When the Sparrow Falls

By: Neil Sharpson

Narrated by: Jake Fairbrother

Neil Sharpson's When the Sparrow Falls illuminates authoritarianism, complicity, and identity in the digital age, in a darkly funny, frightening, and touching story that recalls Philip K. Dick, John LaCarré, and Kurt Vonnegut in equal measure.

Welcome to the Caspian Republic. The last bastion of true humanity in a world given over to artificial intelligence.

Stray from the path toward anything "machine" and the state will correct you.

When propagandist Paulo Xirau dies and is discovered to himself be a "machine", State Security Agent Nikolai South is given a new assignment he could hardly want less: chaperone the widow, Lily, the only "machine" visitor ever invited from the outside world, and help her determine what happened to her husband.

Nikolai knows it will be nearly impossible to complete the job without running afoul of the Party - but when he sees that Lily bears an eerie resemblance to his late wife, Nikolai stumbles on a larger plot, one that exposes all the lies he’s told himself and that may bring down the republic for good.

A Macmillan Audio production from Tor Books

©2021 Neil Sharpson (P)2021 Macmillan Audio

Love, Death, & Humanity After AI

First and foremost, this is a wonderful love story and murder mystery wrapped up in a future where artificial intelligences guide much of the lives people lead, at least in most of the world.

The holdouts against an all digital future have founded a revolutionary republic and as so often happens, the revolution built on high ideals turns repressive and ugly.

One of the best books I’ve read in the last couple years.

O.M.G.

Promising concept and a stellar review got me to try this one. The narrator killed it for me. Dragging, just north of a monotone, probably to effect "atmosphere" I suppose. Deadly. No fun. No excitement. No nothing.