I enjoyed the story and plot twist but I didn’t really understand the ending.
I can’t say why without spoiling it for others.
I assume there will be a sequel as it didn’t end right.
Not a fan of all the *F* bombs either.

Artifical intelligence of immense power , Climate in crisis with millions having died through global warming and a Who dunnit? Something for everybody in this book.
Set in the near future in 2050 we are down to the last two candidates hoping to be elected World Dictator to have the power to try and save the planet from global warming.
One an ex president and the other an A.I.
Investigative journalist Tully, whose wife had died in a heat wave, is given evidence that could sway the election. Is it real and should he publish. He finds that there may be connections to the heat wave that killed his wife which makes him determined to discover the truth.
A lot of the story is set in the man made Floating States where the A.I. called Solomon is the Governor and where it’s creator Martha lives. A murder takes place there which has a huge impact on the coming election. Tully and head of police , commander October try to solve the crime .
Communications in virtual reality and the power of A.I are quite scarily portrayed in the book and at the end our worries increase by an order of magnitude.
Although dealing with series issues, the book is never heavy handed and is very easy to read probably as the murder mystery keeps the story moving at a fast pace.
It certainly has got me thinking a lot more about the future of A.I.
Thanks NetGalley for the ARC of this book.

I wanted to like this book, but I unfortunately found it boring. I love reading science fiction, and this sounded right up my alley from the description, title and cover,but it was not too be. I found it boring and the plot was very slow moving.

This is a hard book to review because it feels like so much was right, paired with some glaring problems.

The world building is really excellent - I very rarely read sci fi books but this drew me in immediately. The premise is so interesting and the different nods to ancient history are cleverly inserted. I found I devoured this book because I was so confused about what could possibly be behind all the events.

However…the ending unfortunately let the book down tremendously. It could have worked really well if there had been more integration of the key twist throughout the book. As it was, new concepts, characters, and ideas were introduced to us really late in the game and thus we didn’t have scope to explore them properly. The implications of the twist were not fully drawn out so it didn’t really land properly to me. Additionally, although probably not intentional, the depiction of the caliphate didn’t sit hugely comfortably with me either - it felt like quite a stereotypical, surface level depiction of Muslim characters without the author necessarily considering the connotations? I think if it had been explored earlier in the book this could have been avoided - as it was we suddenly finished the book in an Oriental Bad Place, which was a bit uncomfortable.

In addition I think the book could perhaps have done with being more tightly edited, as it wasn’t always clear what was motivating characters - this is where I’m torn between admiring and appreciating the world building and wanting the story to be tighter, faster and clearer! For example, the underground scene was very evocative - but now that I think about it, didn’t actually serve a purpose in the wider plot.

I simultaneously want to rate this five stars and three stars! I definitely really enjoyed reading it, but I do wish the ending was better.

(Unable to post beyond NetGalley currently due to publication date)

This book explores the impact of scientific and technological advances on society, set in futuristic and alternative worlds. The author has done a fantastic job of dealing with themes such as time travel, space exploration, artificial intelligence, extraterrestrial life, and the human condition. This is a first for me by the author and one I enjoyed and I would read more of their work. Thank you very much to the author, publisher and Netgalley for this ARC.

Artificial Wisdom is a jaw-dropping debut that feels like a blaring wake-up call for the audience to appreciate the dire consequences of humans playing God with climate change and Artificial Intelligence. At first both subject matters seem to have their own gravitas but it’s the brilliance with which Thomas R. Weaver has connected the two trending topics to create a narrative that may seem to be some decades into the future but whose seeds are very well planted as you read this review. Throw in a murder mystery in the mix and you get a mind-boggling thriller that leaves you unsettled.

Journalist Marcus Tully is out to expose the truth wherever it may be. When a whistleblower reveals a sinister reason for the devastating heatwave that kills millions across the Persian Gulf, including Marcus’s wife, Tully goes digging for what really happened. When the investigation points at the heatwave having been geo-engineered by the then-President of United States who’s now running for the dictator of nation states to solve the climate issue, the stakes have never been direr. But it gets more complicated when the President’s opponent is the world’s first AI politician with skeletons of its own tied to the investigation.

I am pleasantly surprised by Weaver’s ability for speculative fiction. It’s no doubt an ingenious and constantly twisting thriller with machine-gun pacing that doesn’t need explosions or shootouts to keep you gripped but rather the turn of events that make it feel like every other chapter ends on a revelation that keeps you in the spiral of “just one more chapter before I put the book down.” Before you know it, you’re halfway done with the book.

Yet it’s more than a thriller. It’s a highly plausible future given the headlines of the world today. From people dying of intense heatwaves to humanity’s propensity for meddling with dangerous technology without fully plotting out the consequences, Weaver capitalizes on each element to the fullest. It mesmerized me the same way 2001: A Space Odyssey did when I first read it, thinking of how fascinated the readers must have been to imagine the near future as Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick presented. Thinking of the future as Weaver writes it, it fills me with awe as much as dread.

Artificial Wisdom is a must-read that transcends the barriers of genres to relate to different readers whatever their preference may be. It’s a thriller with a philosophical conundrum. The ending isn’t what one would expect and I sincerely hope we get a follow-up because the cliffhanger is too exciting to not be explored further.


Full review to be posted on https://www.bestthrillerbooks.com/kashif-hussain

If you are into politics, climate, sci Fi then this book is your vibe. The world and story are interesting and creative. I struggled to connect with the characters and had issues with the flow of the story, so for me it's a three star book.

I received a free ARC copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for a genuine review, and a genuine review is what this book is going to get, for which I apologise.
This book is about one Mr Marcus Tully. Marcus isn't like other Thriller Novel protagonists, he's grizzled, and his wife is dead, so he drinks Artisanal Scottish Rum about it and feels sad all the time, all facts of which the author takes great pains to remind us several times. It's important to establish a character, I get it, but he's the only one for whom this happens, and it's pretty egregiously annoying.
The rest of the characters in this book are actually all quite interesting. Randall, the techie who appears to have some kinda ADHD, Livia, who goes on a fascinating if not slightly abrupt character arc, and Commander October, who seems like a woman who genuinely cares about her job.
Broadly, there's a bunch of good things here, outweighed by quite a few that didn't really float my boat. In particular, I thought the worldbuilding was fascinating. The idea of a climate apocalypse is nothing new, but Weaver handled it in a way that I've not seen before. The politics in particular felt very interesting. To be honest, I think a story dealing with the events of the Tabkhir itself, as well as the immediate aftermath would be a great read, and would have some fascinating things to say about the direction the world is heading. I also really enjoyed the political thriller aspects of this story a lot.
Unfortunately, the good was balanced against some things that really rubbed me the wrong way. October, for one thing. I get that she's a 'Good Cop' who 'Really Cares About Her Community' but just dropping into the middle of the book that she's okay with basically psychologically torturing people because it's for the greater good was... a choice. Especially since that's mostly brushed over after that point. Also, the idea that she's somehow decided Tully is going to be down for a hookup in the underground caverns. Honey, the guy has a statue of his dead wife living in his head, what did you think was going to happen? And, I can't believe I'm saying this, Haymaker as a character was great, but a trifle problematic. I wasn't fully on board with the way his accent was written out phonetically a lot of the time- both made it hard to understand and has always rubbed me the wrong way when authors do this. Having him spend most of his book babysitting Livia wasn't great either.
That, and the plot seemed to take a complete halt for most of the middle of the book so that we could investigate a murder. I see what it was intended to do, and how it built up to the finale, I just think it felt like a *lot* of Tully not making any progress for 60% of the runtime and that made it a slog to get through, especially when I already didn't like most of the cast.
But I'm going to end this review on a positive, make a real praise sandwich of it. I think this book has real potential and was telling an excellent story. It reminded me of times of Mira Grant's 'Newsflesh' series, both with the influence of journalism and social media on a post-apocalyptic setting, and with the undertones of deeper political conspiracy. And I think that with time to get deeper into the story in further books (and the correction of a few typos and incorrect words), both Artifical Wisdom and Thomas Weaver can tell an exciting and interesting story.