After Intelligence

December 14, 2020
As 15-year-old Charlotte Blythe and best friends Chai Murthy and Jace Templeton begin their second year at the revered Cognation Academy in the woods of the Pacific Northwest, a set of mysterious, handsome new students is introduced—and revealed to be androids, Cognation’s newest invention. Assigned the role of android guide and matched with Isaac, whose conduct blurs the line between man and machine, Charlotte must question the morality and dangers behind the experimental technology as they grow closer, while also balancing schoolwork, friendship drama and betrayals, deception on an institutional level, and a potential love interest. When an android is blamed for several attacks on students, and Charlotte’s parents remain unreachable for longer than ever before, the teens must interrogate the ethics of created life, re-evaluate their heroes, and concoct a plan to determine the truth. Though complex themes and explanations may deter younger readers, Marie credibly presents the Academy’s fascinating class curriculum alongside webs of lies that will keep readers invested in this high-energy, if trope-reliant, whodunit. Ages 14–up.

August 5, 2024
Android and human high school students work together to find clues left behind by one of the founders, all while fighting for android equality in Marie’s mysterious second After Intelligence novel (after The Hidden Sequence). Returning to school for a new semester, Charlotte, her android best friend, Isaac, her new boyfriend, and their friends are preparing as a team for an unpredictable augmented reality competition called the Enigma tournament. But as soon as the tournament starts, other students begin to show they’re not accepting of the android students as equals, trying to get them removed from the tournament. While Charlotte and her team fight for the androids’ right to play, they also strive to uncover the secrets of a journal of the founder of an android-developing conglomerate.
In a future where everyone wears viewer contacts for reading, messaging, and augmenting reality into anything they want to see, the addition of androids into everyday life has proved complicated. Marie explores the issue of android acceptance through the lens of high school, revealing how the feelings of the students reflect those of humans in general, including the fear of something different, even though androids have done nothing to deserve the negative attention. Marie’s storytelling makes a spirited case for acceptance even as “technology changes humans’ relationship to the world around them,” demonstrating that androids may have advantages in some ways, but humans have advantages in others. That’s true in life and the games, where every room the teams investigate becomes entire new worlds, only seen and felt through their viewer contacts but wholly lifelike.
The fun of the story doesn’t stop with the incredible tournament. The likable heroes continue chasing clues from the journal found in the first book, facing mathematical challenges, augmented reality puzzles, and more. Readers who love gameplay and camaraderie will be on the edge of their seats trying to work it all out with these clever teens.
Takeaway: Clever android and human teens crack puzzles and push for acceptance.
Comparable Titles: Cory Doctorow’s For the Win, Marie Lu’s Warcross.
Production grades
Cover: A
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A

December 16, 2024
Marie whisks readers back into the world of the Cognation Academy with her third of the After Intelligence Series, which finds intrepid student Charlotte Blythe, now in her third year at tech-giant Cognation’s wildly innovative school, on edge after Dr. Kindred, Athena Fawlings, and her parents present a new tech product that might herald the fall of Cognation: “a new kind of soulmate.” Designed to “seamlessly integrate” with the user’s senses, this augmented intelligence device dazzles Charlotte’s classmates, but Charlotte is more than skeptical. After uncovering secrets about Cognation in the previous books, and alarming encounters with an AI named C.J. who might just be preparing to destroy everything she knows, Charlotte and her wry android bestie Isaac must expose the truth about Cognation Industries’ “brazen hubris” and this “invasive” tech’s “potentially catastrophic consequences.”
This entry is a swift, exciting, of-the-moment read that plunges readers into the tangled web of machine learning, augmented and artificial intelligence, and thoughtful exploration of the ethics of all of this. One strong twist finds Charlotte suddenly wondering if actually it’s AI C.J. who needs protection—from humans. Charlotte remains a winning hero, somewhat at odds with her peer group but caring about what matters most, and her friendships bring heart to the material. (A date that suffers from technical difficulties is a highlight.) For all Marie’s persuasive expertise in presenting this world, non-techie readers will not feel overwhelmed by the cool science elements as Charlotte discovers the lies and truths of Cognation.
In fact, Marie smartly uses the school setting to offer pointed, age-appropriate conversations exploring the issues of privacy, hackability, and more. The introduction of soulmates powers welcome exploration of invasive science, with the questions raised being answered, in words and inventive action, by a young generation that has only ever lived with such technologies. Lovers of searching but down-to-Earth science fiction will appreciate this sequel’s accessible and relatable consideration of the urgency of setting boundaries with technology.
Takeaway: Smart YA sequel of an innovative academy, invasive tech, and a bold student hero.
Comparable Titles: Rebecca Hanover’s The Similars, Suzanne Young’s Girls with Sharp Sticks series.
Production grades
Cover: A-
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A

October 1, 2022
Charlotte, a teen student in an elite technology-oriented school of the future, delves into the shadowy history of the institution and its mysterious, late founder. Marie's sequel to her last YA SF title, After Intelligence: The Hidden Sequence (2020), follows brainy hero Charlotte Blythe to Cognation Academy, a cutting-edge boarding school serving as a testing ground for big, new ideas seeded among society's most gifted kids. There, among other tech wonders such as omnipresent virtual reality, a set of humanlike androids (ultralogical Vulcan-ish types with instant access to vast knowledge databases) has been introduced, somewhat uneasily, into classrooms. Charlotte; her roommate, Chai; and love interest, Gavin, grow especially close to two androids: the outgoing Isaac and the more insular Denton. The trio even copies and smuggles out the droids' algorithms (aka "sequences") when it seemed that some unknown faction was tampering with their digital memories. Having possibly gotten away with saving their friends, the young people find androids especially helpful in the "enigma tournament," which involve elaborate puzzle-solving exercises in VR environments that seem tied to Cognation's raison d'�tre. Also embedded in the contest, by chance or design, are clues to Cognation's early history and the fate of its brilliant and tragic founder, Dr. Harlan A. Coggins. Solving the enigma's variations gives characters access to Coggins' private journals, but the pages seem like coded gibberish and koans. The adventure and process of discovery unfolds in wordy but polished prose: "Something told Charlotte that they were on the precipice of a momentous discovery, even if they didn't know what the significance might be." Only late in the narrative does the real scale of the menace take form. While Cognation begs comparison to Hogwarts, the tone here is more intellectual than mischievous--think Arthur C. Clarke more than J.K. Rowling--which is not a bad thing, and the ending promises future installments with at least one Voldemort-esque slippery villain. Smart cyber conundrums and intricate code-breaking meld enjoyably in this installment of a YA SF suspense series.

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