Cats, good books, AI, and religious walking in the city of Sofia
The Murderbot is after its murderous past and will be assisted by an intelligent spaceship. Its memory is lacking but it has plenty of time and is looking for clues.
It’s a very tiny book, sub-2h reading. I think the format respects the lower attention span of the modern human-smartphone constructs. Posting a photo of the book that highlights how pretty it is. An excellent job by the publisher.
5*/5
Press Enter is a novella by John Varley about a disabled war veteran who inherits his neighbor. The neighbor was a powerful hacker. So powerful that he could make money out of thin air. Another hacker comes to investigate. Unfortunately for all parties involved, the story is a horror and they’ll not have a bright future.
What impressed me is that there are AI prompts, just like the ones we use to talk to ChatGPT. There’s also prompt hacking. By 1984, AI development had apparently advanced enough for John Varley to foresee a trajectory.
The novella aged like wine.
I didn’t expect to see a cat on my way in the mountain today but here she is.
It was hot today – the weather, the soup. I did well and feel fine.
An exploration spaceship returns from a distant star with a 200-year delay. They find the Earth and the Moon in shambles. Earth is inhabited by stupid people, and the Moon has a smart but unsustainable population, suffering from radiation, depression, and a shortage of oxygen.
Zajdel explores how climate and genetic manipulation can destroy Earth. Humans decided to replace trees with machines, and it didn’t work very well. They also decided to resolve the overpopulation crisis by changing the DNA so that very few girls were born. That also didn’t work well.
Both disasters are overshadowed by the impact of AI. Robots do everything and people don’t need to learn how to count. They communicate with 50 words and don’t develop even basic feelings. It’s a utopia modern people can imagine – the world ending not because of a war or climate change but because of obedient robots doing all the work.
4.5*/5
Some writers start with a bestseller, then it’s all downhill. You’re lucky to get the same bestseller repeated a few times with a slightly different plot. Others get better book after book. Michael Connelly is in that group, and Janet Evanovich seems to be there as well. Takedown Twenty was one of the best from the Stephanie Plum series. There were exploding cars, a bit of grimdark comedy, and a stray giraffe but it was balanced and Stephanie did well.
Stephanie should’ve been 50 by now. Technology ages but she stays 30. Other than this little glitch in the Matrix, it’s a great series.
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