Enjoy For Free The Scorpion Rules (Prisoners Of Peace, #1) Written And Illustrated By Erin Bow Accessible Through Audio Book
on The Scorpion Rules (Prisoners of Peace, #1)
"You sound exactly like a textbook, do you know that" he said.
"It's amazing. "
Took the words right out of my mouth, It's amazing The Scorpion Rules has managed to take an highconcept dystopian plot and mutilate it into bland, soulless mush.
There's no spirit in this book, No soul, no spark.
It started awesome, Talis, the UN ambassador who ceased war in the Before, was narrating and the guy is charismatic as hell.
He's snarky, morally dubious, and basically everything I want in an MC,
"All of a sudden there were whole populations under water, Which meant that whole populations moved, Borders strained, checkpoints broke, and of course people started shooting, because thats what passes for problemsolving among humans.
See, guys, this is why you cant have nice things,
Then SelfSacrificing Greta pokes her selfless nose in, It's so dull in her head, She speaks really formally, which I guess isn't her fault since she's royalty and a Child of Peace hostage to ensure a country's good behavior, but it's also not my fault that I can't stand it.
Her actions are scarcely better, She follows the rules like a good girl and performs her duty as martyr when the time comes.
Can you get any more Jesus Give me your selfish heroines, Give me those who cackle evilly, who plot, who cheat, who fight and scratch,
Fuck it, just give me Talis, I promise I'll be good to him,
There are a lot of complex themes and moral issues presented with the subtlety of a shovel to the face.
It's trying too hard. Reading The Scorpion Rules is like reading Victorian literature and God knows I do enough of that in college.
I want to kick back, relax, let my brain unspool with complex themes and moral issues disguised as fun, readable literature.
Because that's the sign of an awesome book, Make your readers think without them realizing they're thinking,
ARC provided by Netgalley, Quotes taken from an uncorrected galley proof and may be subject to change, probably no other book ever will have AIs that rule the world as well as girls kissing and that just makes me sad Wow.
Super unique and I can't believe Greta ACTUALLY did it, Bravo, to the author, for taking the leap and making her main character make a choice that was tough and completely lifealtering.
Greta is brave. Another entry in the "teens in jeopardy" subgenre, this one stood out for me because the super government actually made sense in how it came about.
It's lethally simple: world leaders have to surrender their kids, and if they declare war, the kids are killed by the AI who now controls the weapons platforms of the world.
I think this book would be upsetting for younger readers, as the kids in jeopardy are really in danger of their lives.
Including little ones. You find that out in the first few pages, At least, it would have punched me right in the heart as a kid reader, and not in a good way.
Teens into the whole Hunger Games subgenre will get right on board, especially as the voice is so distinctive.
Greta, the first person narrator, is a princess who has been living with a cluster of hostages most of her life.
She gets to go home every so often so she isn't forgotten, The complexity of her relationship with her mother, the queen, is conveyed through a teenage emotional filter, as are Greta's other relationships.
There is even a love triangle, but this one is, like the world building and setup, completely different from others, a bravura job.
Bow's narrator is very observant of the details of human interaction, and the AIs are set up in such a way as to be very believable.
And interesting.
Central is the AI named Talis who rules the world, He was once human four centuries ago, which explains the manic persona, fiercely intelligent but with emotions all over the map.
And a strongly implied underlying anger, Sane or disconnected from what keeps us human Does that much power keep anyone sane Lots of very good questions raised, and no pat answers.
Greta versus Talis is a fascinating conflict, and I didn't see the end coming.
Interesting stopping place, with enough resolution not to be a cliffhanger, but with threads that promise a significant upping of the game.
I inhaled it in one day, I wish the second one was out right now! First, civilization was on the brink of collapse due to global warfare over the scant resources of a postclimate change world.
And then Talis took over, Talis is a powerful AI with control over the world's supply of orbital superweapons which he only had to use a dozen times or so before people got the point.
In the new world there are rules, and one of those rules is that war is personal.
So if you're going to lead a country you need to have children, Children that will be taken hostage and killed if your country goes to war, whether your country started the fight or not.
The story startsyears after Talis took over, We follow Greta, the daughter of the ruler of the PanPolar region, a super power in the new world, but one on the brink of war across several fronts.
She lives in on of Talis's Preceptures, essentially prison camps/schools run by AI robots where the children live under brutal surveillance conditions and the threat of torture and corporal punishment.
The children here will eventually be rulers of their own nations, but right now they're all hostages for good behavior.
Even so, children are still taken away to be killed when they're countries go to war.
The postclimate change world has plenty of desperate people because resources are scarce, and the choice of going to war and having your child executed or having your country die of thirst is a simple one.
Even given all this, the constant threat of death and the brutal conditions she lives under, Greta is a classicist trained in Greek and Roman history and in many ways an innocent.
A huge motivating factor in her life is that when she will go to the Grey Room she will go with dignity.
But then someone new arrives, Elián, the grandson of the General in charge of a country that's about to go to war with Greta's and calm dignity in the face of sacrifice is the last thing on his mind.
He fights and rebels, invoking Sparticus when he can and reminding everyone in the Precepture that they're slaves.
Of course he's punished, and brutally so, but it completely shatters Greta's calm,
I don't want to go into what happens more than the setup because it's brilliant, and shocking in places.
All of this sounds like a Hunger Gameslike dystopia doesn't it It's not that simple.
There's reasons for everything here, and while Talis's setup is brutal and inhuman, it's undoubtedly saving far more lives than it costs.
Once the story gets moving, Talis's mandate that war be personal is underlined, because conflict comes to the Precepture and all the involved parties get involved.
Greta, ever the sacrifice, is called in much more horrible ways than she was prepared for.
I can't wait for the next book, Brilliant, haunting and unforgettable. I've read this story in three different drafts now, twice in manuscript and now in ARC form, and it gets more extraordinary every time.
The worldbuilding is original and thorough, the characters diverse and full of humanity including some that aren't, technically, human and the story keeps ratcheting up the tension with a perfect balance between humor and horror.
You will never look at goats, or certain pieces of farm equipment, without either laughing or wincing again.
Oh, and the back cover copy is true, but almost entirely misleading, Don't assume anything based on it, is all I'm going to say,
Old version: I've read this manuscript twice so far, It was stunning and brilliant the first time the second time it was, almost impossibly, even more so.
I hope a smart editor snaps it up and finds magical ways to make it even better, but on the other hand if that happens my head may explode.
Nonformulaic, diverse, vaguely dystopian YA novel!!!!!!!!! o/ I didn't even mind the love triangle because it wasn't really a love triangle at all!!! GOD, THIS WAS GREAT.
/god/
Ok, the first thing I need to say is that I LOVED Greta, the narrator and protagonist.
The main reason for this is that she, was. dutiful. and. responsible. The entire novel is about her willingness to die for and be useful to the tyrannical system because she knows it generally works to keep the peace.
This is so much preferable to any number of other privileged yeah, Greta is a hostage, but she's a princess and future world leader, so yes she's PRIVILEGED YA protagonists who push the envelope because instalove or because they don't want to put their brilliant tactical minds to work for their nation and would for no good reason rather study music, even though they obviously LOVE TACTICS AND PROBLEMSOLVING cough cough pointed barb at a series I hated.
The other characters are also fantastic, especially Xie, Elias, and Talis they're the most wellfleshed out besides Greta herself, but also the Abbot a surprisingly complex secondary AI character, and the other Children of Peace.
I won't spoil anything here, because Bow really pulls the rug out from under the backofbook summary cackle, but I particularly loved Xie.
I also really enjoyed the worldbuilding and the grittiness that permeated the entire novel.
After the first fifty pages or so I knew this wouldn't be a neatly packaged YA narrative with a smooth ending.
Thank God. Wow, and there were like, adults in active roles in here too! Amazing! Sorry, I read a ton of mediocre YA this year
And someone, please, make me stop reading and watching things about AI this year.
xoxo.