Artificial Artifacts

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📚Book Review📚

Artificial Artifacts
John Fennec

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I always say that I'm not super into sci-fi genre books (or TV/films) - yet whenever I get the chance to really delve around in there, I always come out having loved it - and this collection of short stories is no exception.

This book contains 11 stories ranging in length that will intrigue, delight and petrify readers.

Each story presents an idea and explores the consequences of different forms of AI and other technologies that have been improved and adapted over many years.
These were perfectly presented and developed - especially given the nature of a short story - to create some really thought-provoking material.

I especially loved The Orchestral Adaption Of Gorilla Music which took us on a journey over a couple of decades - starting in the near future and travelling back to the 'present' day - essentially starting with a bang as we see the consequences first and then follow back through the development and decisions made over just a few years.

I think this stood out to me because it shows the relatively short period of time that it takes to drastically change and impact human existence.

Having grown up through an era of huge change - this is already a topic that I talk to the kids about - but these stories take things beyond anything that I could ever imagine - yet don't seem hugely fantastical.....which makes them just that little bit more scary!

Although this is a debut book - this was incredibly well written and you can see the amount of research done by the author.
Whilst this deals with some pretty clever concepts, the humour that's woven throughout makes this a really enjoyable read.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy of this book .

I enjoyed this book immensely, much more than I thought I would.. There are some real gems in this collection. What an imagination this writer has. Or perhaps it is inside knowledge!

The Gorilla Music story which opens the collection is both amazing and disturbing. in its depiction of the capabilities on AI. I remember reading a newspaper report recently about machines which were set up to do a task and given a language but the machines soon developed their own impenetrable language and had to be shut down. The Gorilla story is told backwards in time but it is also worth reading from the end to the beginning just to clarify things.

I particularly liked the crossovers in the stories with mentions of the Byrell company cropping up throughout and the last story is a WOW moment. The stories are set in different parts of the world and some of them leave you hanging, to decide your own ending. I actually quite liked the sound of some of the things AI could do!

There is such a lot to think about and some of the pieces would be excellent for discussion groups or as school texts. I don't think it is too much of a stretch to liken the author to Ray Bradbury.

OK, sometimes parts of the stories have a slight air of a "write a descriptive piece" and other tasks in a creative writing course and occasionally there is a bit of telling not showing but generally the writing is free flowing and easy to read. and, as i say, the sheer inventiveness is a joy.. 4.5 up to 5.

A really interesting collection of interlinked short stories, set mainly in the near-future,
which address our current worries about AI, and its' insidious creeping into our lives, in a very human way.
He also bring in sci-fi elements - parallel universes, alternate lives....
All in all, a good thought-provoking read.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book.