Everdeen Mason's Reviews > Proof of Concept

Proof of Concept (Tor), by Gwyneth Jones, features another portrayal of an overcrowded, crumbling Earth. Here there’s a seemingly hopeful twist, as scientists are trying to find a way to get people off the planet to a habitable world. One such researcher is Kir, who works out of an underground bunker with a group of other scientists. Kir is brought on board because her brain is the home of Altair, a quantum artificial intelligence implanted in her when she was a child. When people start dying, Kir teams up with Altair to investigate what the other scientists are truly up to in their shared bunker. That mystery is central to the plot, but the fun is in all the details packed into Jones’s novella. Through Kir, we learn how gender and sex have changed, how politics shapes scientific research and what happens to children abandoned in some of Earth’s decaying wastelands. Most important, Jones, an Arthur C. Clarke winner, offers a delicious portrayal of what it feels like when that nagging voice in your head telling you something is wrong is in fact your only ally .

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