In Alexandra Almeida’s Unanimity, screenwriter Thomas Astley-Byron and his partner, AI specialist Henry Nowak, have created a simulated reality allowing people to live an alternate life with the benefit of benevolent AI manipulation of this reality. The two essentially are gods in this new world and are referred to as such, but their own flaws lead to Thomas’ death, replacement, and revival by the young and beautiful Estelle Ngoie. Unlike Thomas, though, her benevolence is only skin-deep, and much of the novel goes back-and-forth between Thomas navigating this new world under its new goddess and looking back at the events that led him to this point.

Unanimity is an epic science fiction novel with multiple layers of depth. The setting of the artificial world (in fact, multiple worlds) is complex and takes many chapters to fully grasp and appreciate. The book also hops back-and-forth between past and present, characters’ relationships change, and their intentions are revealed gradually over a story that spans decades. It can be overwhelming, but if you enjoy full realized worlds with a deep backstory and solid lore than this is the novel for you. Unanimity rewards readers who do put in the effort to follow its many threads and, by the end, Thomas feels like a real person – emotional, not always predictable, but with a consistent personality. The same goes for the supporting characters as well.

Fans of hard science fiction will find much to dive into with the multiple worlds setting. This is only the first in Almeida’s Spiral Worlds series of novels, but the relationship between the worlds is clearly something she plotted out carefully, and which lends itself to interesting stories. The plot moves at a steady pace, as Almeida takes plenty of time for each scene to breathe and fully develop, with rich descriptions of the people and places involved, though not so much so that the reader is burdened with overly elaborate descriptions. Unanimity isn’t for those looking for a quick read, but I highly recommend this thrilling sci-fi novel to those looking for a novel that rewards attentive and fully engaged reading.

Pages: 442 | ASIN: B0B1TGN5FM

Original source: https://literarytitan.com/2023/01/09/unanimity/