winecellarlibrary's Reviews (657)

Another story about AI becoming dangerously intelligent. I did not feel that this short story was very original. Riley falls in love with an AI that was "rescued" from a video game and spends 8 years working with it. Riley puts Max, the AI, before everything in life, including family. The creep factor is there, both with Riley and Max. The story was predictable. I'm surprised that this book is the most highly rated in the Forward Collection. 1.5/5 stars (rounded up).

The most intriguing part of this book, perhaps, is the fact that it is never written from the main character's point of view. The main character is a silent player, and the only voices we interact with are the voice in his head and the people he interacts with. I highly recommend the Audible version of this book because the narrator did such a phenomenal job on the voices. We discern the main character's intentions and actions through the responses we receive from other characters. This style of writing perfectly conceptualizes a society in which individuals cannot think for themselves.