THE ASCENSION DIRECTIVE

Lopez presents an unsparing critique of artificial-intelligence-driven efficiency in this speculative novel.

This debut novel imagines an AI-overrun state in the mid-21st century and the impact of its policies on researcher Natasha Morgan and her childhood friend Catalina Restrepo. For the residents of Meadowbrook, technological changes that initially seem relatively benign rapidly devolve into unrelenting coercion. Catalina learns this lesson the hard way after the state threatens to cut off her income credits for what they characterize as overuse of a NeuroSphere device that she uses to help her communicate with Manny, her son with autism. Natasha faces her own difficulties after her research is essentially hijacked as part of mission to harvest human consciousnesses from talented individuals for AI purposes—the titular mandate of the novel. When Prime Minister Julian Vale voices concern over the project’s ethical implications, his assistant tersely reminds him, “Progress demands sacrifice.” It’s a high-stakes tale that offers a timely spin on the familiar dystopian scenarios of such works as Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World, and Catalina and Natasha face increasingly hard choices. Readers may wonder how far off such a reality is, in light of well-established command and control mechanisms that already exist, such as social-credit systems—and the answer may surprise them, as the author suggests in this novel. However, it makes for some dense reading, at times, and characters disappear for extended stretches only to reappear at unexpected moments; one of these figures is Daniel Mercer, a local football hero whose mantra (“Confidence is armor”) proves tragically inadequate for coping with the demands of the AI known as the Prime Aion Node, and its ravenous appetite for control (“I observe everything”); such moments will stick with readers as much as the politics or tech talk. Overall, Lopez shows himself to be a skilled, confident storyteller, and where he goes from here will be intriguing to watch.

A complex, timely, and engaging dystopian tale.