Guest Post: Author Simon Curtis reviews The Swan Riders by Erin BowTreacherous twists await Greta as

Guest Post: Author Simon Curtis reviews The Swan Riders by Erin BowTreacherous twists await Greta as the stakes get even higher in this stunning follow-up to the “masterful” (School Library Journal, starred review) novel, The Scorpion Rules. Greta Stuart has become AI. New transmitters have silvered her fingerprints. New receptors have transformed her vision. And the whole of her memory has become one book in a vast library of instant knowledge. Greta is ready to rule the world. But the new technology is also killing her. Greta is only sixteen years old, but her new enhancements are burning through her mortal body at an alarming rate. Of course the leader of the AIs, an ancient and compelling artificial intelligence named Talis, has a plan. Greta can simply do what he’s done when the time comes, and take over the body of one of the Swan Riders, the utterly loyal humans who serve the AIs as part army, part cult.First though, Greta will have to find a way to stay sane inside her new self. Talis’s plan for that involves a road trip. Escorted by Swan Riders, Greta and Talis set out on a horseback journey across the strange and not-quite-deserted landscape of Saskatchewan. But there are other people interested in Greta, people who want to change the world…and the Swan Riders might not be as loyal as they appear… As part of the “So, You Want To Be Human?” week for Simon Teen Canada, I was asked, along with Erin Bow and SJ Kincaid, to have a discussion about, well, what makes all of us human. The three of us each have YA sci-fi novels coming out this Fall exploring this theme. Novels that use the concept of robotics, and artificial intelligence, to further mine the often-explored concept, and perhaps leave our readers asking themselves the very same questions that lead us to write such books in the first place. In Erin Bow’s The Swan Riders, sequel to The Scorpion Rules, sixteen-year-old Greta Stuart has willingly forgone her humanity and become AI in an effort to save two kingdoms from destruction. She is the first new AI in over a century, and must be shepherded across a land that was once Canada by what is essentially the series’ primary villain, the god-like AI Talis. Throughout the course of the books, Erin plays with the concept of humanity in subtle, brilliant ways. Reading The Swan Riders, you don’t even realize how much of Greta’s former humanity has been sacrificed until other characters begin to react to just how stark the contrast is between the new and old versions of her. A girl who was once held hostage by the mistakes of humanity, who faced the horrors of torture and death as penance for mankind’s inability to find peace, has now been forced to sacrifice herself, her love, and her very humanity in order to survive. Beyond the nightmare of coming to terms with such a sacrifice, Greta must also grapple with Talis’s approach to peace—that is, blow cities up until the humans stop fighting. Through Talis, Erin forces Greta, and the reader, to deeply consider the weight of what is necessary vs. the emotional instinct of what is right. Through Talis’s army/cult of Swan Riders, who willingly offer themselves as human vessels for Talis’s consciousness (at the expense of their own mentality), Erin forces us to wonder if consciousness itself a form of humanity? Or is it not enough to be merely conscious? Must empathy and compassion exist for a being to truly be considered human?In The Swan Riders, Erin has written a fascinating, thoughtful, emotionally charged sci-fi novel that leaves you pondering the very nature of humanity, which is, to my understanding, the very purpose of the entire genre itself. The writing is smart, lush, and the world weaved here is beautifully executed. Go out and buy both The Scorpion Rules and The Swan Riders immediately, or check them out at your local library, as they are truly fantastic novels. I absolutely cannot wait to read what Erin Bow writes next. -- source link
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