Evolution's Darling

Evolution's Darling, Scott Westerfield, Four Walls Eight Windows Press, 2000

Darling starts life as an astronavigational computer in a ship run by Isaah, an interplanetary trader/information gatherer and Rathere, his teenage daughter. Rathere and Darling become very close. In a time when artificial intelligence is a reality, a way has been found to measure a computer's intelligence, known as the Turing tester. Isaah gets more and more concerned as Darling's number
approaches the 1.0 level. When a computer reaches 1.0, it automatically becomes a person with all the rights and benefits, including the right to get a body of its own. Installing and breaking in a new computer is much too expensive for Isaah, so he attempts to "take care" of Darling, permanently. Rathere takes Darling's side, and helps Darling achieve freedom.

Two hundred years later, Darling is heading for an isolated desert planet called Malvir. It's the sort of place that isn't just in the middle of Nowhere, but is many light years from Nowhere. The conventional wisdom is that an extremely private, and galaxy-wide famous, sculptor named Vaddum died in a major
explosion on Malvir several years previously. His pieces cost enough to buy a planet and are very prized. A couple of his pieces recently discovered suggest that Vaddum may not be dead; Darling is going to make sure, one way or the other. He goes up against Mira, a human assassin who serves her alien masters.

This is a first-rate piece of writing. It's a very thought-provoking story of the future of artificial intelligence, individuality, and is an all-around fine science fiction story. It�s more than worth reading.