The Cybernetic Shogun

Victor Milán managed to synthesize artificial intelligences, post-apocalyptic cyberpunk, and space adventure in this excellent novel. I picked it up almost at random, and was pleasantly surprised by its depth. It takes place in an alternative history to ours, a couple of decades after a NATO-Warsaw Pact Third World War, and just a couple of weeks after a Fourth World War fought by the embittered successor states. In a world where the pre-War Three Great Powers (the US, Soviet Union, China, western Europe) have been devastated, and where the pre-War Four Great Powers (Brazil, Indonesia, Greater Queensland, EasyCo) have fallen into civil war, only Japan has managed to survive intact, as a technological power. The first AI created -- TOKUGAWA -- saved Japan from nuclear war, but killed himself rather than lead Japan into empire. His children, HIDETADA and MUSASHI, manage to throw the world into chaos through their fights, as Japan approaches the point of military coup d'état, Europe becomes a theocracy, and the rest of the world sinks into chaos. MUSASHI -- by far the more benevolent of the two AIs -- tries to launch a starship to let some people escape from the hell that is Earth ... This story isn't the most cheerful that I've read, but it's one of the most complex and downright interesting that I've happened upon. I strongly recommend anyone reading this review to get it, by hook or by crook.