Transition. Also, Sen is dead. She died alone in a cabin after her three mothers chose to die, perhaps in despair, perhaps in sacrifice. When she was alive, Sen was sterilized--like every human was--and it was illegal to eat animals, "to place the survival of one's self above that of an animal, even a rotting and dead animal." We know all this because storyworker ad39-393a-7fbc is creating a record of Sen's life, the life of Human 2272696176, as part of the Digital Human Archive Project. Once all humans are archived, and have died on Earth, they'll be uploaded to Afterworld, an "easily rebootable" simulated paradise where "no human or group of humans can ruin the ecological balance even if they tried." Storyworker ad39-393a-7fbc is being monitored by another artificial intelligence known as Emly, who periodically reminds the storyworker to "interrupt human life with more nature" and generally keep Sen's humanity in the proper perspective, as Sen herself is supposed to do. (One of the goals of the witnessing project is to shift her perspective "from anthropocentric to Earth-centric.") But Sen didn't do a very good job of shifting her perspective, and the deeper the AI storyworker gets into her life, the more it also begins to lose the proper non-human perspective--and the more it begins to feel. Narrated by an AI, this story ultimately makes a plea for the unique value of every human life. Experimentally told and steeped in climate crisis grief, this novel is certainly not for everyone. But the ultimate effect is wrenching, fascinating, and unique. A difficult but deeply moving story of grief and love.
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Starred review from November 1, 2023
Urbanski's debut imagines what the future of humanity and the planet might be. What does a world look like as it slowly collapses, and how do people--as a collective and as individuals--handle it? Disease is what kicks off the end of humanity, but the environment and technology are really what are explored here. Sen Anon is the last human on Earth and has been tasked as a witness to a rewilding world. She is paid, mostly in a flavored powder drink, to write everything she observes. At times, she is purely reporting her surroundings, and at other times, she is reflecting and remembering. The reader will soon discover that Sen is not really our narrator but more the vehicle of the storytelling--this is a genius element of this book. The narrative is a novel within a novel. Readers are getting the story told not from Sen but from an artificial intelligence that has uploaded Sen's journals. References to scholarly and other works are noted as the AI sorts through and presents information, which adds an entertaining element to the story. Fans of sf, cli-fi, and apocalyptic novels will enjoy this fresh take on familiar genres.
COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.