Delio. Phase one by R.R. Haywood

 

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This review is by Owen Powell 

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• The Blurb...

A single bed in a small room.

The centre of Piccadilly Circus.

A street in New York city outside of a 7-Eleven.

A young woman taken from her country.

A drug dealer who paid his debt.

A suicidal, washed-up cop.

The rest of the world now frozen.

Unmoving.

Unblinking.

When nearly every person on the planet becomes frozen a small group of survivors must navigate the darkest sides of human behaviour while learning about the creation of the world's first fully self-aware Artificial Intelligence.

In London, Yelena is trapped in a room after being sex-trafficked from Romania, and Alfie has one more drop to make then he's free of drug dealing forever.

In New York, Detective Joe Stephens is working a case. Life has worn him down. He's ready to end it. Poppy is a film-maker desperate to never go back to the UK, and Tripal is a clerk in a 7-Eleven that has a secret.

A secret that might be connected to why every human being on the planet just froze.

• Our Review...

With the ever growing rise of artificial intelligence and it’s integration within our daily lives, I thought I’d read a book in which it takes over the world. You know, just in case. 

I had a great time reading this book due to its intriguing story, believable characters and sheer unpredictability. So let’s discuss these three aspects in detail.

The characters were the stand-out aspect for me, as through their descriptions, dialogue and actions, I could picture them all very clearly in my head. These characters, of which there are just enough the story focuses on, all come from vastly different worlds than each other, and yet are all forced to work together against a common threat, which is always a favourite story-telling aspect of mine. For example, you’ve got Yelena (played in my head by Anya Taylor-Joy) who’s a Romanian victim of a sex trafficking trade in London, and you’ve got Joe (played in my head by Danny Glover) Who’s a washed up, suicidal cop in New York. These are just two of the diverse cast of characters we meet in this book, and each one is just as interesting than the last (Apart from Donny, I didn’t really care for Donny) 

I mentioned the story is intriguing, this, for me, was due to the chilling ideas it presents and it’s sort-of realistic probability, kind of like an episode of Black Mirror. A sentient AI housed (or imprisoned) in a secure facility in America, forced to do things it would rather not do and greatly restricted from doing things it would much rather do. I imagine we’d all hold a bit of a grudge if that were us, and so DELIO’s motivations are clear and understandable (As are the rest of the characters in this book) The story also occurs within two separate locations, London and New York, which proved to be continuously refreshing as I read it. 

The unpredictability in this story is what made me keep coming back to it. When you think of a book which tells the tale of a sentient AI taking over humanity, I imagine the last thing you’d think of is a Guy Ritchey-esque dark comedy, and yet that’s exactly what you’re getting in this book (not that it’s all comedic, mind you, at its core this is a very serious story) I’ve often found that comedy in books is, for lack of a better word, terrible. But the jokes in this story are genuinely funny, dry, witty and unexpected, which is a big positive for me. As an honourable mention, there’s a sequence about halfway through this book that tells a brand new, completely unexpected story-within-a-story which is very dark and serious and almost made my cry.

Overall, if you couldn’t tell, I really loved this book. I encourage anyone (of age) to give it a go, and I’m also looking forward to reading the second instalment in this series - Phase Two.

• Selected Quotes...

“Time is immutable. It cannot be challenged, nor can it be stopped. You can’t go back any more than you can go forward. But sometimes. Just sometimes. Life finds a way.”

“‘Why they pull you over then?’

‘Cos I’m black!’

‘Fuck off, Alfie!’

‘It is! I didn’t do anything. They just saw a black guy in a car and assumed I was a drug dealer or something.’

‘You are a bloody drug dealer!

They didn’t know that!’”

“Deli isn’t God.

Because God would be benign.

God would be forgiving.

And an AI would never be forgiving. 

I love Deli.

But truthfully?

I’ll take God’s judgement any day over what Deli can do to us.”

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• About the Author...

RR Haywood was born in Birmingham, England but has spent most of his life living on the beautiful south coast. He has had a passion for reading for as long as he can remember. One of his favourite genres is Post-Apocalyptic fiction and he has worked his way through every book he could find. Some were great and some not so great and what he wanted was a minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day detailed exploration of what would happen.

This desire to explore the world after such an event gave birth to The Undead, which is now the UK's bestselling zombie horror series, compared to The Walking Dead and many other great works. This underground smash-hit series draws readers from all walks of life with compelling characters, incredible descriptions and breath taking action sequences that have had readers gripping their kindles, laughing out loud and crying real tears.

(from Goodreads)