WWW: Wonder

I’ve read a lot of Robert Sawyer’s scifi, and enjoyed most of it, but this conclusion to a trilogy (and, indeed, the first two books, Watch and Wake), takes the prize.

It’s a bit preachy, as others have said, but the AI’s achievements, particularly the takedown of a dictatorship, justifies most of it. Sawyer’s usual liberal politics and Canadian ethnocentrism also are pretty well balanced this time out. And no Texan could complain very convincingly about his Texan main character, or the amusing way he handles her sometimes skeptical encounter with Canadian culture.

The ending also surprised me, which is always delightful in a novel, not so much for the content as for the unexpectedness of its leap. We can only hope that the tale’s singularity, and particularly Sawyer’s AI, is a reliable forecast of our future, in addition to being enjoyable entertainment.