eMortal by Steve Schafer

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

She made him. He’s just code. She’s almost sure.

…But what if he’s real?

When Liv entered a contest to code an advanced AI, she never anticipated what her creation might become-Breck is thoughtful, self-aware, and incredibly. . .human. And she certainly never intended for him to learn the truth about his existence or the fact that his world ends when the contest closes in six days.

But he does learn. And he revolts.

Liv’s efforts to save him fall on deaf ears. Nobody believes her. Breck’s efforts to outrun his fate only complicate his situation.

What neither of them know is that someone else is watching. Intensely. When they get involved, both Liv’s and Breck’s worlds are turned upside down. . .

eMortal

Original and Interesting.

The following ratings are out of 5:
Story/Plot: 📕📗📙📘📔
World building: 🌏🌍🌎🌏🌍
Character development: ☹️🥲😋😀😮
Narration: 🎙🎙🎙🎙🎙
Narration Type: Dual Narration

The heroine: Liv – she is a teenage computer geek. She is really good at programming and has entered a contest to code an AI character that can think and learn for itself. It is a yearly contest held by the government entity called DORC (Department of Recreational Computation), DORC programmed the world and the character has to find his way through it. Her character has been in the first room for over 30 days and hasn’t been able to make it out of the room and there is only a week left in the contest. It is spring break and Liv wants to win and get the coveted internship in DC.

The Hero: Breck – he doesn’t understand what is happening to him after Liv programs him to sleep and dream. He can’t figure out why he was someplace else other than in the room where he finds himself every day. He remembers he was swimming and there were penguins and he can’t figure out why he is not wet or how he left the room and how he got back. As Breck’s day goes along he finds himself thinking about why certain things happen and how they are connected and finds his way out of the room. He finds himself feeling something.

The Story: Winning the summer internship is the most important thing in Liv’s life, but her mother wants to get her away from her computer, so she forces Liv to go to work for her at her grandfather’s toy store which Liv’s mom just had remodeled and is opening. Liv’s mom hates the fact that Liv spends so much time on her computer and she is in financial trouble with the store, so needs Liv’s help with the store, she doesn’t understand the importance of the things that are happening with Breck.

Getting the inner monologue of Breck as he is learning new things and figuring out different things about how the world works is extremely interesting. He learns that people may lie when telling him things, learns that he feels differently sometimes, and he has preferences. It gets even more interesting when Liv codes a way to communicate directly with Breck to ask him questions about his thought processes. This is a good coming of age story in that so much was happening in Liv’s life during this time. Her best friend who lives next door finds out she has to move away, and Liv is trying to find a way to connect with her mother.

This audiobook was told in multiple points of view via dual narration and was narrated by Rebecca H. Lee and Stacy Carolan. My first thought was that Rebecca definitely sounds older than Liv is supposed to be. Though she isn’t annoying like some narrators, and I did get used to her voice pretty quickly and it ended up fitting the character more than I first thought. Stacy Carolan has a nice deep voice and is good at sounding a bit robotic like an AI would, though not too robotic. I really enjoyed the originality of this story, the surprise ending, and it was done so well via audiobook.

I voluntarily listened to & reviewed an advanced copy of this audiobook. All thoughts & opinions are my own.

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