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Snow by John Crowley
3.5
reflective medium-paced

This is more of the science fiction that I like - small-scale, reflective stuff that centres on character. The idea here is based on a mildly off-putting exhibitionism. You buy something called a Wasp, which follows you around your daily life for a minimum of 8000 hours, recording, so when you die your loved ones have a record of you which they can access. I would hate that. I don't even like to be photographed, but you know there are people out there who consider themselves so riveting that 8000 hours of shopping and brushing their teeth and clipping their toenails and so forth seems a valuable investment. But of course the Wasp, and the memories, aren't really about the subject, no matter how self-obsessed they are. They're about the survivors, who tap into these records, or don't, and why they do or don't, and the mechanism of memory: what we choose to remember, and the remembrances that we value.