Izanami's Choice (paperback)

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Samurai vs. robots! Hard times for androids in Meiji Era Japan.

This is an alternate history, sci-fi novella set in Meiji Era Japan, if they had undergone a cybernetic revolution instead of an industrial one. It explores how Japan might have grappled with the rise of artificial intelligence, in an already turbulent era, differently from how it's typically approached in Western sci-fi. It's an action-driven, noir cross of Samurai Jack and Blade Runner.

SAMURAI VS ROBOTS

Progress. Murder. Choice.

In 1901, the Meiji Restoration has abolished the old ways and ushered in a cybernetic revolution. Androids integrate into society at all levels, following their programming for the betterment of every citizen, as servants, bodyguards, and bureaucrats. Jinzou are the future. Japan is at the threshold of a new tomorrow!

As a ronin steeped in the old ways, Itaru wants nothing more to do with the artificial creations posing as human. But when a jinzou is suspected of murder, he's pulled into a mystery that could tear the nation apart.

​Malfunction or free will? When is a machine more than just a machine?

FROM THE AUTHOR

Samurai and robots? Not as far-fetched as you might imagine. Adam shares on the level of technology, the robotics and artificial intelligence, in his alternate history sci-fi novella set in Meiji Era Japan:

It's primarily a combination of two what-ifs:
  1. What if Charles Babbage had successfully completed his difference engine and analytical engine designs? (This is essentially the same what-if behind The Difference Engine by Gibson and Sterling.)
  2. What if evolutionary programming had been discovered around the same time?

​​The latter requires a variety of factors, including that Babbage chatted with Charles Darwin and came away with programmatic ideas and that 19th-century logicians figured out how to codify reasoning as mathematic deduction--not probable, but plausible.

Evolutionary programming is the idea of pitting competing parameters or programs against each other to achieve a certain goal (like getting a computer to handle facial recognition). Those parameters that perform best are then modified further and tested against each other again. This process is repeated until you have a programmatic solution to otherwise difficult problems.

The key idea behind Izanami's Choice, then, is that this method was used with the analytical engines to rapidly improve the design of the engine's programs and even the engine itself. The engine was improved to the point where it could evaluate the results automatically, and it was then improved further to where it could revise the programs itself as well. When that loop was closed, the engine would become capable of revising and improving upon itself at a rapid rate—a robotic singularity.

Of course, the novella doesn't have a big old infodump like this in it, but you asked, and I do love talking about worldbuilding! 

REVIEWS

Nerds on Earth: "Heine did so much in so little space; its kind of amazing, really.  I’ve read books three times as long with half the content. Solid characters and characterization; succinct but great world building; mystery; treachery; plot twists. Its all here, and its all good!"

The Seattle Review of Books: "Compelling," says Paul Constant. It's a "ferocious little genre blender in book form: part Hammett novel, part Kurosawa Samurai epic, part Blade Runner, and entirely obsessed with keeping the reader’s eyes moving from one page to the next... Heine has tapped into a big one: the concept of free will, how it relates to one’s responsibility to the community, and whether we can ever really ascertain someone else’s individuality. The mystery of the book is engrossing and it’s resolved in a satisfying way." The full review is at The Seattle Review of Books and Seattle Weekly.

Sequential Tart: "I love that this book included a father-daughter reunion and team-up, and that she (Kano) gets props (and a promotion) because she's that good at what she does, regardless of gender! I also love that we come to an understanding of how the loss of Itaru's son, Kano's brother, drove them in two very different directions for the same reason, and that both reasons were used to combat the true villain. And, along with being a formidable samurai herself (win) she's the tech-genius (double win)! She's definitely a secondary character, but she plays a vital role in the story and the climactic battle." The full review by Sheena McNeil is at Sequential Tart.

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FORMAT
Trade Paperback
​
AUTHOR
Adam Heine

COVER DESIGN
Jeremy Zerfoss

OTHER FORMATS
ebook

THEMES
artificial intelligence (AI), cybernetics, Meiji-era Japan​​

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Adam Heine
Adam Heine lives in Thailand where he and his wife foster kids with nowhere to go (current value: ten kids; current status: only mostly insane). He spends a lot of time training these kids to be gamers, thinkers, and supervillains. (Though a few insist on being good at sports and stuff, he tries not to hinder them.)

By day, Adam is the Design Lead for the upcoming computer roleplaying game Torment: Tides of Numenera. By night, he writes science fiction and fantasy for whomever will pay him. His short stories have appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Paizo’s Pathfinder Tales, and the anthology Tomorrow’s Cthulhu. You can see more of what he’s written and what he’s working on at adamheine.com.

He desperately tries to pretend that he still has spare time in which to watch Daredevil and play the latest Shadowrun.