An Exclusive Excerpt From io9 Co-Founder Annalee Newitz’s New Novel,Autonomous

So you guys may remember the name Annalee Newitz . I mean , she only - co - created this very internet site and scat it as editor in chief - in - honcho from 2008 through 2015 . So I thought you may be concerned in reading a preview from Autonomous , her first novel , which bestselling scifi source Neal Stephenson describes so : “ Autonomous is to biotech and AI what Neuromancer was to the net . ”

Annalee has a message for all you io9ers :

You ’re about to read an excerpt from my first novel , Autonomous , which I wrote while I was running io9 . At that time , the web site was devoted to covering scientific discipline and science fiction in equal amounts , and I was high on the fumes beget by a smashup between advances in actual - life biotech and what pop civilization imagine about it . I will always be grateful to io9 ’s staffers and commenters for giving me a place to dream up something utterly eldritch about the future .

Argentina’s President Javier Milei (left) and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., holding a chainsaw in a photo posted to Kennedy’s X account on May 27. 2025.

I first had the musical theme for my robot case Paladin — whom you ’ll meet in this excerpt — after chat a UC Berkeley seismology lab . It was in a cavernous construction for simulating earthquakes , and featured something humbly call a “ reaction bulwark , ” which was in reality aheavily reinforced , two - story surface fitted with gigantic , powerful actuators . To assume the stresses of an temblor , the researchers would use the actuators to wring and torque various data-based structures — construction , bridges , whatever . I got to see the user interface for programming the reaction wall , and the pieces of broken concrete support columns it had create in a late experiment .

I inquire the researcher a lot of question , but there was one strain of inquiring that was just way too bizarro to apportion with anyone but myself . What it would be like to have actuator alternatively of arms and legs ? What if the machines in that rampart were part of my body ? What would it finger like to curb them ? Would I experience pain if I had grit in my joints ?

I wrote a novel to answer that question . Paladin first came to life for me in that seismology lab , but now my strange , awkward robot belongs to you . I trust you like what happen next !

William Duplessie