Autonomous

Autonomous by Annalee Newitz, 301 pages

It's 2144 and Jack is the Robin Hood of the drug world: she reverse-engineers patented drugs and creates illegal generics to sell at a much cheaper price to the poorer people who need them, sometimes creating and selling recreational drugs to help fund her operation. When one of those recreational drugs — a reverse-engineered version of Zacuity, which creates an addiction to work — goes sideways and starts killing people, Jack heads to the top of the pharmaceutical companies' most-wanted list, prompting the military to send agent Eliasz and indentured robot Paladin after her, never mind who gets killed along the way.

This is a great book, sparking lots of musings about the ethics of everything from patenting life-saving drugs to indenturing robots to the concept of gender. I particularly liked seeing things from Paladin's point of view, which alternates with Jack's throughout the book. What could have easily been a run-of-the-mill cyber thriller is instead filled with depth and issues to consider well after the book is closed. An excellent debut novel by Newitz.