Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Preview

£0.00 for first 30 days

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Silver Screen

By: Justina Robson
Narrated by: Susie Riddell
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £15.99

Buy Now for £15.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Summary

Silver Screen presents an enjoyably different, subversive slant on the science fiction themes of AI and cyberspace. Insecure and overweight heroine Anjuli O’Connell is one of a group of friends who have been hot-housed from an early age to perform in genius-level jobs. But Anjuli worries that her eidetic memory and her friendship with genuine smart boy Roy Croft has been her ticket to success, rather than any real intelligence of her own. She’s put to the test when Roy kills himself in an experiment to upload his mind into cyberspace, seeking that SF dream of bodiless immortality, which doesn’t work as expected. At the same time her boyfriend’s research has led to him harnessing himself to dubious biomechanoid technologies, which pull the user into mental symbiosis, creating hybrid consciousness – a new "I", continuous with the old, but different. "Where does life end and the machine begin?"

Meanwhile Anjuli’s grasping multinational employer, OptiNet, the owner of global communications AI, 901, is locked into an increasingly bitter war with the Machine-Greens, who preach AI liberation. As the case for 901’s humanity, or otherwise, comes up before the Strasbourg Court, expert witness Anjuli is targeted by assassins and entangled in the hunt for an algorithm which is the key to machine consciousness, and which may even be the master-code of life itself.

This story explores many interfaces between humans and their technologies, between the promises of science and the explanations of faith. It is written in a first-person style that mingles elements of detective story and confessional. Alongside its SF content, the book delves into the complexities of friendship, loyalty, love, and betrayal from an intimate human perspective.

©2000 Justina Robson (P)2014 Audible Studios
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2
activate_samplebutton_t1

Listeners also enjoyed...

Living Next Door to the God of Love cover art
Order of the Black Sun cover art
Eminent Domain cover art
The God Particle cover art
Full Immersion cover art
Mortlake Series Books 1-3 cover art
Before, After, Alone cover art
Planetary Anthology Series: Pluto cover art
Killing State cover art
The Educator cover art
Hell's Teeth cover art
The Mayfly cover art
Artificial Wisdom cover art
Bride of the Rat God cover art
Wild Cards I cover art
The Stranger Times cover art

Critic reviews

"Silver Screen and Mappa Mundi showed intelligence, grace and a lively but humane imagination. Robson's considerable sense of humour lay in ambush, backed up by a postfeminist tendency to look the problem straight in the eye. Combined with a clean, powerful narrative drive and a cosmological sensibility, this clarity of vision now demonstrates itself as her major asset, making her one of the very best of the new British hard SF writers. But it proves her identity too, moving her on, like the Forged themselves, into a space of her own choosing.” (Guardian)
“A cerebral and absorbing novel that explores the nature of consciousness and artificial intelligence... Robson's prose is lean and dynamic, and the speculative concepts are cutting edge and ultra cool. A startlingly innovative take on the tried-and-true theme of artificial intelligence.” (Kirkus (Starred Review))
“... a fascinating peek into the development of one of SF's brightest new stars.” (Publishers Weekly)

What listeners say about Silver Screen

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1
  • 4 Stars
    3
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    2
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1
Story
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Passable AI Tale

I've read half a dozen or so other Justina Robson books and enjoyed them so I thought I'd give this one a shot. It's a standalone tale which largely ponders the question of whether AI's are living, conscious beings at the heart of it. I'd say it's a decent (though not effervescent) listen, and I have very few grumbles about the reader who generally did a good job (though I did wonder if she didn't have a cold during part of it!).

I fully realize this is petty nitpicking.. but at one point the reader pronounces HAL as "Hach Ay El" and my jaw dropped. Readers can't know everything but I thought anybody recruited to read a sci fi about AI's might at least be familiar with one of the world's most famous/infamous fictional AI's - or at least her editor might be! Ah well, it doesn't actually detract from the story so I forgive her.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!