Sunday, September 20, 2015

Proximity, by Alex Livingston

Apex Magazine, June 2015;  4,200 words
Rating: 3, Good, ordinary, story

Tispy and her crew make a living illegally collecting "metadata" from important people they randomly walk by. Then they get a tip about a big party to target.

Mini-Review (click to view--possible spoilers)

Relationship networks matter a lot, even today. Just from someone's LinkedIn network you can get a rough guess at how important he/she is in a given area. Tipsy and her crew seem a lot like souped-up paparazzi. It's a very nice touch that Tipsy likes the shy girl and her art enough to transform her into a first-rank person as part of making her getaway.

One negative is that it's never clear what they're collecting that anyone would actually pay to know about. They're not taking pictures, like paparazzi do. Are they just collecting location information?

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