ACTIVATION DEGRADATION, by Marina J. Lostetter

When a book (or a movie, for that matter) is announced as “like xxx” I’m always wary, because rarely the comparison stands up to scrutiny and – from my point of view – it also shows a lack of imagination from the people writing the blurb.  Activation Degradation is a case in point, its main character presented as similar to Martha Wells’ Murderbot: in truth, the only point of contact between the two comes from the fact that both Murderbot and Marina Lostetter’s Unit 4 are cyborgs, while the story, the overall mood and the characterization are totally different from the Diaries.

As the novel starts, Unit 4 is hurriedly called on-line to face an attack against the mine orbiting Jupiter where it and its brethren service the installation, dedicated to producing clean energy for Earth: the unit’s remote handler informs it that alien marauders are inflicting damage to the station and that Four must help, even though its activation protocols are incomplete – given the situation, time is of the essence.  In the first, frantic moments since its awakening Four finds itself alternately frightened and riddled with doubt, the latter due to the incomplete download of files necessary to its correct functioning and to the often baffling orders received from the handler: as the situation becomes increasingly critical and Four rushes to fulfill its mission – which includes a cat-and-mouse prolonged space chase against the intruders – we learn something about the installation and the bio-mechanical constructs working there, and what we learn raises a lot of questions about the station and its managers. And even concerning the nature of the Units…

Yes, because despite the terms Four uses to describe itself or its environment, there is a definite organic quality to the background and the Units themselves: while it talks about “CPU unit”, “grasping pads” or “fuel intake” it becomes increasingly difficult to envision Four and its mates as mere robots (there is a scene in which it must “terminate” a fatally compromised unit that goes a long way in that direction), and when it boards a space-worthy pod to chase the invaders, the details of the pod’s insides come across as fleshy and biological rather than mechanic.  Moreover, we learn that these Units are vat-grown and recycled from the material of previous constructs once they have reached their termination period of 90 days – the radiation of the environment and the harsh conditions don’t allow for more.

The real defining point in the story, and in Unit 4’s journey of discovery, comes from its capture by the group of “aliens”, who turn out to be strikingly similar to human beings as depicted in the files stored in its memory. The information these people provide conflicts at first with everything Four knows about these “invaders”, and is therefore viewed with suspicion and scorn, but as time goes on it becomes easier and easier to question what used to be unequivocal truth, and what its role in all this could and should be.

The most compelling feature in Activation Degradation is indeed the long road Unit Four – later on called Aimsley – has to travel as it peels away the layers of untruths that have been keeping it and its brethren in the dark about their true nature and the real situation on planet Earth. And if it’s not difficult for the readers to figure out many of the answers, following Four/Aimsley through this journey is what keeps them turning the pages, in the eagerness to see how all these revelations will affect the character: what this novel offers in that respect is a spellbinding and often poignant tale of awakening, of breaking the bonds of conditioning that have kept Aimsley and its fellow units in actual slavery to a perverted system.

The other intriguing aspect of the story comes from the understanding that the two factions at war are not so easily recognizable as “bad” and “good” guys, because both of them are responsible for the present situation in equal measure, although the novel poses some thought-provoking questions about paying off the debts of our forefathers – and for how long that “punishment” must go on – on one side, and on the other about an excess of protectiveness toward something that’s been left in one’s care, and how far that attitude can be taken.

This latter issue is not resolved at the end of the book, and although Activation Degradation looks like a standalone so far, there are some open-ended narrative threads that just beg for some further exploration: while the novel does reach a satisfactory ending, and does so through some quite unexpected twists and turns, there are more than enough elements to turn it into a very enjoyable series, one whose continuation I would certainly welcome.

My Rating: