the all consuming world by cassandra khaw

Members of the Dirty Dozen have baggage, and Khaw effectively gives you a sense of a dysfunctional, formerly chosen family, of outsiders with history. Khaw's characters are damaged, raw, full of salt and vinegar, not always likable but charismatic. Anyone who seems to have answers turns out to be an untrustworthy manipulator keeping everyone else in the dark, so you're pretty much in the dark, too. Of course, she's not exactly alive either – and that's one of the hooks Rita uses to reel the old team back, along with the chance to figure out what exactly went so wrong last time.įor most of “The All-Consuming World,” the reader doesn't know why the heist has to happen now, or what its target is. There's a third wrinkle: Elise, one of two casualties from the last heist, isn't exactly dead.

We also meet the enigmatic Merchant Mind - out for themself, playing multiple sides to a mysterious end - and Pimento, a surveyor Mind who becomes embroiled in politicking. A powerful Mind faction, the Bethel, believe the physical world and data exist to be devoured.

The authorities determined to stop them are autonomous AIs called Minds: relentless, alien, fascinating. Rinse repeat.' Maya is the muscle and often our viewpoint character, loyal number two to callous mad scientist Rita, the manipulative former leader who's bringing the Dirty Dozen - or what's left of them - back together. 'Work, die, mulch the corpses, brine in the appropriate solution, bring them back. When their bodies wear out or are damaged, their minds are uploaded into a new body, as long as nothing goes wrong. This time the criminals are cyborg clones - grown and augmented for work, treated like second class citizens and, unless something goes wrong, functionally immortal. They transform one last heist into “The All-Consuming World:” a visionary, foul-mouthed, gory sci-fi adventure, dripping viscera, violence, and beauty in equal measure. You might know this story, but you don't yet know it in the hands of Cassandra Khaw. A rag-tag band of criminals must come together for one last heist of course, they didn't part on good terms after the last job.

The all consuming world by cassandra khaw