Barbara Truelove’s Of Monsters and Mainframes is a sci-fi, fantasy, queerness-filled, adventure novel that will push all your buttons and send your enjoyment module into overdrive.
Demeter is a large spaceship shuttling passengers between Earth and Alpha Centauri B. She is also a highly intelligent AI who, when faced with the strange and unprecedented situation of her entire human cargo dying with no discernible cause (despite all the blood), must work around her programming and problem-solve this very non-linear issue.
After getting to know Demeter, we are then introduced to Steward, Demeter’s on-board medical AI. Steward is practical and sarcastic, with a human-interaction module that helps them see things that Demeter can’t. On another of Demeter’s ill-fated flights, she must find a way to save two children from something on board, something that she can only find reference to in her folklore files. Between Demeter’s highly logical AI and Steward’s human-interaction skills, they work together to achieve their mission objective and save the children.
Ancient mummies, Frankenstein’s creation, vampires, werewolves – all our favourite monsters eventually board Demeter, her flights becoming stranger as the years progress. But after so many unexplained occurrences and catastrophic flights, people are beginning to suspect that the ship is the problem and Demeter is in danger of being scrapped for being a ‘ghost ship’. Can she and Steward get on the same side long enough to save themselves?
Truelove has created a truly unique story, using shifting points of view to bring each character fully to life, heightening the action and emotion, and taking readers into the psyche of both monster and machine as they tumble across the galaxy.
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This is absolutely one of my favourite reads ever – it’s adventurous, imaginative, emotional, humorous, palpably queer and full of characters that I would follow into the furthest reaches of space just for the banter. Anyone who loves imaginative fiction full of adventure and lovable characters will love this book.
Of Monsters and Mainframes, Barbara Truelove
Publisher: Ezeekat Press (imprint of Bindery Books)
ISBN: 9781964721132
Format: Paperback
Pages: 416pp
Publication date: 1 June 2025
RRP: $34.99
