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Made to Order
Jul. 23rd, 2020 05:05 pmI read the Jonathan Strahan anthology Made to Order: Robots and Revolution via Netgalley. The collection's strength is in the variety of robots and artificial intelligences, in different modes and attitudes.
The opening story, Vina Jie-Min Prasad's "A Guide for Working Breeds," is about an assassin robot and a robot who works in a raccoon cafe, and if you think that will be fluffy and adorable, you are correct. If you're looking for cute stories about robot friendship, Suzanne Palmer's "Chiaroscuro in Red," about an art-history student who finds himself entirely responsible for a manufacturing robot, is also a good bet.
Peter Watts' "Test 4 Echo" should be sad in a classic science-fiction short story way, except it turns out I'm really excited about robot octopus arms even when they're doomed. In Saad Z. Hossain's "The Endless", a decommissioned Thai airport AI originally appears to be doomed, but instead manages a twisty and elaborate revenge, which makes for an experience rather like a carnival ride.
But the story that stood out most in my reading is Tochi Onyebuchi's "The Hurt Pattern," which weaves together student debt and the law school experience and the glitter of prestigious educations and people in finance with the absolute bleakness of police violence in America. He tells a story about the way those glittering institutions are not only complicit but responsible that feels sideways from six months from now in the way that science fiction does best.
The opening story, Vina Jie-Min Prasad's "A Guide for Working Breeds," is about an assassin robot and a robot who works in a raccoon cafe, and if you think that will be fluffy and adorable, you are correct. If you're looking for cute stories about robot friendship, Suzanne Palmer's "Chiaroscuro in Red," about an art-history student who finds himself entirely responsible for a manufacturing robot, is also a good bet.
Peter Watts' "Test 4 Echo" should be sad in a classic science-fiction short story way, except it turns out I'm really excited about robot octopus arms even when they're doomed. In Saad Z. Hossain's "The Endless", a decommissioned Thai airport AI originally appears to be doomed, but instead manages a twisty and elaborate revenge, which makes for an experience rather like a carnival ride.
But the story that stood out most in my reading is Tochi Onyebuchi's "The Hurt Pattern," which weaves together student debt and the law school experience and the glitter of prestigious educations and people in finance with the absolute bleakness of police violence in America. He tells a story about the way those glittering institutions are not only complicit but responsible that feels sideways from six months from now in the way that science fiction does best.
