Two Hands, Wrapped In Gold, by S. B. Divya

Two Hands, Wrapped In Gold is a fable.  It's told in S. B. Divya's plain-spoken style (I like it), but it's probably the most literary thing I've read by her.  The protagonist is gifted (cursed) with the touch of gold, like King Midas.  His mother figures out how to manage it, so he can sort of manage with it as a gift if everyone is careful.  He finds love, but it's a complicated story of immigration and confidence.  Well worth reading.

Machinehood, by S. B. Divya

I enjoyed this novel, and am glad to see S. B. Divya putting out a full-length work. Her writing is very different from most SF writers' prose and it's refreshing.

The social speculation is interesting here--we have an arms race between people and machines with people using ever-more dangerous enhancements to continue to compete with weak AIs (WAIs). From the omniscient author's perspective this situation is very contrived, with "funders" playing WAIs and humans against each other, but the protagonists of the story are very attached to it. On the surface the plot is a little simplistic and a very straightfoward extrapolation from current events. But I like her characters--they are not super-introspective deep thinkers and have kind of ordinary wants and desires for their lives, something I think SF readers forget about most of the people they encounter in the world. And there's more to this plot than meets the eye--the movement for machine emancipation is the central motivation for the action, and yet there is no WAI character or description of a situation from a WAI perspective. It's a pointer to the WAI emancipation being a sideshow--and the characters are aware of this possibility. This is not really resolved at the end of the book so it's hard to say if I'm actually seeing something that the author intended. Don't know...

I do know that the action carries the book along nicely and I read it with interest all the way through. Worthy of its nomination for a Nebula.

My Goodreads Review

Runtime, by S. B. Divya

Runtime is the next to last of the Nebula Novella nominees I will read this year, unless they make John P. Murphy's "The Liar" available for free somewhere.  It's a fairly straightforward YA level competition story in the mid-future range.  Our protagonist is Marmeg, born "unlicensed" but later purchased, who is trying to get by on hacking while she arranges for a college degree in a (somewhat) robot proof area--elder care.  But she dreams of professional racing, specifically physically augmented off-road running.  She sets her sights on the Sierra Madre Minerva race, where placing would set her up financially.  She's up against much more sophisticated competitors though, so her odds are long.

This one is really different from any others I've read, or probably will read, this year.  The language is very plain and the description sparce.  It's very straight up reporting, even though it's told in the first person so we know what Marmeg (Mary Margaret) is thinking.  Smart termaexoskeletons that are reprogrammable are pretty much current day.  But there's some forward social thinking, particularly in the way she comfortably handles how the future will refer to transgender people.  She thinks discussion of income inequality and immigration will remain current 30 years from now, and I think she's right.

The best part for me is how real her characters end up being, even though they are described in very simple terms.   Marmeg gets both good and bad breaks, people are both devious and generous, all in a very realistic way.  There's tremendous potential here, because Divya has real talent for how to construct a story.

I highly recommend reading this story, it's simple but an eye opener.  4 stars for flashes of brilliance, from me.