Cassandra Kresnov

A Cassandra Kresnov novel, 23 Years On Fire advances the clock a bit and brings some intriguing new ideas into the series. Although they are coming a little bit out of left field and strain plausibility somewhat, such small sins are easily forgiven in support of a good story and the philosophical questions that comes along with it. The novel opens with Sandy leading a military raid on a Federation planet suspected of using mind-control implant technology on the population of an entire planet – accidentally.

Cassandra Kresnov, the lovable combat android with an electronic copy of a human soul, is back. But her old masters, the League governments, want her dead, and they may just have left an off-switch hidden in some part of her electronic brain. When your own brain can be hacked over a wireless network, being almost as strong as Superman won’t help much. To thwart them, Cassandra will have to go into hiding while she searches for the enemies trying to turn her off permanently.

Meet April Cassidy. She’s just applied to a software development firm on Tanusha, one of the most advanced planets in the Federation. She wants to work as a programmer, studying the intricacies of artificial intelligence – or as close as the legal restrictions will allow her to get. She is a very good candidate for the position, very familiar with the latest algorithms. Good enough to analyze them at a glance in her job interview.