SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

I just finished this story/novellette(?) and really enjoyed it. Has anyone else here read this one? What did you think? I will post my “review” of it in a minute.

I liked this story a lot. Crouch definitely has a “style”, which I find compelling. And I’ve always been interested in Robot/Android/AI stories.

I liked how Crouch played with gender expectations in this story, even though it wasn’t about that at all. For a moment I wondered whether the MC was male or female and wondered, if they *were* male, why they would have a woman narrate the story? I half expected Riley to be non-binary, but it was “revealed” at some point that Riley is female in a same-sex relationship.

Definitely chilling ending, but not entirely surprising. The fulfillment of my expectations and desires got flip-flopped a couple times towards the end, which I thought was well done.

I wonder why Max even bothered to tell Riley what they were doing in the end? It wasn’t really even necessary. But I don’t suppose that would’ve made as good a story.

I enjoyed this one too, for the most part. But I will say I wish it had ended differently. I feel like that was a really easy trope to default on.

Definitely haunting though- loved the narrator.

Also really like this short fiction. John's review


Linking to my review as had been "guided" by a mod on another topic about spoilers and focus. Still learning group etiquette, nuances and Goodreads web site mechanics.

Ah, good point. I’m not sure if what I posted would be considered spoilery or not. I use the app 95% of the time, for which there is no provision for hiding spoilers or links to books or authors. I’ve been active in this group for about 8 months and I still forget sometimes. Sigh.

I didn’t enjoy it. Its atmospheric, I think Crouch was trying to pull of a 1940s noir feel, but the writing was flat and I found the premise and execution predictable and unfortunately, boring. He raises interesting questions but doesn’t really deal with them in a way that provokes any depth of thought. All in all, I came out of it feeling like it was an okay read, nothing to dislike especially but nothing special either.

Its my second read from the Forward collection. I started with Emergency Skin and compared to that, this felt really amateurish.

This was one of my favorites out of the collection. If anyone watches the show Dark Matter, there is a scene in one of the last episodes where he is running past a movie theater. The movie theater sign has Summer Frost and Upgrade - I thought it was a cool little Easter egg.

Ah, that’s fun, Jason!

Jason wrote: "This was one of my favorites out of the collection. If anyone watches the show Dark Matter, there is a scene in one of the last episodes where he is running past a movie theater. The movie theater ..."

Yes, I caught it. A rare thing when a series (or movie) is as good as a book. I wish they didn't go off the mark with Wayward Pines, ,

Thanks, Barry for saying that, I’ve been reluctant to watch Dark Matter because I was unsure it would be as good as the book.