Cover art for the “Error Code” anthology

Yesterday, I finished reading the small anthology Error Code: 22 Tales of Robots and AI by Eric Fomley and Addison Smith.

It was produced by Shacklebound Books which I gather is a small, indie publisher. They’ve got quite a collection of anthologies listed on Amazon.

Each story is quite short and the book is a quick read (130 pages in print, though it’s available only on Kindle as far as I can tell).

Like many such anthologies, the stories fall into three categories:

1. Really good.
2. Okay and/or predictable.
3. “What the heck did I just read?”

That said, I love writing these very short fictions and reading them gives my brain a break from much longer tomes. It’s also good to see how a complete story can be told in a very few words.

The themes ran the spectrum from comedy to horror. The very last story, “Hollow Hearts,” while predictable, tugged on my heart strings, proving that it’s universal to appreciate someone only after they’re gone.

Many of the stories are told from the robot’s/AI’s point of view, and therein lies a problem. It’s pretty much impossible for a human being to truly imagine what an artificial consciousness might thing or, dare I say it, feel. Also, if you want the robots to be relatable, they have to more or less seem human.

But what would it be like for a machine to consider people and the world (or worlds) without all of the messiness of being a biological, thinking, emoting person?

I’d recommend “Error Code” for a quick bit of fun and some stories that spark the larger questions that hang between biological and virtual life.