Ana was a washed-up zoologist turned programmer looking for work; Derek was an avatar designer for the Data Earth virtual reality platform. The thing that brought them together: Blue Gamma Inc., manufacturer of autonomous self-aware AI pets known as digients.
Like any pet, each digient requires constant attention as they learn and grow. Soon, Ana and Derek become as attached to their own digients as parents to their children. But when Blue Gamma goes out of business and the Data Earth platform becomes obsolete, the future for the digients looks grim–until they enter the next phase of their natural evolution.
I really, really liked this story. It’s got just about everything that makes science fiction so great: futuristic setting, well-rounded characters with believable motivations, one Big Lie with everything else held more or less at the level of our current understanding, and tons of parallels between the fantastic world and our own that makes you step back and really think about things.
The interesting thing about this story was how it played with all the old robot/AI tropes. Usually, stories of this kind will have the robots rise to transcendence, either becoming the benevolent (or largely absent) rulers of the world, or taking over and enslaving humanity in some fashion. Not so with this story; the scope was much more intimate and personal, driven by characters rather than the Fate of Mankind, and that ultimately made the story much more believable.
If I had any problem with this story at all, it was the ending. After so much build-up and development, I felt as if it cut off rather abruptly, just as things were getting more and more interesting. I suppose the author was going for something of a “Flowers for Algernon” feel, but that wasn’t what I took from it. Or perhaps he ran up against the novella word limit and decided to cut it off; I don’t know.
Regardless, I thoroughly enjoyed this story. It’s certainly worthy of the Hugo for which it’s been nominated. Highly recommended.
