Tell the Machine Goodnight

A contemporary science fiction centred around the premise "It's 2035, and for the last nine years Pearl has worked as a technician for the Apricity Corporation, a San Francisco company that's devised a machine that, using skin cells collected from the inside of a subject’s cheek, provides “contentment plans” for those seeking happiness. (The firm’s name means the feeling of warmth on one’s skin from the sun.) The machine’s prescriptions veer sharply from the benign to the bewildering, telling one of Pearl’s clients to “eat tangerines on a regular basis,” “work at a desk that receive[s] more morning light,” and “amputate the uppermost section of his right index finger.” “The recommendations can seem strange at first…but we must keep in mind the Apricity machine uses a sophisticated metric, taking into account factors of which we’re not consciously aware,” Pearl reassures the client contemplating going under the knife, in a speech she has memorized from the company manual. “The proof is borne out in the numbers. The Apricity system boasts a nearly one hundred percent approval rating. Ninety-nine point nine seven percent.” Never mind the .03 percent the company considers “aberrations.”

But this does the story a disservice as the focus is the characters, throughout the story we see the next narrative development through a different character, sometimes returning to them in later chapters and their significant developmental steps. Her husband, Elliot, an artist, has left her for a younger, pink-haired woman, Val, who has her own secrets—yet Elliot persists in his feelings with Pearl. (ugh Elliot, my least favourite character we all have known and Elliot) Her teenage son, Rhett, has stopped eating, perversely finding contentment in dissatisfaction and self-denial. We others who all undergo significant self-awareness and growth, except maybe Elliot who remains essential Elliot (sigh).

I am interested to read others reactions to the conclusion which I found abrupt but satisfying, others it seems not so much.

I'm going to read this story as a metaphor for why the Large Language Models like Chatgpt, Copilot, Grok and others not a solution (mainly because they aren't)

Neutral 2.5 rounded up.

There are a couple of chapters which were pretty engaging but overall I didn't really care about anything that was going on and the characters all seemed pretty flat. Major “I don't really want to live but I don't want to die” vibes but not in a very relatable way.

It started well but somehow the brightness was lost on the way and I struggled to finish despite the great idea for sci fi that had been the appeal.

I liked the premise of the book and the stories within it, but I felt like it was a meandering road with no real destination. There wasn't a well defined plot, and it read more like a thought experiment about a possible reality than a novel.

30% novel 80% linked short stories? It does really have the plot arc you might expect from a novel. I liked how many different perspectives were used but by the end I'm left wondering how things fit together. (Yeah it didn't help I let this one lie for a month while I worked on some other books but still... What happened next???)

Interesting, but was disappointed at the end. Why I was disappointed I can't quite put my finger on. It is worth reading if you can get your hands on it.