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I thought the AI hotel was a great character. What did you think? I want to reread a couple of sections before I get into specifics, but wanted to get this thread up before I left for the day.

I loved the Hendrix. . . AIs with minds of their own are always favorite characters of mine. . . :)

I like the AI element, but I was confused about the hotel's identity being a dead rock musician from the far past, particularly given the short memory of the residents of "Bay City" (I'd already griped about that in another thread).

I did like that the AI's were essentially accorded rights as an intelligent entity, even if not human.

I liked the Hendrix and the idea that after it was recognized as an entity that it bought itself out.

And the idea of a building being capable of being tried for a crime was odd, but then it definitely toed the line between legal and illegal. The rationalizations the Hendrix gave Kovacs, from allowing the impositions of phone calls and uninvited guests to the virtual torture and database hacking, added a bit of comic relief for me.

Well the idea of being tried for a crime was odd, but the idea of "guest privileges" extending to murder and mayhem (so long as not guests) was even odder. But if you like quirky characters, as I do, I'd say the Hendrix was right up there.

I'm a big fan of AI's being individuals, silicon people as it were. Iain M. Banks is great at this in his culture novels. Richard K. Morgan has done a fine job with The Hendrix, very entertaining and believable.

The Hendrix was probably my favorite character. =)

huge swaths of this book were written in a "too cool for school" style, i.e., some stuff was there ONLY due to its cool factor. naming the hotel after Jimi Hendrix felt like the textbook example of what i'm talking about: it's a fantastic joke to the reader, but it holds absolutely no meaning to a single one of the characters.

that being said, yep, he/it's one of my fave characters in there, and i can apparently be easily swayed by cool factor because i loved the setup. "AIs apparently crave guests like humans crave sex." oh, how genius - give a completely understandable motivation for **emotion** to a computer construct. of *course* he'll shoot your attackers, he craves you!

hehehehehe, Michelle, are you saying body-fluid-drugs-fueled-sex isn't character motivated?