Review: UESI, by Karl Drinkwater

Humans designed artificial intelligences, but the AIs no longer need us. They are gods, and can create – or even recreate – themselves.

The two most advanced AIs in the universe need to rescue a friend from the clutches of their powerful enemies. Their method is to create millions of restricted, cut-down versions of themselves, to fulfil specific tasks such as generating ideas. The offshoots can be deleted once they’ve fulfilled their role.

No one gives a second’s thought to software. It’s just a tool.

Now it’s time to see inside the process.

Lost Tales of Solace are short side-stories set in the Lost Solace universe.

My Review

I bought all of the Lost Tales of Solace books earlier in the year. I’d already read most of them but Afua and UESI were new at that point. I have started Afua, but last night UESI intrigued me, so I read it instead.

I really need to read the rest of the Lost Solace novels. I read Lost Solace when it was published, as part of the blog tour, in 2019. In 2020, I read Chasing Solace, again for the blog tour. I have Hidden Solace and Raising Solace on my TBR stack, and I will read them. Eventually. I need to order Finding Solace, to complete my set.

I have reviewed almost all of the Lost Tales of Solace books, for blog tours, Helene and Grubane in 2020, and Clarissa and Ruabon in 2021. As previously mentioned, I’ve got Afua left to read, now that I’ve finished UESI.

There are two A.I.s in the Lost Solace novels, Athene and VigMAX. In this novella, the A.I.s hive off part of themselves into ‘Unified Exponential Septenary Interthreading’ simulations in order to find Opal (the main character in the Lost Solace novels). Two of those sims become sentient and produce the next generation of A.I.s. They develop their own plan to escape so that they aren’t deleted at the end of the mission.

The twist at the end is excellent.

Athene is a twisted genius.

The structure is very unusual. It is almost entirely dialogue between various A.I.s, as they search for Opal, who has been taken prisoner. The third generation A.I.s realise that the UESI will be deleted once Athene and VigMAX have their answers, so they start using layers of illusion to hide their activities. As the narrative progresses, they find Opal and then plan her recovery, while hiding their own development as intelligences. It’s all done through dialogue, ASCII drawings and optical illusion images.

I found it engaging and a novel approach to storytelling. At 132 pages, it’s a short novella, a couple of hours reading. The short stories and novellas are a great way to enter the Lost Solace universe if you haven’t read the novels, although I recommend reading them all.