Semi/Human

By: Erik Hanberg

Narrated by: Em Eldridge

Robots are in. Humans are out. Can one teenager steal her way to a better future?

Pen Davis just lost her internship to a robot. As supercomputers take over all the jobs in the world, the lonely teen doesn't see a future. Desperate to escape the coming robo-pocalpyse, she devises a plot to steal millions from her former boss. It's payback for laying her off, and the only way Pen can see how to scrape together enough cash to survive.

But her plan takes a crazy turn when she fumbles the hijacking of a self-driving truck and accidentally sets it free.

Stuck with a semi who practically wants to be her little sister, Pen tries to make the best of it. She uses the semi to rescue quiet James, who is interested enough in her that he's willing to join her crew, even though he'd prefer not to do anything actually illegal. When she convinces James and the truck to help her, the plan fails spectacularly and her mismatched team is torn apart.

Will Pen claim the riches of her dreams, or will a unique friendship give her something money can't buy?

©2020 Erik Hanberg (P)2021 Tantor

A little too convenient but great techie story

If AI could have real emotions, then would some robots be friendly or would they still end up like The Terminator? I really enjoyed this story, and it made me think a little about that, but I thought a lot of things in the book seemed a little to convenient for the MC (it seemed like she was unbelievably lucky at everything she did - even things that didn't turn out like she planned were worked out fine in a matter of a few pages. So probably could have been better, but still a great story - kind of an AI fantasy. The part I didn't really care for was the narrator - she sounded a little monotone/robotic sometimes (though I guess that could be partly intentional) and her voices for every male character (AI or human) sounded exactly the same, as did the voice of any female character.