Dual Memory

By: Sue Burke

Narrated by: André Santana

Antonio Moro lost everything to the Leviathan League, ruthless global pirates. Now he's alone in a city on an Arctic island fighting Freebooters with nothing but lies—and the mistaken idea that he's a spy.

When things look bleak, he discovers an unusual ally. His new personal assistant program, Par Augustus, is a nascent A. I. He's also insolent, extroverted, moody, and not quite legal.

Together, they forge an uneasy alliance and create a rebellion from unlikely recruits to defend the island city.

The hitch? No one else can ever know. Especially the humans.

©2023 Sue Burke (P)2023 Dreamscape Media

Critic reviews

"Burke (Immunity Index) writes a timely novel that explores both artificial intelligence and the ethics of neutrality [...] Santana’s decision to give Par a chipper voice in contrast to the artificially monotone voices of the nonsentient AIs is genius."—Library Journal

To Oppress or Not to Oppress

Great narration. The nascent AI, Par Augustus, and the main character, Antonio, have a super interesting relationship. And Par has a fascinating relationship with the other machines who run the island of Thule, where the story takes place. Really, I wanted way more of Par getting to know Antonio and Antonio getting to know Par. The two are engaged in the finishing details of a rebellion but also there are certainly personal rebellions occurring here with Par and Antonio. Everyone is looking to neutralize or extinguish oppressive forces or to become the force doing the oppressing. The writing is clever and there’s plenty of action and thought provoking dilemmas, but I won’t be rereading this, so three stars. Hoping for a revisit with Par Augustus in the future.

wonderful writing and a great narration.

though it's a vary "small" story revolving around a single modest character, it's also where all the charm of this novel comes from. I was engaged with the writing from begining to end, which seems to be a hard thing to do nowadays.

The worst narration

It’s hard to review the actual book because the narration was so bad it completely tainted the content. The overacting and strange emphasis on random words made me feel like it was a Disney Channel sitcom or an anime. I literally had to imagine the characters as anime characters to get through it.

I am genuinely curious what my impressions of the book would be if I had read it instead. The characters were all annoying, especially the main characters. You instantly knew who the villains were because they all spoke in “bad guy voice.”

A truly infuriating experience, especially since I *LOVED* the semiosis series so much. Again, I don’t know if it was just the narration, but it felt like a completely different author with one dimensional characters, only slightly interesting ideas. Felt like YA, really.

Oof.

Average at Best

Just an uninteresting story, with very lame characters. I like this authors other works, but this just seemed like a very odd story. Also, the AI was one of the most annoying voices I’ve ever heard.. makes your heart rate spike.