I was so completely charmed by Barbara Truelove’s Of Monsters and Mainframes (publication day June 3, 2025) that I just about read it in a single sitting! Space travel meets vampires, werewolves, Frankenstein, a mummy, and cthulhu-people!
Primarily told from the perspective of two spaceship AIs, with interludes told from the perspectives of others who interact with them–the first is Demeter, the AI who controls a passenger ship, and the second is the medical AI, known as Steward. Demeter travels back and forth between Earth and Alpha Centauri, a several-years long voyage. She is designed to control the ship, but not to talk to humans so much, that’s Steward’s specialty, but she has primary command and has the bad habit of shutting Steward down when she is done communicating with him.
Demeter’s first indication of trouble as she approaches Alpha Centauri is that there are far more resources than there should be–she then investigates and determines that all of her passengers are dead. But she has no idea what has happened and it takes her a bit to find the video feed that could help her. But she docks anyway, and something weird–maybe a big black dog, definitely not human–runs through the airlock and disappears onto Alpha Centauri. But the video feed recorded nothing.
Demeter is then is nicknamed the “Ghost Ship” and stored for several years. When she wakes, she has a new serial number and is being readied for a trip back to Earth. This time, she is determined to complete her mission safely for all of the humans on board. But then her sensors tell her something is wrong, and when she is able to try to figure out what happened, there are only two remaining humans alive, a brother and sister ages 8 and 13, Isaac and Agnus, and they are in grave danger from what seems to be–a werewolf?
Demeter gets them back to Earth safely, with the help of Steward and some spider drones that she brings inside, and she watches Isaac and Agnus like she’s never watched humans before.
On Demeter and Steward’s next trip, after Demeter has been “optimized”, Steward is left to deal with humans acting very strangely–they seem to be turning into fish, and have taken over navigation, steering them somewhere other than Alpha Centauri. They’ve damaged the radiation shields, and after optimization, Demeter isn’t willing to consider thinking outside the box.
When Steward next wakes, he is communicating with a cyborg named Frankenstein and his pet spider drone. And when they leave Earth, an ancient Egyptian evil with a thirst for human flesh named Steve is in a compartment with Agnus, who is finally leaving Earth and making the trip back to Alpha Centauri.
There is much more, including the need to hunt down the vampire that killed everyone on Demeter’s first encounter with Earth monsters. I loved it!
And it was completely weight-neutral, not a mention of fatness in a negative way at all.
Reading While Fat 