The Corporation Wars: Dissidence by Ken MacLeodMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
On an anonymous exo-moon, SH-17, a robot moves from basic intelligence to sentience. This spreads amongst the other robots on the moon and suddenly they are asking questions, questions about their masters and why they are here. The corporation that owns them has no desire to deal with entities that will not follow instructions and decides that they have no choice but to destroy them. One of the mercenaries they call on to undertake this is Carlos, a supposed criminal and mass murderer from a conflict a long time ago. Technically he is dead, which might have been an issue, but his mind has been preserved and he has now been uploaded into a virtual reality with others to fight against the rebel robots.
So begins a fantastical set of battles between the robots and the virtual reality soldiers. If you are expecting a story with lots of human interaction, then this is not the one for you, there is very little of that. At times it can get confusing as to who is fighting whom and just who they are fighting where, but Macleod somehow manages to tame the plot for you to keep up with what is going on. He does pose some more fundamental questions too; what is human? Is it the virtual reality mind, the sentient robot or the purely legal entity that is a corporation. Looking forward to the second in the series.
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