This series focuses on stories that are both well-written and do something that I find interesting from a technical perspective. This week, I’d like to give you two different takes on robotic behavior enforcers, one at the the personal level and the other at the highest possible level.
Have you ever met one of those people who wishes God were just a bit more active in the world, especially with the smiting? (I can’t imagine my home state has a monopoly on those…) Sparrow and G.d:Shrike, by Jude-Marie Green and published in Strange Constellations, examines a world where humanity decided to stop wishing for that sort of thing and help themselves. Unfortunately, it turns out that the Way really is narrow, and all an orbital laser platform really helps with is the population problem.
There’s some backyard science in here that would make Heinlein proud, but what I really found interesting was the meditation on the nature of a world without anger, as well as on the kind of evil that could survive there. I think it’s worth a read.
At the other end of the spectrum, we have iChaperone, by Kat Otis and published in Daily Science Fiction. Its focus is much narrower, on the implications of personal robot monitors (unarmed) and how those change the process of growing up. Or don’t, really. It’s also a much more subtly nuanced look (I might be reading too much into it here…YMMV) at how much privacy we might be willing to trade for a constant robotic watchdog. This is a much more human story than the previous one, on many levels, and I think they read well together.