From Amazon.com
In this sequel to
Dreamships, Melissa Scott tackles the concept of artificial intelligence and how it will impact society. Not the theoretical society of chess playing and super computing, but the gritty society where coolie laborers struggle for existence, and where political groups fight their battles on the streets through protests, riots, and bombings. Scott uses three characters--a high-tech stage magician, her deaf cousin who plays in a struggling band, and a starship pilot with a deep distrust for the artificial constructs she must work with--to explore her intense, if slow moving, future.
From Library Journal
Scott returns to the world of Dreamships (Tor, 1992) to further explore artificial intelligence. Celinde Fortune performs illusions in a theater on Persephone five years after riots pitted coolie labor against machine-rights activists. When she combines two computer chips for her act, the resulting karakuri, named after her dead twin Celeste, seems to be an independent artificial intelligence. From an entertainer's perspective, Scott deftly explores this complex, class-stratified world where the lowliest workers fear that artificial intelligence may obtain human rights they don't have. Highly recommended for sf collections.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
