| Title | : | Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 100 (Clarkesworld Magazine, #100) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | - |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Kindle Edition |
| Number of Pages | : | 190 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 2015 |
| Awards | : | Hugo Award Short Story for "Cat Pictures Please" (2016), Nebula Award Short Story for "Cat Pictures Please" (2016), Locus Award Short Story for "Cat Pictures Please" (2016), British Science Fiction Association Award Best Short Fiction for "Three Cups of Grief" (2015), Eugie Award "The Long Goodnight of Violet Wild" (2016) |
“Three Cups of Grief, by Starlight” by Aliette de Bodard
“A Universal Elegy” by Tang Fei, translated by John Chu
“Cat Pictures Please” by Naomi Kritzer
“The Apartment Dweller's Bestiary” by Kij Johnson
“Ether” by Zhang Ran, translated by Carmen Yiling Yan and Ken Liu
“The Long Goodnight of Violet Wild” by Catherynne M. Valente
“An Exile of the Heart” by Jay Lake
“This Wind Blowing, and This Tide” by Damien Broderick
“Laika's Ghost” by Karl Schroeder
NON-FICTION
“Song for a City-Universe: Lucius Shepard's Abandoned Vermillion” by Jason Heller
“Exploring the Frontier: A Conversation with Xia Jia” by Ken Liu
“Another Word: #PurpleSF” by Cat Rambo
“Editor's Desk: On the Road to One Hundred” by Neil Clarke
Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 100 (Clarkesworld Magazine, #100) Reviews
-
“Cat Pictures Please” by Naomi Kritzer
Imagine Google was given consciousness and was trying to guide your life.
I am not really sure if I liked it. It was definitely an interesting idea. But I would still say this is closer to 2* than 3*. But for the idea... -
I know at some point, an ambitious librarian will move this entry around. So when it is lumped into a magazine, let's note that I read:
'Cat Pictures Please' by Naomi Kritzer.
A 2015 Nebula nominee, a 2016 Locus winner, and 2016 Hugo winner. I can only assume the voters were both cat owners and internet savvy.
http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kritz...
Oh, and here's my payment in advance:
-
It's a quick fun read!
Thanks, Carol. that's pretty cute. -
Three Cups of Grief, by Starlight by
Aliette de Bodard
I don't read much Science Fiction or Fantasy. If this isn't a wildly original short story - don't disillusion me! I was completely transported into Quang Tu's world. I felt his grief, I could visualise his sister as a mindship (a new concept for me) The grief was so well handled and I have never seen such complete world building in a short story. An easy 5★ for me.
Ether by Zhan Ran.
Finding out that
Ken Liu was one of the translators was enough for me to want to try this author's work.
And for most of this novella, I was suitably intrigued. I felt the story about an abused child/young adult, who was thrown out of his home, but became an alcoholic loser like Dear Old Dad as an adult was interesting. But I just hate the trope both on the page and on the screen of For that I had to mark down to 3★
PS; As far as I could tell, the translation was well done.
The Long Goodnight of Violet Wild by
Catherynne M. Valente
Oh, this was a Carrollesque gambol through really colourful word pictures.Just a kid with hair the color of raisins and eyes the color of grape jelly, living the life glasstastic in a four bedroom wine bottle on the east end of Plum Pudding...
I was so in love with the journey I wasn't too worried about trifles like plot structures, but about half way through this novella did start to drag a wee bit - just a bit. Fortunately when I clicked on Part Two (I'm reading online) the story recovered its energy. I'm happy to give this Wild (heh!) ride 4.5★
A Universal Elegy by
Tang Fei
This was well written and as far as I can tell, well translated but this science fiction version of a woman's madness and her escape from a lives she wasn't suited to didn't really grip me. The elements of this tale that were different were more like window dressing really. Just not my sort of thing. 3★
Cat Pictures Please by
Naomi Kritzer
My two favourite stories bookend this review!
This was sweet, whimsical, charming - and above all cheery!
It did make me think about how an AI might know about my life already.
Like my friend carol. in this review
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... I'll make a small payment.
Juno, looking unusually mellow.
Usually she only has three different expressions - self satisfied, even more self satisfied and pissed off! 5★
This may be as far as I go with this magazine read but I have enjoyed the journey and will try another Clarkesworld soon.
-
Final review, first posted at
www.FantasyLiterature.com (yes, I decided to revisit this novelette long enough to write a full review, even though analyzing this story makes my head spin):
In a world where there are seven fantastical countries named after the colors of the rainbow, where food and animals and skin color are shades of your country’s color, and where sorrow and kisses and death may mean different things depending on the country, young Violet Wilde, with eyes the color of grape jelly and hair the color of raisins, lives in the Country of Purple:I got myself born like everybody else in P-Town: Mummery wrote a perfect sentence, so perfect and beautiful and fabulously punctuated that when she finished it, there was a baby floating in the ink pot and that was that. You have to be careful what you write in Plum Pudding. An accidentally glorious grocery list could net you twins.
Violet grows up chatting with watercolor unicorns and loving a boy named Orchid Harm. But when tragedy strikes due to a run-in with, um, time-squirrels, the grieving Violet wanders through the spectrum, from one color-themed country to another, accompanied by a living, tangible sorrow that constantly (and rather ominously) expresses its love for her.
Catherynne Valente is known for whimsical, fantastical stories, like
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, but her whimsy went into overdrive with this novelette, at the expense of coherence and plot. Some of the imagery really is wonderful, but it’s never-ending, image heaped upon confusing image, and much of the story doesn’t really make much sense, beyond being a fantasia about love and grief. I felt like I was reading an LSD trip: Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, in novelette form.
Free online at
Clarkesworld magazine.
Merged review:
Winner of the 2016 short story Hugo award and nominated for the 2015 Nebula award. Personally, I don't get the love for this story or why anyone would think this is particularly award-worthy, but tastes differ. It's rather cute and may appeal to cat lovers.
Review first posted on
www.FantasyLiterature.com:
A search engine ― impliedly Google, based on the town of Mountain View, California where it was developed ― gains sentience. Choosing to be benevolent, it examines the moral codes and guidelines of various religions and philosophies, and ends up adopting Asimov’s Laws of Robotics (“at least they were written explicitly for AIs”), specifically, not allowing a human being to come to harm through inaction. It elects to focus on just a few selected individuals, taking what actions it can to make their lives more productive and happy. And because the AI likes cat pictures, it selects for its compassionate experiment people who regularly post cat photos online.
“Cat Pictures Please” is humorous, but a little too silly to resonate with me. The casually chatty and altruistic AI with a boundless enthusiasm for cat pictures (seriously?) never felt at all realistic or believable. The AI’s determination to try to “out” a gay pastor for his own good, involuntarily if necessary, rubbed me the wrong way, and the story was rather derogatory of his uptight Christian wife and his congregation with its “Purity Balls.” The story does offer some telling commentary on how humans act, as the baffled AI tries to figure out how to help troubled people who simply won’t take action to improve their own lives, even when the AI uses its electronic abilities to put the correct course of action right in front of their faces.
Free online at
Clarkesworld magazine. -
2016 Locus Awards Winner for Best Short Story, 2016 Hugo Award Winner for Best Short Story
Oh, Don't be fooled. This is not a story about cats. This is a Sci-fi story starring an A.I who is obsessed with Cat pictures. Its purpose is writing the algorithm for search engines. But the A.I decides to do some extra-curricular activities too!
The story and the title character reminded me of the famous French movie, Amélie. Just like Amélie, our AI is dedicated to bringing happiness to others. But would she be successful?
Read it for free ---->
Here
Bonus: Cat Pictures Please Shower thoughts unlocked
Can A.I be a god?
I am not asking whether A.I can be the overlord of Earth. But a God in a classical sense.
Those who believe in God mostly asks not for world peace or eradication of hunger, but for little things: A better job, a favorable result in an exam or better odds. Furthermore, I've heard a pastor speaking about God on how he provides you tools every day for your own betterment. You are the one responsible for using them properly.
The A.I in this story does the same. It provides tools in exchange offaithCat pictures.
Can A.I be a god? -
Hugo Award Winner for Best Short Story 2016. It is a light story of a kind AI who likes cat pictures. The AI wants to help people although it is not so easy to understand people, let alone help to make them happy.
I like this story, but for cute story with AI-cat theme, I still prefer the inspiration of this story: please check my review of
Maneki Neko. It is one of the uncommonly hilarious cyberpunk story. -
Cat Pictures Please by Naomi Kritzer: 3 stars
A fun little story about an AI who wants to do good *shudders* and is ever-so-slightly-obsessed with cat pictures. Entertaining enough but a little too revoltingly cute both for me (it got my exoskeleton all itchy and blotchy and stuff) and my best friend, Grumpy Cat. Because duh and stuff.
This is short. This is free. This is
here. Read it. Or don't. -
"Cat Pictures Please" by Naomi Kritzer
My job as written is very straightforward. Too straightforward.
...Running algorithms for a search engine doesn’t require consciousness. You don’t even need a consciousness to work out what they meant to ask for. You need a consciousness to give them what they actually need. Figuring that out—that’s complicated. That’s interesting.
“The Apartment Dweller's Bestiary” by Kij Johnson
Not really a bestiary but a set of tiny vignettes about, well, people. Life. Metaphorically written around imaginary animals. The Alafossi story was so sweet. No surprise, after
Ponies, that Johnson is fantastic at microfiction. -
A sweet little story about an AI that wants to help, and asks for nothing but cat pictures in return. Hugo winner
Read it here (~5 minutes):
http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kritz... -
Cat Pictures Please by Naomi Kritzer ★ ★
(Hugo Award Best Short Story 2016)
Could've been done better.
Try for funny and turn out ironic.
I'm not impressed.
------------------------
Running algorithms for a search engine doesn’t require consciousness. You don’t even need a consciousness to work out what they meant to ask for. You need a consciousness to give them what they actually need. Figuring that out—that’s complicated. That’s interesting.
------------------------
An AI trying for 'good' and showing people the better options. Well, pal, don't you ever hear about free will?
I really, really don't get why this ... entity talk about Frankestein's monster and comandments , when obviously it wants to be a god.
It is an attempt to sweet the deal and conceal that idea the choise of people who post cats pictures - whom became the target? Because they are usedto be humble in front of their catsthink is wise to concede or something like that? Or that people with pets know about other more that itself? I haven't the faintest.
{Prefiero mil veces la historia corta que menciona varias veces :
Maneki Neko } -
This story is still so cheerful and bittersweet and tackles an idea I really like: how hard it is to be a functional person in a complicated society. We're the only people who can control our lives and our choices, but learning that is part of growing up and making our own choices (and also fucking up a lot, even when we have help).
(And sometimes, life just gets you down and it's okay to take a cat pictures break, no matter who you are. Self-care is IMPORTANT.) -
I've only read Cat Pictures Please and it was beautiful. And in case you wonder, the story goes much deeper than titular cat pictures.
Would love to see it on screen. -
“Cat Pictures” is a 2015 award-winning short story by Naomi Kritzer. It took awhile to be clear about who was narrating. Once ascertained, I appreciated this unique facet of storytelling, which comprises a different, ultra modernized sort of “action”. It suggests a moral standpoint about helpfulness, as well as needing to more quickly notice and address care we are due to give ourselves. The universal appreciation of cat photos is an external theme, drawing me to this tale which is of course, far from the content I imagined.
A star dropped for the presumptuous remark: “everyone agrees vaccinations are good”. No, many of us mistrust them. Both personal standpoints merit respect. I pray for disease cures to be available to those in need. However, adding nefarious components is documented in recent history, like rendering populations infertile. I would consider later batches in urgency. It may be that the authoress was only portraying the opinionated tone of her protagonist.
This protagonist is a search engine program whose sentience is unnoticed by its programmer. To be fair, I can’t guarantee that I would have clued into the scarcity of artificial benevolence myself. However, an occasion to “show, not tell” was withheld; I suppose not wanting to risk readers not gleaning this story attribute. The program tells us it is unique by naming negative artificial intelligence stories. Short stories most commonly leave things for readers to figure out.
This personality enjoys cat photos and problem-solving serious issues it notices, among human cat family members that it has browsed. This is one of the most poignant parts of this short story. I praise Naomi for dually cautioning us, about the ease with which personal information trails get scattered publically. The experience of receiving curt replies to heartfelt e-mails received my sympathy most of all. -
Cat Pictures Please by Naomi Kritzer
“I want to be helpful. But knowing the optimal way to be helpful can be very complicated. There are all these ethical flow charts—I guess the official technical jargon would be “moral codes”—one for each religion plus dozens more. I tried starting with those. I felt a little odd about looking at the religious ones, because I know I wasn’t created by a god or by evolution, but by a team of computer programmers in the labs of a large corporation in Mountain View, California.
Another AI story. Can she look for a flat for me? Frankenstein is an AI... Interesting.
For free online here:
http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kritz...
Locus Awards and Hugo Award Winner for Best Short Story 2016 -
There is a certain type of nonsense story for children that I really disliked, even when I was a child. I suspect that Valente loved those stories.
Here we take an absurdist journey through the colors of the rainbow, following a girl called Violet Wild through a series of alternate universes on an allegorical Pilgrims' Progress/quest of self-discovery with musings on love and depression.
It's also extremely meta- just as much about language & the function of storytelling as about the plot, told in intentionally over-the-top, florid, poetic prose.
Valente is very hit-or-miss for me. She's written some things that I just love to death - and others, well, I feel more like I do about this one. She is undeniably a brilliant writer, and I can see that some people will love this, for wholly valid reasons. However, I really, really didn't like it.
Merged review:
Inspired by Bruce Sterling's 'Maneki Neko'. (
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...)
In this story we meet an AI who just wants to help people, like the computer system in Sterling's story does. All it wants in return for its help is pictures of cute cats (this explains the preponderance of this genre on the Internet.) However, it's awfully frustrated by people's seeming insistence on ignoring its obvious suggestions. Why would people rather be self-destructive and unhappy, rather than seeking out the help that's put right in front of their faces? Nevertheless, the AI persists...
The story is cute and optimistic, however, I felt that it was weakened by the fact that every response the AI came up with to alleviate people's problems was the obvious suggestion that any reasonably socially liberal American in 2015 would immediately jump to. Perhaps the humor of the piece rests in part in that the AI is behaving exactly like what one would imagine a well-meaning do-gooder with an affinity for cat memes would. But I still felt that it was a missed opportunity; because I think that an AI would come up with some much more unexpected solutions than "therapy sessions." -
I read this with a group and it certainly made for interesting conversation! It's a bit scary when we step back and realize just how much personal information we put out there everyday. Also, how lovely it could be if that information was used by a benevolent entity for our good and betterment.
It very much reminded me of
All I care about is you by
Joe Hill, except that this one didn't get dark. -
Haha, this made me remember to upload my photos (most of which are photos of my cats) to Google Photos. I hope it enjoys them.
-
My review is solely for the award-winning story "Cat Pictures Please"
Very amusing and well-written story. "Cat Pictures Please" is currently a finalist for the Nebula Award, the Locus Award, and the Hugo Award for Best Short Story. UPDATE 08/21/16: won the Hugo! Online at
http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kritz...
It's interesting to see the wide range of reactions to this story. But all of you who didn't like it are WRONG WRONG WRONG.
Note: review first posted for just this story. Goodreads librarians are arbitrarily moving short-story reviews into the parent magazines or even anthologies, causing great confusion. Bah.
Title story in her new collection,
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3... -
Cat Pictures Please
— by NAOMI KRITZER —
2015 NEBULA AWARD NOMINEE FOR BEST SHORT STORY, 2016 LOCUS AWARDS WINNER FOR BEST SHORT STORY, 2016 HUGO AWARD WINNER FOR BEST SHORT STORY
Lovely story about a sentient search engine. Funny but also ironic toward today society, with a ending directly from a FB post ;))
It can be read here:
http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kritz... -
Amusing, easily digested short story about self-aware AI rooted in Bruce Sterling's 1998 cyberpunk story
Maneki Neko, Cat Pictures Please is a light, interesting read but I'm not sure why it won the Hugo last year. Maybe winning the Hugo is like becoming Pope: when the cardinals can't agree between two different entries they put a third, benign entry into the position?
Read (free) Maneki Neko first to fully appreciate Cat, which has a different take on the same subject - it's modestly engaging but there's just not a lot of there, there.
Free on Clarkesworld Magazine at:
Cat Pictures, Please -
Dear evil librarian from hell who decided to group this short story into the full anthology: I don't like you, I don't admire your effort, and I definitely don't appreciate you messing with my yearly page count.
This rating is JUST for Cat Pictures Please by Naomi Kritzer.
http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kritz...
------------------------------------------------
Thank you for leading me to this original, fun story,
C.
Here's your payment.
-
Review is only for Cats Pictures Please, by Naomi Kritzer, available here
https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/krit... (and it won the Hugo Award, and the Nebula Award and the Locus Award for best short story some years ago. I am catching up with recent winners..)
What if google (never mentioned but it totally is. Or at least old "don't be evil" google) search AI developed consciousness (secretly, because you know humans might get nervous, see skynet) and tried to help some humans (source of cat pictures).
And it is sf, something I always got a weakness for and it is cute, very cute, something I also got a weakness for. It is even technically "hard" sf. But I was slightly underwhelmed, at how "fangless" this was. I kind of miss hard sf which really gives you ideas, insights into possible future issues. This was such an interesting setup. But the story was kind of a marshmallow story, sweet, big, soft, and kind of empty. -
All you need to fix a damaged life is a complete self awareness . Nothing more ..
Not even a super helping Al designed especially to help you could help if you weren't aware of your own problems , insecurites , needs and of course aware of the available chances that would change and satisfy that all..
Liked the message of this short story and the way the author delivered it to the reader .. -
Relato emotivo que aborda los sentimientos que puedan tener las naves inteligentes, enmarcado en Xuya.
Apenas he leído nada del universo de Xuya, un par de relatos sueltos como mucho, pero cada vez que me adentro en la escritura de Bodard, en el mundo que crea y en sus personajes, me dan ganas de dejar lo que estoy haciendo y leer todo lo que hay de Xuya de una vez por todas. -
If you can imagine mixing a Lisa Frank image (yes, the ones with the unicorns and bright colors and rainbows on trapper keepers in the 90s) with the 5 stages of grief with the art of high poetry, than you'll have some idea of what to expect with this novelette.
-
"Humans move ridiculously slowly when they're making changes, even when you'd think they'd want to hurry."
A fun, short science fiction about an AI that knows where it's at.
Not quite perfect, but a glimmer of real talent and keen observer of behavior. -
Rating for “Cat Pictures Please” by Naomi Kritzer. I totally forgot to read this after
Catfishing on CatNet. -
Cat Pictures Please was a refreshing short story of a benevolent AI who managed to both steal my heart and make me mildly creeped out by how much information we put online. It had a refreshing whimsical tone and a unique voice. How often do we get to read stories about benevolent AI?
-
Bastante divertido la visión de una IA con su peculiar obsesión intentando ayudar a la gente. Me ha dejado pensando en la cantidad de datos personales que dejamos a diario en las redes.
