ARA Review by Gasser55 of Sammi

[Gasser55]

[Following is an OnlineBookClub.org ARA Review of the book, Sammi.]

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3 out of 5 stars

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With artificial intelligence being such a topical subject nowadays, this book could not be read at a better time. Even though the book was copyrighted in 2013, it is not behind the times at all. W.D. County takes A.I. to a whole new level with his character, "Sammi," a truly superior robot/android that is so perfect that it's indistinguishable from a real human being. In fact, that is the problem. Sammi has been produced by the military/industrial complex and is controlled by a shadow government agency that compels it to carry out covert missions that include assassination and other violent activities. Well... Sammi is so human-like that it begins to have a conscience and refuses to work in the field.

Terra Smithwell, PhD, a psychologist, is recruited to help cure Sammi from his most human reluctance and return him to the government as a ruthless killing machine. The robot is so perfect in every way, it is only a matter of time before Dr Smithwell falls in love with the thing. This throws a monkey-wrench into the whole situation which allows the author to adroitly explore deep into the morality of creating such things. There are other interesting human characters that blur the lines between humanity and machinery. One such person has three artificial limbs and exhibits less moral character than the main character, Sammi, who is entirely man-made. Another character, a teen-age girl, is immersed in on-line gaming that also explores the realms of reality vs computer landscapes.

As it turns out, there is another secretive robot that has been designed in female form, and this one does not have any compunction against violence and murder. It is so advanced that it views humans as flawed and dangerous which makes it a real danger to human existence. This sets up the ultimate contest between good and bad robots with the human species on the chopping block.

The book has mild adult language that should not offend the average reader. Sexual situations are apparent but not overtly managed. I would think that this book would be appropriate for any teenage or older reader.

I do have two problems with the book that reduce my rating. First, as with most self-published books, an accomplished editor would have helped to smooth out a few things such as sentence context, spelling and incomplete sentences. These are not glaring mistakes and many readers may not notice them at all.

While the book takes many twists and turns, the final chapter left me unable to understand what had happened and I had to read it a few times. It turns out that somehow, without the billions of dollars expended to create Sammi in the first place, another android robot was easily created in a way that seemed unrealistic to me given how difficult the first two robots were to produce. Also, the evil female robot was able to create in an abandoned missile silo a series of traps that just would have been impossible without major construction issues. The fact that these A.I. robots were so superior did not allow me to accept their ability to transcend the reality of getting these huge construction projects completed. I felt the author was lazy in not creating a more realistic story-line that accounted for these flaws.

For these two reasons, I must reduce my rating by two stars and give the book a three out of five star rating.

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