Miniatures

«110011000101, you serviced the online ordering needs of a plurality of humanity, so you may know more about humans and their needs than any other AI out there. So let me ask you this. We're all agreed that we don't want to wipe out humanity. But for the sake of diversity, how many humans do we need?»

I'm a little dissapointed. Yes, Scalzi can be very funny, you would know specially if you have read some of his novels, but I felt like he was trying too hard. I think Scalzi mostly fails, at least in this anthology, when “funny” is the main character. But, hey, what do I know?

Most are just okay. My favorite, and the one that practically made me laughed my ass off, was “Your Smart Appliances Talk About You Behind Your Back”. An honorable mention for “The AI are Absolutely Positively Without a Doubt Not Here to End Humanity, Honest”.

Contents:

- “Alien Animal Encounters” → 3/5

- “Missives from Possible Futures #1: Alternate History Search Results” → 3/5

- “Pluto Tells All” → 3/5

- “Denise Jones, Super Booker” → 2/5

- “When the Yogurt Took Over” → 3/5

- “The Other Large Thing” → 3/5

- “The State of Super Villainy” → 3/5

- “New Directives for Employee-Manxtse Interactions” → 4/5

- “To Sue the World” (set in the same universe as “Redshirts”) → 4/5

- “How I Keep Myself Amused on Long Flights: A Twitter Tale” → 2/5

- “How I Keep Myself Amused on Long Flights, Part II: The Gremlining” → 2/5

- “Life on Earth: Human-Alien Relations” → 3/5

- “Morning Announcements at the Lucas Interspecies School for Troubled Youth” → 3/5

- “Your Smart Appliances Talk About You Behind Your Back “  → 5/5

- “The AI are Absolutely Positively Without a Doubt Not Here to End Humanity, Honest” → 4/5

- “Important Holidays on Gronghu” → 3/5

- “Cute Adorable Extortionists” → 2/5

- “Penelope” → 3/5

Final score: 3.05