If you think you are not a fan of standard sci-fi, this one is for you. Of Monsters and Mainframes by Barbara Truelove is not overtly technical but true to the sci-fi genre. You kind of get the best of the genre without having to understand too technical aspects. The bonus? Vampires, werewolves, aliens, cults and a Mummy-esque being.

If you have been here long, this one is a surprise for you since I am not one to read sci-fi usually. But this one was a top-read of the month, if not the year. When the book became available on Libby, I took a chance on it blindly and was pleasantly surprised. Let’s get into it.

Title: Of Monsters and Mainframes
Author: Barbara Truelove
Read: eBook – Libby
ISBN: 9781964721132
Published: Bindery, June 2025
Page Count: 416 pages

This futuristic society has advanced space travel. The story is largely told from the perspective of a Ship AI, Demeter. She wants to keep her passengers safe on her route of Earth to Alpha Centauri, but things escalate quite fast when she reaches Alpha Centauri with a ship full of dead passengers. She has no idea what happened. Until she has figures out that Dracula killed her passengers, vampires are untraceable to her as they cannot be seen on her cameras.

The humans do not believe her. This AI is hallucinating, there is something wrong with it, let’s just optimise it — that is the general reaction of the company as they put the blame on the faulty AI and refuse to investigate the matter. When Demeter is woken up again, she is set on another journey on the same route and things go very wrong again. It is a downward journey from there. Demeter is blamed every time, she becomes termed as the ghost ship as incidents escalate. One voyage has a werewolf attack, the other has the route diverted by alien cult, while another voyage is boarded by an undead ancient being.

Demeter has a partner in this, Steward, the medical AI system. Steward has a better human vocabulary and image processing. Steward and Demeter’s dynamic get more and more curious as the voyages progress and they tackle emergencies together.

The plot thickens when Demeter and Steward save two children from the werewolf attack and safely get them to Earth. The children are raised by these two AI on their lightyear-long journey. And when one of them come back for a second-chance at life, Steward and Demeter’s second chance begins.

The narrative is funny as it aligns with age-old folklore and diverts with intense critique of capitalist overlords hell-bent on protecting their own interests. It has multiple narrative POVs and embodies the voice of the character very authentically — sometimes sarcastic, sometimes serious and very rarely emotional as well.

The top highlights of this story were definitely the sentient ship, not knowing what comes next with the whiplash of a story and definitely the queer sci-fi representations. There are mysteries without no omniscient narrator, if you enjoy decoding secrets and untangling disjointed mysteries, this one is for you. I absolutely loved how the seemingly disconnected stories came together in the end. The throwbacks to the classic stories were just the cherry on top.

I would definitely recommend reading Of Monsters and Mainframes by Barbara Truelove if you are looking for something different and fun. This book is perfect for fans of Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells.

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