Pack

Short Story by Robert Reed

Text and Audio at Clarkesworld

A post-human who consumes his courage from dispensers lives alone in his castle, one of several such lone castle dwellers among the sparsely populated world. He considers himself and his neighbors the last remnants of humanity.

One day, he adopts a dog, and a pack of them start to live outside his castle, living off his scraps. Reed never describes exactly what a dog is, but they use guns and talk and cry. My theory is that they are the last bits of unmodified, low-tech humanity, no longer acknowledged as human by the post humans, and maybe not even by themselves. They live in packs, surviving off nature and the scraps of the post humans.

The pack continually push our post-human narrator's boundaries, seeing how many he will feed, if he will protect them, break up fights, or help them in a war with another pack.

Reed leaves the setting extremely sketchy, few descriptions of anything, no history lessons, and names and personalities left ambiguous. But he establishes the dynamics between the Post-Human and the dogs, and establishes that the dogs are smart enough to be dissatisfied with the current arrangement. A fun, strange little story about the future of humanity. More sketch of the social order than character study or plotted plot-heavy thriller.

3.5 wolf empires out of 5.

Purple

Novelette by Robert Reed

Humans and other aliens are rescued and kept in an alien animal rescue clinic/zoo. Lots of background musing on the limitations of god-like aliens, and the moral choices of which wounded animals to save, but this is mostly the story of Tito, a blind cripple.

Most of the novelette is flashbacks from his current lonely, dissatisfied life as a caged animal. The two flashback time periods allow Reed to tell three stories from Tito's life in detail: his unhappy present existence, his lost love and how she was lost, and how he was blinded as a child.

It's remarkable how much I care for Tito by the end, and the sudden change in the last pages of the story really works for me, adding an emotional denouement to the sad/rebellious/scary triple climax. I think it's happy at the end, but it might not be as happy as we'd hope, and it certainly isn't a deus ex machina, which is a nice surprise in a story essentially about a man's interactions with deus ex machina. Tito attains a surprising amount of agency in his life, and that's what really makes this novelette worthwhile.

4.5 purple busses out of 5 are actually yellow.

Woman Leaves Room

Short Story by Robert Reed

Published free in text and audio, Lightspeed March 2011

An AI represents itself as a man standing in a room. It sees people interacting with it as standing in the hallway, or coming in to talk. It was created, with love, by a woman who had lost her husband and wanted to use his memories to bring back something like him. But one day the beautiful woman walks out on the AI that loves her, and he waits for her to come back.

Also good for some deep thoughts on time and waiting forever. I really like this Reed story, the strange way the AI thinks makes it interesting, and it really explores what it means to be an AI, and not even realize it until well into your lifespan. So one of the more fun protagonists, and plenty of thoughts to chew on, with a gooey emotional core.

A heartbreaking story of an AI in love, and the future history of the universe.

4 corrupted haystack files out of 5.

Excellence

Short Story by Robert Reed

This is a story I'm very torn over, in terms of rating. I absolutely love the point Reed is trying to make here, I think it is important, and the overall idea is a great one. Larry Voss is a brilliant middle-aged man who lives alone in a house he inherited from his parents, never working, just living off their life insurance policies. He sits around playing online games all day, a completely meaningless arena in which he is hugely successful.

One day, Larry is scouted by a charitable foundation interested in his wasted potential. The deal doesn't go exactly as he expected, but the twist surely inspires him to greater heights than his slightly improved coasting by would have. As his friend points out earlier, the grants are just a way for the rich to keep the masses content, and as we find out at the end of the story: "sometimes it is best to take a comfortable citizen and make him less so."

So I intensely agree with Reed, I like the setting, and I love the conclusion. But the essential twist is pure bullshit. Even in the fictional world laid out, it makes no sense, and doesn't seem convincingly legal (or even borderline legal enough to stick). And regardless of legality within fictional legal systems, it just seems like too much a game of Xanatos Roulette. The overall plot just makes no sense in terms of being likely. The characters motivations are all clear, and things make sense otherwise, but this is too much of an asspull to get past.

2.5 doppels out of 5.

What is it with so many stories getting the same name, and failing to live up to it?

The Long Retreat

Novelette by Robert Reed

Lieutenant Castor is assistant to the Emperor of a country that is so large as to be practically infinite. You could spend all your life going in one direction and never reach the end, one can only assume decay from higher technology with which they built such a huge empire.

The Emperor is at war with another impossibly huge country and doing badly. He and his court are retreating with no plan besides the realization that they can just keep retreating forever. Castor learns from other characters about the history of the world, the war, and the current strategy, which basically comes down to the country being Hotel Infinity, no finite number of invaders can hope to conquer them. The Emperor eventually forces Castor onto a path you can see he was groomed for, but never actually thought about or wanted. It is a little awkward how some of the out-of-the-loop characters help in this grooming so readily, but I suppose it's better that all the relevant conversations happen "on screen" as opposed to being that-thing-this-guy-said-five-years-ago.

You can see the ending coming from half-a-lake away but that doesn't make it less enjoyable. The world and the war it is involved in are well thought out, and fun to think about although the plausibility of maintaining such an empire is left completely alone. Still, I suspect I'll be replacing some of my infinite hotel examples with infinite nations. The big reveal about the Emperor at the end has been done before I'm sure, although no specific examples come to mind. But it makes for a good story to keep you reading while you think about the world and where the authority to rule actually comes from. 4 out of 5 Emperors tragically get stuck ruling finite realms.

Before My Last Breath

Short Story by Robert Reed

A geologist discovers the remains of an alien preserved in a coal mine. We manage to have 7 points of view in 10 pages, with minimal characterization and no characters returned to, no personal stories completed. Basically one vanilla occupation hands off to another vanilla occupation to continue the story of the dig. Birth and death happen, but it is all sort of meaningless. Nothing really happens, nothing is really discovered, and the truth revealed at the end is not at all interesting. And the Pascal's Wager at the end fails to create any lasting impression or thoughtfulness. 1.5 out of 5.