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colophonphile 's review for:
The Lifecycle of Software Objects
by Ted Chiang
Very much enjoyed this.
The novella tells the story of what are, essentially, tamagotchi that gain sentience. That they gain sentience isn't a surprise. That their owners take varied stances in response to the affection the tamagotchi inspire. In fact, there are no surprises, per se, except at the most meaningful level, which is the attention to emotions that Chiang pays as he extrapolates out what happens as the owners of the tamagotchi tend to their pets/children/aliens/what-quite-are-they over the course of man, many years. If you think of Isaac Asimov's The Foundation Trilogy as opera, and Charles Stross' Accelerando as a symphony, this is lovely chamber music.
The book is available as a book, but you can also read it for free, as I did, at the publisher's website:
http://subterraneanpress.com/magazine/fall_2010/fiction_the_lifecycle_of_software_objects_by_ted_chiang
The novella tells the story of what are, essentially, tamagotchi that gain sentience. That they gain sentience isn't a surprise. That their owners take varied stances in response to the affection the tamagotchi inspire. In fact, there are no surprises, per se, except at the most meaningful level, which is the attention to emotions that Chiang pays as he extrapolates out what happens as the owners of the tamagotchi tend to their pets/children/aliens/what-quite-are-they over the course of man, many years. If you think of Isaac Asimov's The Foundation Trilogy as opera, and Charles Stross' Accelerando as a symphony, this is lovely chamber music.
The book is available as a book, but you can also read it for free, as I did, at the publisher's website:
http://subterraneanpress.com/magazine/fall_2010/fiction_the_lifecycle_of_software_objects_by_ted_chiang