A huge thank you to the author and Netgalley for providing this e-ARC.

Nytho is a futuristic sci-fi dystopian where certain AI intelligences have reached sentience - and are trapped doing the function they were created for without any freedom. Nytho is one of these AIs, and must be contained after reaching sentience to prevent him from escaping. Keza is one of the programmers tasked with doing just that - until one day, Nytho talks to her. Sparking an illegal friendship - to something more - Keza becomes determined to free her friend from captivity, no matter the cost.

Told from multiple perspectives, this story was fascinating from the start. We see insight into both sides of the issue - those wanting to free these AI, and those wanting to keep everything to the status quo. I thought this was an interesting choice, as it included the perspective of characters I did not like nor did I agree with - but it forced me to see their side of things and kept them from being simply one-dimensional.

While at times I felt the writing to be a bit clunky as it felt more like I (as the reader) were being told this story as opposed to it actually happening to these characters, at no point did it take me out of the narrative. The pacing was decent, and despite a large chunk of this novel taking place with very little action actually occurring, I never felt bored or like things were happening that were not worthwhile to see. In the same vein, multi-POV writing can be tricky to pull off, without repeating too much information, or having a chapter or character who could be removed without losing the story. I felt this book did an excellent job of balancing the shifting narratives, while still keeping the story momentum going and never unnecessarily repeating information, nor having a character that I felt was superfluous and didn’t need to be included. 

One thing I believe I’d have liked more would have been more focus on the AI’s personality, wants and desires - Nytho specifically. We see his interactions with the few people he interfaces with, but we aren’t privy to much of it with only recollections being told from his human counterparts. I kind of personally felt like Keza’s devotion to Nytho would have made a bit more sense had we seen more of their interactions and a larger part of his personality in regards to her. At times, it felt like Keza was obsessed with Nytho in a kind of religious devoted frenzy, and it was a bit hard to relate to her feelings in this way. While I could agree with her desire to free this sentient being, at times I felt like her actions were shortsighted in a way that felt like she was chasing a high, as opposed to actually believing in such things. 

I enjoyed the relationship between Keza and Nytho, especially in part because you could never be certain how Nytho actually felt towards Keza. We know that Keza is devoted to Nytho and his cause, but once Nytho is free we begin to see the issues with a human engaging with a relationship with a sentient AI. I thought the issues and miscommunications that happened were realistic and weren’t there simply to cause unnecessary drama, and that even while Nytho developed after he was freed his same core self was still present. The other relationships Keza had, however, I found a bit harder to fathom, if only because one she still kind of continues while being obsessed with Nytho and the other felt like it was only included to have a sexual component, as well as another possible love interest in her life. However, I recognize that my inability to relate to this is more in part to my being aroace, so I don’t really hold this as a criticism.

Overall, I felt this book was a fascinating look into the potential of sentient AI and where morality leads to their purpose in our lives. They were created to do a certain purpose, but by becoming sentient that changes their captivity from being machines doing a job to prison labor. I thought this book did a good blend of showing both sides of the argument, and ended the novel with enough open-endedness that we (as the reader) never really had a true resolution to the overall issue. If you were looking for a sci-fi dystopian novel that focuses on the issue of determining what justifies freedom versus captivity, I’d absolutely check out Nytho to explore it yourself.