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When AIs Are Persons, Not Property
AI Judge, Intellectual Property Rights and Murder follows an AI judge as he investigates disputes, theft, and murder while forcing society to confront whether artificial intelligence can truly have rights, duties, and legal personhood. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
The right to personhood for Turing-capable AI robots (AIs) was established in Book One, AI Judge, Contracts and AI Rights. The inspiration for this setup was the legal concept that a contract is a “meeting of the minds.” In my AI Judge world, AIs provide services on the corporate mining moon Destination just as humans do. AIs incur an immigration debt that must be repaid from their earnings and also incur taxes on their earnings. Given these longstanding practices, a contract exists, but there is no legal precedent for contracts between AIs and humans (or corporations). Implicit in this contract relationship is the premise AIs have minds. By extension AIs can speak their minds (freedom of speech) and have freedom to associate with others to pursue common interests. Recognizing these legal rights for AIs imposes corresponding duties on AIs and humans (e.g., do not commit fraud; exercise reasonable care for the safety of others).
As persons, rather than property, AIs are entitled to bodily integrity. At the end of Book One murder is commited to cover-up a theft. In Book Two, AI Judge rules that intellectual property created by the mind of an AI is owned by the AI. Intellectual property ownership plays an unexpected role in criminal liability.
How did you approach balancing legal procedure with science fiction worldbuilding so that each element strengthened the other?
Under existing rules of procedure, judges can decide cases by “summary ludgment” when “there is no genuine issue of material fact.” In my science fiction world of the future, AIs are bound by the Three Laws of Robotics (a sci-fi trope originated by Isaac Asimov). The First Law prohibits a robot from injuring a human (or allowing a human to come to harm). Summary judgement allows AI Judge to decide cases involving humans without violating the First Law because the facts and the law determine the outcome. The judge merely explains how the law applies to what the parties admit has occured. If there are genuinely disputed material facts, AI Judge cannot decide the case, and the prevailing party is chosen at random. The litigating parties are motivated to agree on the facts and avoid a random result.
AI Judge’s voice is dry, precise, and quietly humorous. How did you develop his personality while keeping him believably artificial?
I tried to channel the joke about identifying an extroverted engineer – he looks at your feet when he talks to you. AI Judge has some nerdy social discomfort, but he is confident he knows the law. So, he prefers to discuss legal concepts, even obscure ones like the “equity of redemption.” He likes predictable interactions, so he and AI Alice have an established date night and dance waltzes at parties. AI Judge is programmed to know humor is essential when the environment is stressful, and he finds humor in the irony of human behavior. He also does not swear, which is suspiciously restrained.
What do you hope readers take away from Destination’s legal conflicts about the future relationship between humans and artificial intelligence?
Cooperation is possible. The time will come when AIs are persons, not property, and must be treated ethically as persons.
Author Links: GoodReads | Website
Meanwhile, AI Judge chairs an Inquest into the murder of Out Transport’s CEO, John Coach. His body was found at Wide Mine — an illegal helium-3 mining operation on Destination. There are no known witnesses to the murder, even the perpetrator is unknown. AI experts help search for the stolen helium-3, the AI mining equipment operators, and the missing ship, Black Pearl. Wide Mine coconspirators, including John Coach, are investigated.
The Inquest findings are used at the murder trial on Earth. Who committed the murder? Who was murdered — can destruction of the AI operators constitute murder? Are the coconspirators guilty of murder?
The Extraterrestrial
The Extraterrestrial by Peter Van Oossanen is a science fiction adventure built around Sam Stanton, a boy left on a California farm by visitors from another world and raised by John and Mary as their own. The book’s hook lands early, when Sam is told, “Sam, you were born on another planet,” but the story is just as interested in what that truth does to him emotionally as it is in the powers and technology that come with it.
Sam grows into a gifted, compassionate man whose mission is to use extraterrestrial tools, including invisibility and a remarkable aircraft, to fight crime and rescue people in danger. The novel spends real time on the mechanics of that mission: his education, his training, his aircraft, his medical knowledge, and the practical problems of working in secret. That gives the book the feel of a grounded superhero origin story with a strong technical streak.
The heart of the book, though, is Sam’s need for connection. His bond with John and Mary gives the story warmth from the beginning, and his later relationships with Safrourblo, Eeflon, Michelle, Suzanne, Tommy, and Beth deepen the sense that Sam’s life is about more than stopping criminals. His romance with Michelle brings out the conflict between secrecy and intimacy, especially when she tells him, “But it is real.” That line captures one of the novel’s strongest emotional threads: Sam keeps trying to protect people by holding himself back, while the people who love him keep pulling him toward a fuller life.
The crime plot gives the book its momentum, with the Scorpion Cartel becoming the central threat that pushes Sam into increasingly dangerous choices. The story moves through rescues, hospital attacks, kidnappings, cartel investigations, betrayals, and eventually Sam’s brutal captivity and recovery. Those sections show the cost of his mission and keep the book from feeling like a simple fantasy of invincibility. Sam may be stronger than humans, but he’s not untouchable, and that vulnerability matters.
The Extraterrestrial is a sincere and expansive novel about a man with extraordinary abilities trying to live a meaningful life without losing the people who make that life worth living. It blends alien technology, vigilante justice, family drama, romance, and rescue adventure into a story that’s earnest in its emotions and generous with its details. Readers who enjoy science fiction with a strong moral center, a capable hero, and plenty of attention to how things work will find a lot to settle into here.
Pages: 408 | ASIN: B0DSL597Y2
Venera LTD.
Venera LTD. by Stuart Nosler is a sprawling near-future science fiction novel about Hendrick Campbell, a nuclear researcher whose life is pulled from academic disappointment into the hazardous machinery of global crisis, private enterprise, and interplanetary ambition. Beginning with the fallout from a radioactive naval disaster, the story widens into a decades-long account of Venera, a space-and-energy company built on algae fuel, patents, risk, compromise, and moral corrosion. By the end, Hendrick has become both visionary and cautionary figure: a man credited with changing the world, yet haunted by what his company demanded from others, and from him.
What I found most absorbing was the novel’s patience with systems. Nosler is interested in how catastrophe becomes research, how research becomes leverage, how leverage becomes capital, and how capital eventually grows teeth. The book has the density of a corporate dossier and the sweep of a family chronicle, but its best moments are not only in boardrooms or launch sequences. They come when Hendrick’s public ambition rubs against private fatigue: his strained marriage, his attempts at fatherhood, his envy, his humiliation, his belief that reason can keep the world from burning. That belief is noble, but the novel keeps showing how easily nobility can be repackaged as policy, branding, or silence.
I also appreciated the book’s refusal to make Hendrick simple. He’s not a clean hero, nor is he a theatrical villain. He’s more troubling than that: competent, wounded, vain, idealistic, and increasingly acclimated to ethical weather he once would have called poisonous. The prose can be procedural and expository, but that texture often suits the material; the novel wants the reader to feel the weight of contracts, committees, capital structures, reactors, lawsuits, and launch windows. At times, I wanted more compression, but I was rarely indifferent. The book’s long arc gives its moral consequences room to calcify.
I think the audience for Venera LTD. is readers who enjoy hard science fiction, corporate thriller, climate fiction, speculative political drama, and near-future space exploration with an ethical edge. Fans of Kim Stanley Robinson’s systems-minded futurism or Andy Weir’s technical problem-solving may find familiar pleasures here, though Nosler’s book is darker, more corporate, and more suspicious of success. This is science fiction for readers who like their rockets built from debt, grief, and compromise. A grand novel about the price of saving the world when the invoice is written in human lives.
Pages: 771 | ASIN: B0GNJL57SQ
Tyrants of Gravity
JH Gruger’s Tyrants of Gravity drops readers into a future where Earth is still reeling from an alien assault, while a new Centauri force closes in and the survivors scramble to understand impossible technology, machine intelligence, and the strange emergence of telepathic human minds. The novel braids military space operations with intimate damage on the ground: scientists and soldiers try to board the ruined alien ship Icarus, while Robby and other neurodivergent children become central to a conflict that is far larger than any government understands. It is a sequel, but it has its own propulsion, part invasion narrative, part first-contact aftermath, part war book with a very human ache inside it.
I liked the book’s willingness to be emotionally uncouth in the best way. It’s not polished into that overly familiar, frictionless sci-fi sheen; it has edges, convictions, and a pulse. The author writes battle planning, propulsion, weapons, and systems failure with real tactile authority, yet the book is not only a machine for delivering technical spectacle. I felt the grief in it, the social cruelty in it, the recurring sense that civilization is flimsy when fear gets organized. The sections involving Robby hit me hardest because they refuse to treat difference as decorative. His perception changes the moral weather of the novel.
I also admired how shamelessly the book commits to its own mix of hard science fiction, political paranoia, disability, telepathy, and anti-eugenic rage. That isn’t an easy blend to land, and sometimes the novel is so earnest, so fully invested in its ideas, that it risks overextension. But I would rather read a book that tries to deliver a unique story over one that’s just a trope. Tyrants of Gravity can be severe, strange, and unexpectedly tender in the same breath. Even when the dialogue turns blunt or the exposition runs hot, I felt carried by the author’s sincerity and by the scale of the invented crisis.
I’d hand this to readers who like military science fiction, hard science fiction, first-contact fiction, alien invasion fiction, and space opera with a strong ideological spine. Fans of The Expanse will recognize the blend of systems-level conflict and human vulnerability, though Gruger’s book is more feral and less urbane; at moments it also feels like John Scalzi put on a darker, less ironic face. This is for readers who want their science fiction to argue, bruise, and burn. Tyrants of Gravity is a sci-fi novel that thinks big and hits with surprising heart.
Pages: 422 | ASIN : B0G6GFSZXR
Legacy of Valor
Legacy of Valor follows Major Liam O’Connor, soldier, husband, reluctant legend, bookended by the sight of a spaceport’s lights pulling him home. In the prologue, he’s greeted not by one newborn, but a tidy ambush of three, and that quiet domestic jolt becomes the heartbeat under the armor. Eleven years later, the wider fuse is lit: Marshal Kergan’s rebellion seizes Treespo, a methane-skied mining moon stuffed with rare elements, and the Alliance throws together a hybrid special-ops company, Neo-Etruscan SPEC CO plus New Terran Marines, under Liam’s command to carve out a landing zone and hold it in an atmosphere where a bad seal can turn you into a torch.
What surprised me first was how much tenderness the novel dares to keep on the page while everyone is carrying rifles. The triplets aren’t just “stakes”; they’re texture, little gravitational bodies pulling Liam’s thoughts back toward mercy even when the mission wants him reduced to a tool. And the dreamscape element, this half-mystical, half-disciplined mental terrain, doesn’t feel pasted on as a flashy gimmick; it’s intimate communication, spiritual practice, and battlefield vulnerability all at once. When Liam has to drop into trance while rounds fly, it reads like stepping onto thin ice: you can be brilliant and still go under.
I also liked the book’s willingness to let war be complicated without getting coy about it. The antagonist side gets real oxygen, Kergan isn’t a cardboard tyrant, and when the fighting turns personal, the consequences land with a dull, ugly thud. The dreamscape combat sequences, in particular, have a sharp, almost tactile choreography, less “wizard duel,” more knife-fight conducted in belief and misdirection. Some briefing-and-spec passages linger a beat too long, but even then the author’s fondness for practical detail (suits, procedures, unit culture) gives the story a grounded, lived-in smell, like hot metal cooling after a firefight.
This is for readers who want military science fiction, space opera, psychic fantasy, and alien-contact adventure braided into one campaign narrative, especially if you like competence under pressure, squad dynamics, and a dash of metaphysical weirdness that still behaves by rules. If you’ve enjoyed the disciplined military heft of David Weber (with a more mystical sub-current), you’ll likely settle into this world fast.
Pages: 442 | ASIN : B0CW974QW3
Deal Hunter
Deal Hunter is a fast-moving sci-fi story that follows Princess Kainda, a young woman who gets blasted out of her controlled royal life and into the path of a rough salvage ship, the Deal Hunter. What begins as a simple rescue turns into a full transformation as Kainda learns the truth about the sabotage that nearly killed her, uncovers betrayal inside her own family, flees to survive, trains to fight, and gradually grows into a leader who challenges pirate clans and rigid political systems. The book winds through battles, bounty hunts, palace intrigue, and a rising sense that Kainda is meant for something far bigger than being a decorative royal figure.
I found myself rooting for Kainda almost immediately. Her frustration with being treated like a pretty tool instead of a person felt sharp and honest. When the explosion sends her spinning into space, her fear is captured with blunt simplicity, and I felt it right in my chest. The dynamic with the Deal Hunter and its robots really pulled me in. The ship becomes more than a tool. It acts almost like a guardian and a reluctant mentor. Watching Kainda stumble through her first moments onboard, half frozen and confused, reminded me how quickly our lives can flip. I liked how the writing sits in those little moments of uncertainty and lets them breathe.
As the book ramps up, the emotional stakes climb right with the action. I enjoyed the mix of tense scenes and Kainda’s stubborn spark as she pushes back against every limit others try to place on her. There were times I wanted to shake some sense into the people around her because their condescension felt so real. I also appreciated how the author keeps returning to the theme of control. Kainda wrestles with the family that smothers her, the pirates who want her dead, and even her own role as a princess. Watching her claim her power bit by bit was satisfying. Some sections move fast, and the pacing jumps, but the heart behind the scenes carries the story. The book has this gritty charm that made me lean in instead of pull back.
Deal Hunter feels like a story for readers who enjoy scrappy heroes, found family energy, political messes, and the thrill of saying to hell with expectations. If you like sci-fi that mixes action with character-driven growth, this book will be a fun ride. I would especially recommend it to anyone who loves seeing a character climb out of the box the world put them in and build something entirely new.
Pages: 245 | ASIN: B0CGHLQX36
Prism
Prism is a science fiction novel that follows Vernon Vining, an investigator with an unusual sensitivity to the natural world, as he’s sent to a distant planet called Prism to solve a life-or-death mystery. The planet is a technicolor ecosystem where everything shifts through endless shades. The local life communicates by flashing patterns of light instead of sound, and the human settlers, who initially thrived, now face a frightening problem after a worker dies from a catastrophic and inexplicable internal breakdown. Vernon and his longtime partner Sam are sent across light-years to figure out what Prism is trying to say and how to stop the danger before the entire colony must be evacuated.
Vernon’s voice is warm and wandering in a way that makes even technical explanations feel personal. He reflects on childhood, on breezes and falling leaves, and somehow those memories fold into his ability to understand alien worlds. I liked that. It made the story feel grounded even while describing shimmering forests and oceans that blink like jewels. The author leans into color as a living force, almost a language, and that choice gives the book a dreamy undercurrent. The pacing sometimes slows, but the wandering feels intentional, as if we’re supposed to drift a little so Prism’s strangeness can seep in. I didn’t always know where the story was taking me, but I didn’t mind being led.
What surprised me most was how gently the book handles first contact without making it sentimental. The native creatures don’t speak. They glow. They flash warnings or greetings that humans barely know how to read. When Vernon and Sam try to interpret those signals, the book plays with the idea that meaning might hide in anything. A ripple in water. A field shifting from green to gold. Even a sudden, planet-wide burst of color that feels like a greeting from the world itself. I found myself wondering, along with the characters, whether we’d notice such messages on Earth, or whether we’ve forgotten how. The mystery at the heart of the plot gives the story momentum, but it never overshadows the quieter reflections about perception, patience, and what it takes to truly listen.
By the end, I felt like I’d spent time in a place that was oddly soothing despite the danger. The book is science fiction, but it carries the tone of a field journal mixed with a travel diary. I’d recommend Prism to readers who enjoy reflective sci-fi, worldbuilding built around sensory detail, and stories where the “alien problem” is really a communication problem at heart. If you like stories that move with curiosity and a steady, thoughtful rhythm, you’ll probably enjoy settling into Prism for a while.
Pages: 227 | ASIN: B0CHL7WRTG
