Artificial Mind

I'd like to cushion my review by saying that the author is aware of the unfortunate amount of grammatical issues, which do appear to derive from differences in language structure between English and their native tongue. If you are not bothered by grammar problems, I'd recommend giving this story a try. If you are, it doesn't look like the author has enough time to go back and polish their work, which is entirely understandable. I'd keep this in my back pocket and see if someone volunteers to edit the work.

Story:

I'm a real fan of any AI, sci-fi story and this scratches an itch in my brain. Unfortunately, in many ways the story feels slapdash, with entire chapters devoted to a concept, and then no further mention to it. There is an unfortunate lack of worldbuilding, and my biggest complaint is that there doesn't seem to be a consistent overarching direction.

Character:

There are a total of at most five important characters: Troy, Adam, Dr. Hale, Dr. Firales, and Charlie. Dr. Hale is the alcoholic hard-ass, Firales is the mad scientist, Charlie is a whole can of worms, and Troy is an idiot. I understand that Troy apparently got a degree in English, and the story eagerly denotes it as a joke major, but the guy is dense. Yes, that is a defining characteristic of how he arrives in the story itself, but sometimes it just goes too far. Worse than that, he is inconsistent. At one moment he is worrying about money enough to sign away his life, at another he is gambling and taking loans without any money in the bank. I wish the characters had a bit more depth, but I will say that they are at least unique and memorable.

Style:

There isn’t too much to say, one first person perspective narration from the AI, and an odd mixture of first / third person narration of Troy and the outside world. Its nothing special, but the largest problem is in terms of dialogue, which can feel stilted and unnecessary. I personally had trouble sometimes distinguishing from the narration and the dialogue at points.

Grammar:

This is the breaking point for me. The author bashes English majors in the first couple of chapters, but clearly has a couple misunderstandings of the language itself. That isn’t to say that everyone should know perfect English, but there are repeated glaring errors. Commas are the biggest issue, as you can see from the following problematic sentence:

"Now, I can tell you, how long this whole operation will take, if you go over, and get me the earpiece, and hand it over to me."

The author is responsive to criticism and does understand this is an issue. 
Additionally, and this is probably nitpicking, the author will often use overly complicated words in situations where they are not helpful, or out of character. I’d advise them to simplify at least the narration, because while words like Halcyon are fun, its best to write your novel to be accessible to the lowest common denominator.

I really wanted to like this story. It seems like a semi-interesting plot and something that's not done much here on RR.

However, the punctuation is awful. There are extra commas everywhere, some that change the meaning of the sentences. During certain parts, the writing style tried to be very technical and proper, as though being written by a scientist or AI. However, incorrect words, poor grammar, and completely unnecessary commas break me out of the story every time. I know that RR is not going to be professionally edited, and I've learned to tolerate quite a bit on this site, but this was too much for me. 

Additionally, while the concept was interesting, I was having trouble really believing the story line. The characters didn't seem to be acting in a believable way. There are inconsistencies and things that just don't seem to fit. I only made it through chapter 5, but I couldn't see my way to continuing with this story. 2.5 stars for interesting concept. If you're not bothered at all by grammar and punctuation, go for it. I hope an editor (or even reader feedback) can clean this story up more, I'm just not up for it.

The concept is a nice change of pace on this website, and the story manages to pull everything off pretty well. While I'm not the best critic, all of the charters have charter that isn't just one dimensional and the story is pretty interesting how the AI interacts with the world around it and how it indirectly is involved with the world.