THE PROPHECY OF THE HERON

An ex–office worker, banished to a treacherous apartment district, fights to survive thugs and a rogue artificial intelligence in this SF sequel.

Kim once worked at the Artificial Intelligence Company in an AI–run dystopian city. But after drones caught her making loveto a woman named Shan,she was branded a criminal in a future world that rejects any kind of individuality. The punishment was exile in one of the crime-ridden outer districts. Her new apartment and assigned manual-labor job aren’t great, and Kim has never before lived without constant AI assistance or a bot brewing her coffee. She isn’t in District 33 for long before danger tracks her down: A couple of hooligans accost her and continually threaten her in later run-ins. They seem to know too much about her, which makes Kim suspect that someone—or something—is pointing them in her direction. The telltale buzzing sound of a drone overhead indicates it’s likely Kimberly, the AI that Kim created for her old company and that’s since turned against her. Luckily, Kim makes some new friends and scores a side gig as a “pedicabbie,” at which the skilled bicyclist excels. Things take a significant turn when she agrees to a pickup in the elite District 2 and a drop-off somewhere on “the outside”—the ungoverned land just beyond reinforced concrete walls. This ultimately precipitates Kim’s deep dive into virtual reality, which she frequented in her old life. There, she may find a way to fix Kimberly and take a stance against her former employer and the authoritarian Hierarchy.

Stanfill delivers a faster-paced follow-up to series opener Terms of Service(2021)—one in which Kim’s fight briskly moves back and forth between real life and VR. The protagonist also faces more urgent predicaments than she did in the first novel. She’s determined to find Shan, who’s now hiding as a “Blank,” having successfully ditched her ID chip with Kim’s assistance. Moreover, the perpetually hostile thugs keep popping up, and some in Kim’s group of allies think that she may be a traitor. Despite Kim’s reliance on AIs, she manages to roll with life’s punches and adjust to her new circumstances with relative ease. She doesn’t want to kill anyone, but she won’t hesitate to flash her switchblade to ward off a threat. Meanwhile, a fascinating cast surrounds her. Their local language, Panglobal, doesn’t recognize gender, so this “translated” narrative uses only she/her/hers for all characters. Stanfill, as in his earlier book, animates the pages with lucid details, as when Kim visits a nightclub (in the real world): “Spins, lunges, leaps, surges, all the usual moves but stronger, more intense, more vital. She danced as if all the devils of Hell were nipping at her heels. She had nothing left to lose, no future, no past, only the present.” Scenes in VR, however, are equally vibrant all the way until the tale’s ending, which offers surprising resolution.

A smashing, energetic installment in this futuristic series that keeps getting better.