Walton, David. Three Laws Lethal. Pyr, 2019.
David Walton’s Three Laws Lethal is an uneven book but an interesting one. It begins when a team of students at the University of Pennsylvania develop some new software for self-driving cars. As you might guess from the Asimovian title, things don’t go quite as planned. One of the team is a rich kid with daddy issues, another is his girlfriend with PR skills, another is her sister, a nerdish coding savant, the last is the protagonist, a coder who has a passion for open-source software. He reminds me of Wade Watts from Ready Player One. Ready Player One, in fact, is one of the few science fiction novels that doesn’t get an overt reference in Three Laws Lethal. The book is larded with mentions of classic science fiction and fantasy works, as well as philosophical memes and disquisitions on works on the nature of consciousness. Walton doesn’t quite keep the suspense going long enough, and the characters are all one-trick ponies, but I was entertained. Four stars with a caveat or two. ( )

My wife and I have an ongoing debate about self-driving cars. I think they’re the wave of the future and can’t wait for them to arrive. She thinks there’s too many logistical problems to overcome–what happens when the GPS doesn’t have info? How do you get off-road?–not to mention the ethical issues. That’s why I was delighted when I heard about this book–something that tackles those questions. And this book delivers.

The very first scene is the classic problem–if the car has to make a choice between killing the driver and killing someone on the road, which does it choose? How does it choose? And the rest of the story is thinking out those questions (Tip #1: Don’t tease the cars). The story is always moving, always building on what happened before, so there’s no long moral/ethical/metaphysical diatribes that take time out of the story. The characters are distinct and sympathetic. If I had to categorize it, I’d say it’s a techno-thriller like Daemon, but much better than that. It entertains and teaches something at the same time, and well, it’s just fun.

It’s a great book because it brings up questions, but doesn’t necessarily answer them. It reminds me of Cory Doctorow’s earlier works, like Eastern Standard Tribe. It acknowledges the work of Asimov, stands on his giant shoulders, and creates some big shoulders of its own. This is what Robopocalypse should have been. It’s a must for anyone interested in robot tropes. ( )

A very good novel that makes you think about AI and what purpose it will serve in the world. ( )