Wednesday, March 8, 2017

Driverless, by Robert Grossbach

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(Near-future SF) Everyone knows Jacob’s driverless-car company destroyed the world economy, but he wants to tell his side of the story. (9,244 words; Time: 30m)

Rating: ★★★☆☆ Average

"Driverless," by (edited by C.C. Finlay), appeared in issue 03-04|17, published on by .

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

Pro: The treatment of AI in this story is excellent. The author clearly did his homework. Narration and dialogue are both good, with a minimum of infodumps.

Con: It flubs the ending. The last several paragraphs of narration (past the real end of the story) detract from the work.

The wife doesn’t contribute anything to the story, but a lot of text is spent on her anyway.

The scene where Homeland Security picks up the CEO is impossible to believe. How did he know the whole thing wasn’t a scam put on by kidnappers?

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1 comment (may contain spoilers):

  1. Agree that it should have ended with the cars driving into the ocean. I thought the scene with the wife added context. Showing that he'd lost her because of his workaholic competitiveness and likewise driven (ha!) his cars to this. As for Homeland Security, why would they even be involved? The cars weren't busting through ports of entry from Canada.

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