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(Simon & Schuster/Saga 978-1-9821-4806-5, $27.00, 416pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, March 2, 2021) Science fiction thriller about artificial intelligence, sentience, and labor rights in a near future dominated by the gig economy. There’s a great deal going on in Machinehood, from Divya’s sophisticated critique of a post-privacy gig economy to her evident expertise in AI systems, ‘‘weak AI’’ digital assistants, nanotech, and prosthetic body modifications. Individually, none of the tech extrapolations are particularly new, and Divya on occasion lapses into clichéd dialogue (‘‘this is so much bigger than us’’), but the economy she describes is sharply imagined and convincingly detailed, and she artfully balances the cybertech thriller chapters involving Welga and the more character-oriented narrative of Nithya and her family, eventually weaving them together in a conclusion both suspenseful and ingenious, if a bit idealistic given the problems and co ....