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Bricks, Sticks, Straw
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★★★Synopsis: Remotely operated artificial intelligences are cut from their operators by a solar storm. They have to face madness caused by data corruption. Sophia's avatar finds that she is self-aware and has to outwit the other avatars egoisms.
Review: A poetic story which I nearly lost in the first half because of Jones' nerd language. I liked the trope of telepresence which contrasts many other forms of SF needing a hero in person to get in dire situations. Without the weak first half of the story, I'd have given it at least 4 stars.
Interesting story concept, decent execution.
Four rovers operated by telepresence are exploring the Galilean moons, linked to Earth by the Medici craft orbiting Jupiter. Because of the lightspeed time lag, the rovers essentially carry AIs imprinted with the personalities of their Easthbound operator, so that telepresence seems mostly observation, correction of errors, and anticipatory suggestions.
When Medici goes into safe mode during a solar flare, the four rovers with their surrogate personalities are left on their own for an extended period, and slowly start to go mad, each in its own way.
I didn't mind as much as Andreas that when the point of view shifted from the Earth telepresence team to the AI surrogates in J-space. It took a little time getting into the PoV of Sophie's surrogate on Callisto, the most sane of the rover personalities, as she works to maintain her own sanity and tried to snap the others back so they could work together to restart Medici and continue the mission.
I tried to get some sense of the telepresence operator personalities from the brief introduction. Sophie really doesn't play a big role in that meeting. Cha as shown to be the most easy-going, and his surrogate likewise seems content to simply give up. Laxmi was the most vocal and aggressive, (and the one who, at loss of contact, says "I hope they didn't suffer") so I guess her surrogate's role makes sense, too.
I felt let down by the ending, after telepresence was restored, and the human operators may or may not have received a summary of what transpired during their lengthy absence. I tried to read something in the final paragraph, but really couldn't suss it out:
"My ending is despair, unless I be relieved by prayer, which pierces so that it assaults, mercy itself and frees all faults. As you from crimes would pardoned be, let your indulgence set me free."
By the way, I thought it was interesting that in the opening, Cha was described as the senior citizen and in the denouement it's mentioned he's 30 years old.
3 stars ***
Four rovers operated by telepresence are exploring the Galilean moons, linked to Earth by the Medici craft orbiting Jupiter. Because of the lightspeed time lag, the rovers essentially carry AIs imprinted with the personalities of their Easthbound operator, so that telepresence seems mostly observation, correction of errors, and anticipatory suggestions.
When Medici goes into safe mode during a solar flare, the four rovers with their surrogate personalities are left on their own for an extended period, and slowly start to go mad, each in its own way.
I didn't mind as much as Andreas that when the point of view shifted from the Earth telepresence team to the AI surrogates in J-space. It took a little time getting into the PoV of Sophie's surrogate on Callisto, the most sane of the rover personalities, as she works to maintain her own sanity and tried to snap the others back so they could work together to restart Medici and continue the mission.
I tried to get some sense of the telepresence operator personalities from the brief introduction. Sophie really doesn't play a big role in that meeting. Cha as shown to be the most easy-going, and his surrogate likewise seems content to simply give up. Laxmi was the most vocal and aggressive, (and the one who, at loss of contact, says "I hope they didn't suffer") so I guess her surrogate's role makes sense, too.
I felt let down by the ending, after telepresence was restored, and the human operators may or may not have received a summary of what transpired during their lengthy absence. I tried to read something in the final paragraph, but really couldn't suss it out:
She looked around. Cha was gazing dreamily at nothing; Lax frowned at her desktop, as if trying to remember a phone number. Josh was looking right back at Sophie, so sad and strange, as if she’d robbed him of something precious; and she had no idea why.Does Sophie know her surrogate was killed? Do Josh and Laxmi remember their roles? I guess I'm just too dense.
"My ending is despair, unless I be relieved by prayer, which pierces so that it assaults, mercy itself and frees all faults. As you from crimes would pardoned be, let your indulgence set me free."
By the way, I thought it was interesting that in the opening, Cha was described as the senior citizen and in the denouement it's mentioned he's 30 years old.
3 stars ***
Oh yeah, one other thing... the whole Three Little Pigs reference. Didn't get it.
"Bricks, Sticks, Straw" by Gwyneth Jones
This story is part of the Edge of Infinity group anthology discussion.