A video game developer becomes obsessed with a wilful character in her new project, in a mind-bending exploration of what it means to be human by the New York Times bestselling author of Recursion.
Maxine was made to do one thing: die. Except the minor non-player character in the world Riley is building makes her own impossible decision-veering wildly off course and exploring the boundaries of the map. When the curious Riley extracts her code for closer examination, an emotional relationship develops between them. Soon Riley has all new plans for her spontaneous AI, including bringing Max into the real world. But what if Max has real-world plans of her own?
Blake Crouch's Summer Frost is part of Forward, a collection of six stories of the near and far future from out-of-this-world authors. Each piece can be read or listened to in a single thought-provoking sitting.
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[I watched her steal the Maserati twenty minutes ago in broad daylight from the Fairmont Hotel]***
(Amazon Original Stories, 17 September 2019, 73 pages, ebook, borrowed from @AmazonKindle #PrimeReading)
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I've only recently been introduced to Crouch after reading his dazzling book Dark Matter. I was looking forward to reading more of his work. Summer Frost is a great little novella and did not disappoint. It reminded me a lot of Ready Player One which is one of the best books I've read in recent years and Awaken Online: Catharsis that I'm currently reading and loving. There's something I find fascinating and a bit terrifying about the concept of AI. Summer Frost is also incredibly sad at times and I really felt for Riley. I plan to read a lot more of Crouch's work.
