Embers of War, Fleet of Knives and Light from Impossible Stars by Gareth Powell

Quick read and great fun. The trilogy looks into ancient races, beings from higher dimensions, sentient ships and the imminent collapse of a human civilization. The topic that engaged me the most was that one of artificial Intelligence and how it can develop a conscience. I recently read an essay on Machine Ethics by Susan Anderson, which also looks into how AI can be considered moral agents. In the trilogy we have war AI regretting past actions and becoming more aware of the consequences of their actions but also "non-war" AI becoming genocidal machines following nonviolent moral values. It was interesting to reflect on how AI can go these two different paths in light of Anderson's essay.

Anyway that was the fun part. On the negative side I'd have to mention, one, the sometimes tiring and repetitive way in which the author recaps past events. And, two, the super annoying, random and distracting insertion of an event in the last 5th of the 3rd novel. That is, when the focus should have been on concluding the story and tidying up loose ends.

Spoiler Alert

The author shows a character, who wasn't even secondary but random, have a gender identity "crisis" 1hr or so before a confrontation with enemy battleships. The captain of the ship refers the character to the infirmary for a gender reassignment right away with a discourse on how these things can be sorted blah blah.... all this which is irrelevant to the story and happens in the middle of a space battle.

Anyway, read this if you don't mind the above 😁