I received a review copy of
this book for free and am leaving this review voluntarily.
Renegade is the fifth book in
the Companion Chronicles series by Joshua Todd James. Picking up where Man in a
Box left off, we continue following the adventures of artificially intelligent
android Jacob Kind. Jacob, synthetic person, witnessed the murder of his owner,
mentor, and as Jacob refers to her, his mother, Sylvia. He knows who the
murderer is and is chasing him across the country to see that justice is done.
He is being sought by the police for being a cop-killer, and by the company who
built him because of the changes he has undergone through his ordeal.
Overall, I have enjoyed this
series of books with great enthusiasm, including this volume. At the same time,
I am deeply disturbed by the dark turn taken by the principal character. It is
no surprise to that this has happened because the author is plumbing the depths
of the darkest part of humanity. Through reading this work, I find myself happy
to be who I am to have never experienced the side of society Jacob has been
forced to witness as he pursues his quarry.
As with the rest of the tales
in the Companion Chronicles series, this is a story that will hopefully make
readers think and look inside themselves. By exposing the darkest parts of
ourselves, perhaps Joshua will help us want to be better humans.
Companion Jacob Kind is on a
quest for justice for the murder of Sylvia, his Primary. He has been through a
lot and has learned to kill when necessary. After escaping a brutal fight club
situation, he comes to a town where he is mistaken for someone who has been
hired by a mining company to kill a member of the community that has proven to
be an inconvenience.
Jacob, finding himself in need
of money, takes the offered bounty and heads off to investigate the situation.
He meets and falls in love with Raven, a member of a group of environmentalists
who also engage in acts of terrorism and give him a counteroffer to take out
the head of the mining company.
Taking their money, he plays a
dangerous game of chess as he manipulates one side against the other while
determined to keep Raven out of the line of fire.
Before it is all finished, the
real hired assassin and Jacob's nemesis, Munson Tolliver, arrives on the scene
where to two vow that one day in the near future, they will have their final
showdown.
The principal character, Jacob
Kind has changed. He is no longer the innocent and naïve artificial person he
once was. He has been through the ringer and has learned to be a brutal killing
machine. He still maintains his sense of justice, but his capacity for violence
and appalling human behavior has ramped up to a terrifying point. Jacob cannot
be blamed for this eventuality owing to all the inhumanity he has witnessed
during his short life.
It saddens me to see the
direction Jacob's growth has taken. While he still seeks justice for Sylvia's
murder, he has also decided to take it into his own hands, resolving to kill
Tolliver himself, rather than bring him to the system. But who can blame him?
He has had little to no help from anyone, nor has he seen any example of the
system working. As a matter of fact, the system doesn't allow any room because
there are no laws protecting his kind.
He is performing as he has
learned, and his education has not been in any way positive.
My favorite point of plot in Renegade
is a glimmer of hope for Jacob in the form of Raven. She is the supposed leader
of a group of terrorists who claim to environmentalists, but she is also the
only one of her group who is genuinely what she appears to be. The rest are
using her as a figurehead to keep the heat away from themselves.
We see a little of Jacob's
innocence surface when he strikes up a short relationship with Raven, and he
sees it as a possible long-term situation. But Raven is a self-proclaimed
"free-spirit" and Jacob hasn't really had an experience with such a
person.
My takeaway from Renegade is a
little different than it has been for the previous books. In this tale, it is a
look at how Jacob has assimilated the worst of humanity and learned to use it
with deadly efficiency. He has become a little greedy, a killer without
remorse, and he has learned to manipulate people.
While I find it a sad situation
for a character that would otherwise have a great capacity to do good, he has
been forced into the position he is in to survive long enough to achieve his
goal, the elimination of Munson Tolliver at any cost.
As with the rest of the
Companion Chronicles, I give Renegade my highest recommendation as stories that
will make the reader think about their own implicit biases and what the result
of unleashing those biases might be.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
His books include The Companion
Chronicles which detail the adventures of synthetic person Jacob Kind in the
books titled Some Animals, Minority of One, Freedom Run, Man in a Box,
Renegade, and Domo Arigato, Mr. Robato.
You may join Jacob's chase for
justice on the author's website: Joshua Todd James.
Well, there it is...
Qapla!
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