4 Quickies

As the writing of my review/summary of "On Bullshit" drug out to over a month, I imposed a "no new novels until you're finished" edict. But, there were a few x where i wasn't going to work on the review/summary & didn't want to do music or doomscroll, when I went on and read a short story. All of these were by 3 of my favorite authors, I think purchased for $0.99 or $1.99. They had maybe been online originals at Tor.com? So these aren't a real reading $$$ value, but I am happy to support these authors.

1. "Human Resources", by Adrian Tchaikovsky, 2025, 32 pages, 4k words. A somewhat Kafkaesque tale of the coming AI revolution in an "Office Space" environment. It ends with some very heavy-handed humor.

2. "The Tale of the Wicked", by John Scalzi, 2023, 25 pages, 7k words. I think I had read this before. Again, AI leads to unexpected results in interstellar fleets.

3. "Vigilant", by Cory Doctorow, 2024, 29 pages, 9k words. Doctorow has created his own genre: exposes and takedowns of crap software systems. One of his novels recently did prison systems software which rips off prisoners for visits, books, you name it. This short story is about remote student surveillance software. Kobo says it is in the "Little Brother" series.

4. "The Canadian Miracle", by Cory Doctorow, 2023, 23 pages, 5k words. Set in the world of "The Lost Cause", where some more progressive countries have made progress against the climate crisis, while others more under the thumb of Big Oil are facing more of a struggle. Canadian "blue helmets" trying to help out in Mississippi run afoul of MAGAts.