Free Fall

Android: Free Fall is your typical detective murder mystery set in the Android universe. It is not a book of novelty. It is, however, fun. There's a reason people watch police procedural TV shows, there is a comfort to a new skin on the same story, and this book delivers that.

In general, I enjoyed it, though I found it to be well padded. The thing about the Android universe is that it pulls on a lot of the same conventions that other transhumanist fiction does: clones, androids, space elevators. The difference is in the in-universe history and arrangement of those elements. I don't need to be taught what the uncanny valley is (and its history), I just need to know why the bioroids (andorids and gynoids) have silver eyes and why that's creeping the protagonist out. It felt like, in an effort to make a word count, William Keith went back through and added in factoids and unnecessary details. It pulled the book down a star.

On the other hand, will I read more Android tie-in novels? Probably. And for a first tie-in novel for this universe, I did come away understanding the major factions and the basic lay of the land.