Value Never Sleeps

This collection of Globe’s three-book SF thriller series features a tech-savvy protagonist.

Rave Maps is a “private value engineer”—she finds ways for companies to run more efficiently, helping them to “tell stories that drive change.” Running her small firm, Maps Private Value, she’s “never failed and has never let a customer down.” Rave is also skilled in combat; in Book 1, when she is attacked while on a hike in Madeira, she deftly defends herself. The incident presents a question: Why is she being targeted? When Rave and her close friend, Mait Orleans, attend an upscale event in Toronto, they learn that a new AI system called BrainRanger is capable of “uploading the expertise of human minds.” Unfortunately, in the process, it may kill the human whose mind it uploads. Book 2 in the series finds Mait being forced off of a cliff by a driverless car while she is cycling. She survives the attack and later travels to Denver to learn about fire ecology, hoping that perhaps she and Rave can use their skillset to help the planet. In Book 3, Rave ventures to Mars following the death of her nephew due to complications from ingesting a street drug. All three books move quickly—Rave and company are rarely idle. When they are not working, they’re engaged in activities like leading stranded divers to safety or creating a documentary. Along the way, however, there are more business-oriented scenes that are less than scintillating; for one client, Rave “assemble[s] graphs illustrating the monthly cost of a cloud subscription compared with the high cost of building a new data center.” (The assemblage of graphs is not the most dramatic material, but the hero has to make a living.) Rave’s narrative really hits its stride in Book 3, which touches on topics as diverse as drug addiction and a conscious AI, all in fewer than 200 pages. The fun is in never knowing where Rave and her cohorts will end up.

A rapid-fire collection that always keeps the reader guessing.