Made to Order - Book Review

 Made to Order is an anthology book, with several short stories on a topic - robot revolution. It came up on my book offers, and when I read Peter F. Hamilton, I just said oh, OK and bought it.

It was pretty much awesome. Some stories were nice, but many were just great and pretty memorable.

I had given up on doing that, but I can't help but mention some:

(watch for spoilers!)

A Guide for Working Breeds - Vina Jie-min Prasad

The story of a new robot and his mentor. It has a nice model I've seen before - robots are sentient, and they have to work to pay for their hardware, at which point they are free. The new robot really likes dogs, which is pretty cute (and I imagine would make a great Love, Death  + Robots episode), and the other is a little more violent. I like that the tradition of robot names based on serial/model numbers is still going.


Test 4 Echo - Peter Watts

Very famous author, nice, I particularly the way the sentience (and robot architecture) was approached, and how sentient AIs are treated.


The Endless - Saad Z. Hossain

Very nice, covering sentient AI systems, including an airport that gets bought and re-purposed. I like the different model, AIs have to get jobs to get real processing, otherwise they go on Basic, which provides a minimum. People also have nanotech factories built-in, which if you are in basic are a form of tax.

Great ending.


Idols - Ken Liu

I was already a fan of Ken Liu, and I really liked this tale, which includes the logical extension of the current juror science level - jurors being simulated based on all available data. This would allow you to test several approaches with each to see what works best (of course, this would make justice even less just, but I can't really blame everyone for doing what is best for them).


Bigger Fish - Sarah Pinsker

A nice detective story, where an heir can't believe the police conclusion of a suicide, and a detective is hired to investigate the witnesses (all robots). Very Asimov, with the classic 3 law conflict (it reminds me of a specific Asimov book, but it'd make it super obvious if I mentioned which)


Sonnie's Union - Peter F. Hamilton

Hamilton is one of my favorite authors, easily. This is why I bought the book. It was totally worth it, and the rest of the stories are just bonuses.

This is a continuation of the story Sonnie's edge, which was the first episode of Love, Death  + Robots. I'd say it is even better, and goes into much wilder territory.


Polished Performance - Alastair Reynolds

Reynolds is a very famous author, for good reason (and he was also on Love, Death + Robots with Zima blue). In this story, a group of robots in a generation ship discover that most frozen humans have died, and thus they will be erased. Now that they have to come with a plan to avoid that...


An Elephant Never Forgets - Rich Larson

Nice, short story about synthetic humans. Clearly ends with a reference to I have no mouth and I must scream, which I liked.


The Translator - Annalee Newitz

I already read at least a book and a ton of articles written by her, and this story about AI that need translators was quite good, too.


Sin Eater - Ian R. Macleod

Another famous author, which a story about a robot that helps humans move along, and the last Pope. Very interesting.


Fairy Tales for Robots - Sofia Samatar

A very interesting story which turns many traditional fairy tales into their oblique references about robots (i.e. Pinochio, the golem story (which is very much about robots without help), Frankstein, etc), while a robot creator decides to instruct their new robot.


Chiarscuro in Red - Suzanne Palmer

The story was pretty good, but what I liked the more was the use of a future people either live in a basic stipend or buy shares into robots, which make everything else and took most jobs.


A Glossary of Radicalization - Brooke Bolander

A story about synthetic humans, and their revolution


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