Dream Machine: Appupen and Laurent Daudet ***

Every now and then we get a graphic novel designed to put across some aspect of science and technology while simultaneously entertaining the reader - and for the most part they try hard and then fail painfully. The most succesful I've seen so far is Robin Cousin's The Phantom Scientist - but I'm afraid Dream Machine doesn't come close.

The storyline features a small AI startup with an impressive generative AI, a startup with which a big, bad corporation is trying to get an exclusive contract. We see the head of the startup wrestling with whether or not to take the contract as he finds out more and more details about what generative AI is doing to people (most of which he surely knew anyway) and of the devious plan of the big corporation to gather vast amounts of data and eventually to be able to control whole countries. Move on folks, nothing dubious to see here.

The good news is that we do find out lots about generative AI along the way. And the underlying message that AI can be used for good or for bad purposes, while not exactly original (insert any tech of choice) is fine. But this is a terrible medium through which to deliver the message. With one exception (covered in a moment), hardly anything actually happens. Graphic novels are all about action - but apart from travelling from venue to venue there is no action here. It's all either conversations about AI or lectures about AI. The graphic part adds nothing to this - in fact the layout gets in the way of reading the text. The pictures rarely illustrate anything useful, while the wordy speech bubbles are so small it's hard to read what they say.

The exception I mentioned where it all comes alive are in the 'Super Hugo' sections. These are very short inserts that feature the main character's dreamworld alter ego as a caped superhero. Here he takes on the perils that face the technology in a literalised form. They are quite fun and at least something happens, even if it's not in the real world - but they aren't enough to save the whole. Another brave failure, I'm afraid.

Incidentally, Amazon puts this book at a reading age of 8-12, but it is definitely not aimed at children. Oh, and the Kindle version is in the original French, just for fun.

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Review by Brian Clegg - See all Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly email free here

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