Well, I hated it.

The sci-fi premise of this novella was a ‘what is knowledge?’ / ‘what is consciousness?’ question, AI edition.

… and maybe studying epistemology has ruined me for this topic?

The epistemology in here was simple. But it was also cartoonishly mid century retro (it was giving Cartesian Cogito meets Myth of the Given, Gettier Counterexamples, and some pretty unfortunate Coherentism), and it undercut the modern, video game come to life feeling the story was trying to go for.

And telling my this was futuristic was the epistemology version of trying to tell me the music scores of Grease or Hairspray were futuristic. Like, absolutely not.

Add in the fact that we didn’t take this premise anywhere it hasn’t already been taken by big blockbuster films. And that the writing didn’t save it, for me, either (too ‘on the nose’ and predictable). And that all the characters felt so stiff, the discussion of gender and queer relationships forced… it was a no for me.