Rose/House

Written by Arkady Martine

Narrated by Raquel Beattie

Basit Deniau's houses were haunted to begin with.



A house embedded with an artificial intelligence is a common thing: a house that is an artificial intelligence, infused with a thinking creature that is not human? That is something else. But now Deniau's been dead a year, and Rose House is locked up tight, as commanded by the architect's will: all his possessions and files and sketches are confined in its archives, and their only keeper is Rose House itself. Rose House, and one other.



Dr. Selene Gisil, one of Deniau's former protégé, is permitted to come into Rose House once a year. Until this week, Dr. Gisil was the only person whom Rose House spoke to.



But even an animate intelligence that haunts a house has some failsafes common to all AIs. For instance: all AIs must report the presence of a dead body to the nearest law enforcement agency.



There is a dead person in Rose House. Rose House, having completed its duty of care and informed Detective Maritza Smith of the China Lake police precinct that there is in fact a dead person inside it, dead of unnatural causes—has shut up.



No one can get inside Rose House, except Dr. Gisil. And someone died there. And someone may be there still.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Mar 5, 2024
• ISBN: 9798855504446

Arkady Martine

Arkady Martine is a speculative fiction writer and, as Dr AnnaLinden Weller, a historian of the Byzantine Empire and an apprentice city planner. Under both names she writes about border politics, rhetoric, propaganda and the edges of the world. Arkady grew up in New York City and, after some time in Turkey, Canada and Sweden, lives in Baltimore with her wife, the author Vivian Shaw. A Memory Called Empire is her debut novel, which is followed by A Desolation Called Peace.

Reviews for Rose/House

[k · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This one is only for super fans of this author, which I honestly thought I was until I read this. It’s so frustrating because it has good quality ingredients, but it’s not convincing in the end. Like a sketch for a book, with no actual character building.

[shrike58 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Once I wrapped up this novella I then skimmed through the other reader reactions to this story on this and other sites, and it rapidly became obvious that the general reaction could be filed under "your mileage may differ."

As for myself, I thought that Martine has done a great job with this work, and scratched an itch that I wasn't quite clear that I had. While this is certainly a hard-sf locked-room murder mystery, it also abuts against cosmic horror, in that the POV characters have come up against a situation that challenges human comprehension.

Being an actual murder mystery, I'm reluctant to say much about the plot, but I will say that Martine gives the reader incisive characterizations of her three POV characters, set in an environment that is almost a character in and of itself.

Highly recommended.

[pepperwings · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I liked Martine's series, but sadly this just didn't hit the mark for me, the procedure felt sloppy, the story was convoluted, there were some great ideas and good reveals, but unfortunately it just didn't come together in a clear or satisfying way--and I don't think it was *intended* to leave the reader with so many questions.

[beserene · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Who doesn't love a creepy house story!?!!

This particular creepy house is science fictional and AI-based, with the story itself also flavored by both thriller and murder mystery, with just a touch of horror. If you go in expecting clear answers, you will come out disappointed. This ain't a cozy, by any means.

But it is an elegant exercise in multiple perspectives, with intriguing takes not only on the idea of technology-as-haunting but also the distinctions between place and person, which are perhaps more nebulous than we'd like to believe. I enjoyed the ideas quite a bit, actually.

The prose also shines, with rich descriptions and clever editing. While I didn't really bond with the characters, this isn't that kind of book anyway. It's a vibe more than a story and it works well that way. Like many of the Tor.com novellas, it pushes the genre outward. If that interests you, read this!

[kalliegrace · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was so fun, very tense and mysterious. I love the setting and the way the detective interacted with the AI.

[spiritedstardust · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Creepy house likes to fuck with humans.
Dead body is reported and a cop and the house’s archivist come to determine the cause of death. House acts super creepy and the ending is ambiguous.
This felt like pasta water - hint of something there but the meal is missing.

[atreic · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A creepy mystery story about a creepy house and some creepy people.

[wyvernfriend · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

There were parts of this that were quite interesting. I could see where some of the extrapolations came from, but in some ways it felt set too soon for some of them. Also coming from a family where architecture was part of everyday I could see where some of the elements came from.
I could imagine an architect creating this futuristic AI powered house that enforced it's own rules, some of which were given to it by the architect, but rules are complex and sometimes can be twisted by both clever people and clever AIs When Detective Mariza Smith gets a call from the house to say that there had been a murder in it's premises, but the only person who could go to the house was a former student who can come into the house of one month every year. Dr Selene GIsil is not expecting the call, she's haunted by the house and by those who want into it. Discovering the truth is more complicated than they expect.
It was a complicated story and I'm not sure what I really think about it. It did leave me with a deep feeling of unease after reading.

[rivkat_2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Novella about an AI house created by a famous architect, deeded to one of his former students—who denounced him/was shaped by him in ways that are unclear from the story. The house reports a murder on its premises, but won’t let any human but the student in. I found it annoyingly elliptical, repetitive in language, and also imagining a Texas police force that apparently changed more in forty years than I would have thought plausible (for some reason they … respect the house’s wishes and don’t break in to examine the body). But if you like ghost houses, maybe?

[grizzly9anderson · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A review on the back cover says that Rose/House "...evokes Shirley Jackson's Hill House if designed by Frank Gehry." I know just enough (not much) about Gehry to make some sense of that and I suspect I'd have got more out of the story if I'd ever read The Haunting of Hill House.

Instead Rose/House is an odd story about a death, probably a murder, at a building which is also an AI called Rose House as seen through the eyes of two detectives and briefly one unreliable narrator. The mystery is "solved" but with no motivation ever made clear. And I'm not sure that even Arkady Martine knows the "why", only that there must be questions about what Rose House is, what it will do, how people will perceive and interact with it, and what they will do.

[ashles_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A waking dream, a migraine aura. The Navidson House, but with nanodrones. And desire.

[james_knupp · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was eerie and mysterious in all the right ways. It had a peak "X-Files Monster of the Week" vibe to it, especially given its short length. I like that the the future Martine crafted here is just slightly different enough to be new and interesting but still relatable and familiar.

[macha_4 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

this is a very interesting sf novella from the brilliant Arkady Martine involving a locked room mystery, and set in a nearish future. there's an artificial intelligence that's developing an aesthetics of their own, an archivist with a dead architect as a client, a small desert police outpost trying to investigate a murder, and a few noir suspects playing persons of interest. 'what is a house with no doors?' is the question posed, and the detective thinks to herself 'a prison', and from that beginning the Mojave Desert mystery begins to unfold like a flower after rain.

[quondame · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This reads like a multi-viewpoint dream narrative. Late in the 22nd century at the high edge of the desert community of China Lake is the Rose House, an AI that will only admit one person and her for only 1 week per year according to the builder's will. But Rose House has reported a dead body inside so the local police and the only person allowed in go to investigate. One of them leaves, but I'm not sure what's been discovered. You may have better luck.