David Sosnowski

Having read and enjoyed Sosnowski’s previous two books I was quite looking forward to this one. We follow three unlikely survivors of an extinction-level event where it seems every other human being has dropped dead. One has Asperger’s, another is pregnant from a one-night stand with her gay best friend and the third a radicalised Muslim who was about to martyr himself at a school sports event.

The book deals well with the actuality of surviving such an event. With things like the smell of decomposing bodies left to rot where they drop and the parasites such things bring. Probably not a good idea to be living too near a zoo for when the animals start to miss their daily feed either. What will the house-pets locked in their homes resort to when they also get a little hungry and their owners starting to smell a little ripe.

There is quite a bit of social commentary on growing up in the (more or less) current United States (being set under Trump) but it’s of the more in-your-face variety than the author’s previous offerings. Probably best to be avoided if you’re of the die-hard Republican persuasion or an animal lover. I think it’s difficult to find originality in this section of the genre and that’s probably what saves this book a little. Having an Asperger’s character as one of the leads helped with this though it did at times feel like it was a zombie book only without the zombies.… (meer)

First half is great

The first half of the book is great because it spends a lot of time setting up the six characters and gets the story rolling with a genial geekiness. In the middle long paragraphs on programming bog things down a bit. Then at the end the characters vanish one by one which might – might – be a subtle echo (there is a lot about echoes in this book) of Grandma Gladys vanishing into dementia. More likely it's that Mr. Sosnowski ran out of steam. The ending is dull, easily foretold, and lame.

I received a review copy of "Buzz Kill" by David Sosnowski from 47North through NetGalley.com.… (meer)

This novel punches a lot of my buttons and tweaks a lot of my pet mental projects in a great way, but surprisingly so. I simply chose it on Netgalley based on the cover! Shame on me, right?! It looked funny.

So what did I get? Some good humor? Yes! But this is almost incidental to the main plot. Indeed, the main point is about some rather serious topics from dementia to suicide to the very nature of consciousness and cutting-edge AI research. Wow, right? And none of these are cursory beasts. The author takes everything very seriously, thoughtfully, and does it with some really fantastic characters in George and Pandora.

Two hackers, who never meet, but collaborate in creating an AI? Hell yeah. But make the AI serve the purpose of suicide prevention? I like the concept. Even such hard-coding might get VERY hairy. And what about consciousness? All the usual problems apply. All us Zombies, etc. :)

But none of these wonderful explorations of depression, dementia, or suicide would be quite as interesting without the wonderful cast of oh-so-real characters with all their human joys and frailties. This isn't some massive adventure. It's about what makes us, us. :)

*With some humor* :)… (meer)