June 5 update: Accidental Intelligence has been named a finalist!

We’ve made it to the semifinals of the fourth annual Self-Published Science Fiction Competition (SPSFC4). Team Tar Vol On advanced two semifinalists, which were joined in our half of the bracket by semifinalists from Space Girls and Red Stars. In this round, the three teams are reading each other’s selections and combining scores to identify the top half of our allocation to advance to the finals. At this stage, every book we read has gotten a glowing review from at least one other team. As always, tastes are idiosyncratic, so there will be times where we disagree with other teams, but we’ve done our best to explain our thoughts; we hope that they will help other readers find books that will appeal to them.

Today, we’ll be looking at a cyberpunk thriller with noir stylings, Accidental Intelligence by Bryan Chaffin.

Azrah’s Review and Rating

Chaffin’s narration as a whole also made this book a page turner. There is a good balance of action and mystery and Mason as a protagonist was interesting to follow. He’s fairly level-headed but also the overly curious sort which is what lands him in more trouble than he signed up for. There is a reluctant hero air about his journey which is brought about by Miranda and her “visions”. This ability of hers did start to seem a little illogical as the story progressed and the AI characters on a whole had an obvious sketchiness to them from the start but the interactions with them brought about some interesting commentary with regards to technology on autonomy, security and surveillance.

If you don’t like open endings then you might find yourself annoyed with this one but the entertainment factor is no doubt high and I personally would be intrigued to read more stories set in this universe in the future!

Azrah has rated Accidental Intelligence 6.5/10. For more, check out her full review.

Champ’s Review and Rating

I thought the first part of Accidental Intelligence was promising, there’s momentum early on, and the setup has potential to be something big. The tech is interesting, and I am also a lover of coffee. But the noir vibe just didn’t land for me. Maybe that’s a personal thing, but the narration felt more like an imitation of noir than something that truly captured the tone. Maybe the blend with sci-fi just doesn’t work for me.

The worldbuilding is promising: but when it comes to the story itself, too much of it is delivered through exposition dumps, which pulled me out of the story instead of drawing me in. As things ramp up toward the end, it gets jumbled and the payoff doesn’t really hit. The villains are meh, the twists feel convenient, and the characters never move beyond surface level.

It’s not for me, I just didn’t feel much reading it, but if you’re into sci-fi noir and looking for a lottery ticket, it might be worth a scratch.

Champ has rated Accidental Intelligence 6/10.

Dave’s Review and Rating

The world building was strong, and it felt like I was inside a fully realized society. The plot was ambitious, with universal stakes and humanity as the fulcrum. I found the writing competent, and the book well edited. The author really swung for the fences, which is great.

However, I didn’t connect with the characters, making it challenging to retain my attention. Lots of exposition delivered in a way that was “tell” rather than “show”. Near the end, the McGuffin AI appeared out of nowhere. This wasn’t foreshadowed and seemed convenient to give the story a twist. More important, the bad guys didn’t have a motivation with any freshness or complexity–a real missed opportunity.

Dave has rated Accidental Intelligence 6/10.

Erin’s Review and Rating

This book had trouble drawing me in. The main character didn’t have many strong connections to other people and had a sense – even when doing exciting things – of “I’m just doing my job.” His lack of emotional investment in anything made it hard for me to emotionally invest. Overall, I felt the book could have used less exposition and more character interactions. The parts of the books I enjoyed most were a few brief interactions, such as one time where the main character has a heated argument with an old friend.

While the worldbuilding was good, several plot events seemed unjustified to me, and the ending felt abrupt.

Erin has rated Accidental Intelligence 5/10.

Jay’s Review and Rating

Accidental Intelligence goes a long way on the strength of the setup. It establishes the tension early, and the storytelling is good enough to make this my favorite opening half of anything I’ve read in this competition this year—despite a subgenre I typically don’t care for. But the back half doesn’t quite live up to the promise of the opening, with relatively flat villains, a distracting secondary character, and a bit too quick a pace. There’s enough here to leave the reader on a largely satisfying note, but the final third takes Accidental Intelligence from very impressive to decidedly uneven.

Jay has rated Accidental Intelligence 6.5/10. For more, check out his full review.

Josh’s Review and Rating

The writing in noir style is generally pretty good and a lot of aspects of the setting – the AI/Corporate shared government, the interplay between real world and the sim life, the way factotum’s work, and even the interstellar military action – all are interesting, even if the plot relies on a bunch of infodumps to convey them. But generally speaking, Accidental Intelligence doesn’t know how to actually use this noir style or cyberpunk setting to tell a story with interesting plots, ideas, or characters, which makes this one a miss.

Josh has rated Accidental Intelligence 5.5/10. For more, check out his full review.

Official Scores