Mal Goes to War Audiobook By Edward Ashton cover art

Mal Goes to War

A Novel

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Mal Goes to War

By: Edward Ashton
Narrated by: John Pirhalla, Katharine Chin
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The humans are fighting again. Go figure.

As a free A.I., Mal finds the war between the modded and augmented Federals and the puritanical Humanists about as interesting as a battle between rival anthills. He’s not above scouting the battlefield for salvage, though, and when the Humanists abruptly cut off access to infospace he finds himself trapped in the body of a cyborg mercenary, and responsible for the safety of the modded girl she died protecting.

A dark comedy wrapped in a techno thriller’s skin, Mal Goes to War provides a satirical take on war, artificial intelligence, and what it really means to be human.

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press.

©2024 Edward Ashton (P)2024 Macmillan Audio Adventure Science Fiction Technothrillers Thriller & Suspense Witty

Critic reviews

"Ashton offers a technothriller with heart that will appeal to fans of the 'Murderbot Diaries' from Martha Wells but also to readers looking for more AI-led stories like Day Zero by C. Robert Cargill and Emergent Properties by Aimee Ogden,"—Library Journal, starred review

"Ashton’s vision of the future feels all too plausible and his blend of action and humor keeps the pages flying. This is sure to please the author’s fans."—Publishers Weekly

Humorous Sci-fi • Great Characters • Authentic Worldbuilding • Balanced Plot • Interesting Tech • Novel Ai Protagonist
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Fantastic, ironic, amusing, thought-provoking. Mal is the AI that might just make the coming AI apocalypse worthwhile!

Will Mal ever ride again? We can only hope!

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fantastic story, great narration and engaging characters. grounded enough to make you see the possibility in a not distant future

AI rising

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The static punctuations in the direct back and fourth between MAL and others was pointless and annoying. This is why I gave the performance a 4.

Surprisingly thoughtful

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Sci fi imagination - audio was not distinct enough to distinguish various characters fun. Thanks Ed

Great imagination and scientific knowledge

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Great story until except chapter 24, made little sense in my mind. After that it ended well.

Chapter 24

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Had a really fun time with this one. Its a very 'lite' sci-fi really lacking in descriptions and details on the technology. You kind of just have to accept the world as the characters see it, and they dont really dwell on things similar to how we dont really sit around thinking too much about how our wi-fi, 5G, or bluetooth work.

Really great characters and does a really nice job of avoiding politics and religion. Both 'sides' of the war are bad and do horrible things. Our characters all simply react to the world they are in, and how it affects them. I really enjoyed all the character interactions and humor as well. I enjoyed being in our MC mind and how they saw the world and made a hell of a lot of assumptions based either on one or two observations of a 'monkey' or by watching every romantic comedy on Netflix.

It led to lots of funny antics and I had a fun time.

A fun enjoyable listen, amazing narration.

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This is a very pleasant humorous SciFi. The characters are fun, the protagonist is a novel AI with an unusual perspective. The story has a nice balance between plot and action. This is a very fine humor SciFi, but it is not quite as good as Bob.

After reading and enjoying this book, I found the author wrote the book that Micky 17 was based on. I like to read the book before seeing the movie, so that has moved to my next read.

The narration was great with nice character voices.

Funny, Interesting, Good Story

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Love the “I don’t understand human dynamics” AI / robot themes in the book. Very funny and satirical that helps offset the brutalist setting.

Funny, absurd despite brutal setting

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If you loved the Murderbot Diaries, you will definitely want to check this one out.

Loved it

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Absolutely loved this. The reader was fantastic, I really fell in love with the characters and the story kept me engaged throughout.

Incredibly fun, interesting

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