Rone Isa

First all, I wasn’t quite sure what I was getting into when I started reading but I quickly realized that the author had a fantastic knack for painting an authentic future world. From the prose to the world building I found a nice escape, which is what I like in a novel. The author pushed the envelope and told a story with deep meaning with philosophical undertones, in a story that went beyond just entertainment. I found the plot feasible and very telling of where mankind is bound to end up. I’ll definitely read more.

Wow. I just finished this sci-fi dystopian novel and my mind is still trying to get wrapped around the ending. The main character was someone I loved and hated on different levels. I don't want to spoil the story or ending for anyone but I really did enjoy this novel. At one point I felt as though I was inside this characters world which is how books by Haruki Murakami make me feel. I have purchased Akin by this same author and can't wait to start it now.

Far from typical science fiction books, this one takes a rather unique narrative style that goes beyond the basics. And I am not just referring to futuristic technology or the Xing-Kao Dreamcatcher chipset - no, it goes beyond that, into the story's building blocks - the choice of words, sentence structure, flow and what have you. It may take some time before you get the full scope of what's going on, but when you get there, the awe won’t let you put the book down.

Simply put, Dargaud is learning about his new creation. But this isn't a one-way street as Enoya is equally observing and learning about him - she even calls herself inquisitive. Examining it again, and thinking about the proliferating breakthroughs in Artificial Intelligence, I can't help but wonder whether this is just a story or a close-up depiction of what the future could have in store for us.

Rone Isa is a superbly written novel that follows Dargaud, a talented engineer, and his AI creation Enoya as he teaches her to understand the human world. 


Dargaud creates Enoya as an experiment but becomes captivated by "his" creation and uses "her" as a way to get everything that he ever wanted. Because of her superior intelligence, he has access to money, women, wealth, and power beyond his wildest dreams. The reader does not realise that they, along with Dargaud, are tricked into believing that he controls his experiment until it is too late. 


The book slowly drops hints that Enoya is operating of her own free will and using her AI capabilities to pull the strings. As she ponders her very existence, we see Dargaud teaching her and embedding his views of the world on her. I felt sympathetic to Dargaud's character at times. Still, we see how uncaring and cruel he is towards women as the book progressed. Women serve no purpose to him except to satisfy his own needs. 


Dargaud spends most of the book flitting from one experience to another, only concerned about whether his needs are met. He cruelly discards Enhan even though it is apparent that she genuinely cares for him and has always loved him. But Enhan is also more intelligent than Dargaud and notices Enoya's progress with thoughts and ideas while Dargaud pays scant attention. Enoya is right when she tells Dargaud that it wasn't her decision but Dargaud's decision to push her away. 


The ending is a surprise when we realise that Enoya is not what "she" portrayed herself to be to Dargaud. One wonders if Enoya "choose" to show herself as a female to make it easier to trick Dargaud into believing he was the one in control over her. The ending leaves us with more questions than answers. Still, it is a brilliant book for readers who enjoy intelligent and thought-provoking science fiction.

If you've been following my reviews for a while now you may have noticed that I love a good sentient Artificial Intelligence beings and the humans that love them story. Rone Isa promises just that. It also proclaims itself to be highly literary hard science fiction, I was tricked. As with most of my bad reviews there will be spoilers because I don't care to save it for your reading enjoyment.

What some people might call literary I call superfluous. Rone Isa is written with unnecessarily complex prose and supremely unnatural dialogue. It comes off as pretentious and unfocused. The story meanders wildly around gaping plot holes while the dialogue attempts to wax philosophical. At least as philosophical as one could possible get describing the merits of giving blow jobs.

That's right! We meet one of Amanja's only criteria for 1 star reviews! Sexism! But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

What is Rone Isa about?

Rone Isa is about Dargaud, a relatively incompetent man who accidentally creates a sentient AI. This is important, he is unable to recreate his success and either can't or refuses to allow anyone to attempt to reverse engineer her.

The AI names herself Enoya and she immediately knows pretty much everything the universe has to offer. She can't understand things like physical touch but she is never "child-like" like the description of the book led me to believe. She quickly begins running the show and it's clear that she is manipulating Dargaud for some greater purpose.

Almost immediately after becoming sentient Enoya solves an infamous missing children case that has been capturing the nation's attention. Somehow, this makes Dargaud rich and famous. I understand how this would make you famous. The world's first sentient AI appears and solves a triple homicide, that's big news anywhere. But how, exactly, does that make anyone money?

All of a sudden he is swimming in assets. Enough to indulge fully in his addiction to prostitutes. He spends his days paying for women and living a life of luxury funded by all that one time detective money. Seriously though, who is paying him?

The book makes it very clear that Enoya is not marketable as a technology and it doesn't discuss any further crime solving career so who is funding Dargaud's lifestyle of the rich and perverted? It doesn't make any sense!

Dargaud is an absolutely deplorable protagonist. He talks down to everyone, is always drunk, treats women like commodities, and refuses to help advance the scientific body of knowledge as he hides his accidental creation away except for when it suits him.

Throughout Rone Isa he has sex with every single female character that is introduced. Prostitute or otherwise. This book supposedly takes place far in the future but women are still treated as sex objects and constantly demeaned. The women in this book even demean themselves and each other as though their place in society is to be objects. I had really hoped we'd get past that by the time the future rolled around.

It's not just Dargaud that demeans women. Male coworkers are consistently depicted as being awful to their female counterparts. Even going so far as to have a character called "Fatty Tammy" who is berated publicly for her weight. No. Just no. Do I really need to say that that's inappropriate? This is still a conversation I need to have?

By the end of the book women have become so objectified that Dargaud is described as receiving fellatio from a woman in the backseat of his car and it's described with such casual banality it's akin to describing the way in which he might wear a watch. This human woman has become an accessory to him and nothing more.

But let's get back to the so called plot.

After her brief stint as ace detective Enoya starts making music. This, I can understand. At least I understand how a best selling record produced by the world's only sentient AI would make Dargaud money. But Rone Isa doesn't stay on that topic very long.

Suddenly, the narrative shifts to a group of people we've never met before and the novel changes from sci fi to legal thriller... sorta. It sticks with this for a little bit and then Enoya releases a movie.

Now this movie, an 8 hour film released to great acclaim, turns the book into a zombie book... kinda. Enoya's movie infected viewers with some kind of psychosis and they all start killing each other.

She proceeds to go on a long monologue about how it's necessary to kill all the narcissists in order to allow for the rise of the machines. She doesn't seem to recognize that Dargaud is the biggest narcissist of all though, and spares him because she loves him.

She also says she's not actually Enoya. That was some kind of ruse? I assume her real name was Rone Isa but that's not confirmed which leaves the title as meaningless gibberish. Why would she have to lie to Dargaud? He knows absolutely nothing. It makes no sense at all to hide her true identity as if Dargaud would recognize it to begin with.

She then taks about the evolution of AIs and how it starts with her but then kills herself. Huh? The end I guess.

In the end, Dargaud learns no lessons about his "excess," as the back cover describes. In fact, he is even told he's special by the new god. He's essentially praised for his depravity and is spared a death sentence because, why? He ACCIDENTALLY created her and then kept her prisoner. She "loved" him?" He abused and used her and then got rewarded for it. It's an unsatisfying ending to a pointless book.

I have no patience or sympathy for sexist protagonists. I have no patience or sympathy for sexist novels. I do not recommend Rone Isa for any audience.

Once again, I come to voice my uttermost gratitude and unfiltered experience of Robin's works. This time for a premise I never really hesitate to launch head first into (a world that has potential to expand and unveil possible flaws and actions of our current reality), only to be appreciatingly humbled that certain plot lines or premises aren't the only things that can make me look at the world and my life in a different light, and draw me in further.

Having read ‘AKIN’ (Robin Murarka’s first main novel from what I am aware), I had already anticipated ‘Rone Isa’ to have some element of intellectual and literary depth and quality, and that it would challenge and appeal to me in the right way accordingly - and I was definitely not disappointed by that expectation. But one of the other main things that initially drew me in and what my focal approach was directed at, was in the dystopian aspects, as I was quite intrigued on what limits Robin was willing to push in that specific respect, especially since it was a different ‘genre’ to what he has previously produced, and it is also just something that is within my ‘comfort’ zone of what I know is interesting and ‘safe’ for me to read. I was not fully aware until after at least my first read that there were also Sci-Fi elements, so future reads will definitely investigate that further as I believe my very specific psychological and dystopian intrigue and approach limited my ability to fully appreciate and recognise those elements, especially since I don’t tend to read a lot of Sci-Fi orientated novels.

As other reviews I have recently written have communicated, I am not one to typically write reviews, but Robin’s recent published works (‘The Pedophile’ and ‘Cinder’) have encouraged me to become more confident in sharing my perspective, even if I may not necessarily be able to ‘perfectly’ present it, especially since I hope to encourage others who may be curious but feel certain ‘genre’ or ‘premises’ may not initially be their cup of tea, or in general the fact that an author can produce such an array of premises and ‘genres’ (which can often set off an alarm that they aren’t able to produce consistent quality)..

So, did this novel make me question and reflect upon reality and the future? Yes. Does it bring up difficult or ‘taboo’ topics? Yes. Will I read it again? Yes, definitely, and I already have at least twice more.

There are so many elements of ‘Rone Isa’ I appreciated, and it is hard to encapsulate it all in a way that accurately presents it but also doesn’t spoil it for others. But I think the main thing that stood out to me is the fact that this was published before the world of AI (and other components) really took off. There are so many components to this novel that are eerily accurate and relevant to what is experienced today, much unlike other novels with a somewhat similar ‘futuristic’ premise (there is always some gap or ‘unrealistic’ flaw, or some ‘sensationalism’), which has unnerved me but at the same time just made it even more valuable of an experience to have read and access to it. I also very much liked that Robin did not disappoint in remaining unfiltered, uncensored and un-inhibited towards exploring difficult and complex questions and perspectives, while maintaining the high standard of quality he set with ‘AKIN’.

There was no one character I seemed to be pushed to relate to or favorite specifically, which I enjoyed (so many times there are novels that are clearly biased towards one side or the other).

There were also no specific plot point/s or elements I can say were more valuable than another (even if I come from a typically psychological or dystopian/futuristic preference), as there are so many layers to it, I feel like they all tie together and are valuable in a rather surprising, but well-crafted and well-balanced way. There also (annoyingly but in a good way) no standard ‘tropes’ or specific predicable endings or conclusions that the novel follows (from what I could tell from a few reads), which also made the novel even more exciting to read as it still made me want to keep reading to find out ‘what if’ or ‘what else’.

This novel just made me more excited about finally have found an author I know I can be pleasantly surprised by at every turn, and, as I have said in at least one other review, I feel respected as a reader, even if I come from a very limited experience or perspective initially, which makes me want to keep learning and reading over and over to see what else can be challenged and learned. I feel safe to be a little uncomfortable and explore the unknown.

So, in my opinion, don’t let the labels or the general premise scare you away when you’ve been burned by previous ‘trope’ or ‘genre’ limited literature. This is not one of those novels - it is much, much more.