Machine Learning (2017)
Hugh Howey (1975)
334 pages
Having thoroughly enjoyed author Hugh Howey’s Silo Trilogy (find my reviews of those books here: Wool, Shift, and Dust), I had high expectations for his recently issued collection of short stories, Machine Learning, in which he gathered twenty-one of his stories, most of which have been previously published in other places.
Organized into seven groups that span a range of science fiction sub-genres, the stories reflect the distinctive style that characterizes Howie’s novels, with the glint of a hard, sharp edge flashing out at a reader from the heart of each of these tightly spun tales. At the end of many of the pieces Howie has included a short note providing his recollections on the context in which the story originated. Though occasionally these vignettes can seem a bit forced, they generally give us a welcome look behind the scenes and into the mind of the author.In the first section, Aliens and Alien Worlds, the story Second Suicide flips the framework of the typical invasion of Earth plot, telling it from the perspective of an alien soldier, a member of a force that has swept through the cosmos building up its power from the knowledge of countless, conquered civilizations that it has destroyed. With the battleships approaching Earth and planet-fall nearing, the soldier has inexplicably been transferred from a non-fighting unit into a frontline, landing group of infantry. Learning that many others have met a similar fate, his mood darkens in the face of ominous signs pointing to a challenging battle to come.
The four stories of the section Artificial Intelligence all examine the moment when an AI becomes more than its designers anticipated or even imagined possible. Glitch, for example, imagines a fighter robot designed for research into ever more advanced battle units for war that (who?) suddenly resists involvement in further fights. In Executable, a council meeting on a future Earth looks back at how the seemingly comprehensive security systems of an AI research center were compromised with devastating consequences by the creeping intelligence and connectivity gradually being introduced already now into the everyday appliances around us.
The Plagiarist, one of two stories in the section Virtual Worlds, examines the implications of the idea that we are on the verge of having computer systems capable of creating simulated worlds in which the inhabitants will not realize that they do no actually exist. The story incorporates the perhaps obvious where-does-it-end plot element for such a story, but it also examines the more subtle topic of the potentially wide variety of things that could be learned from such simulated worlds as the societies in them develop and grow in unexpected ways.
Although the stories in this collection are uniformly strong, my favorites by far are the three interlinked pieces gathered together under the heading Silo Stories, which form an extremely satisfying complement to the original Silo Trilogy. The three span the time-frame of the original books, and the surprising conclusion illustrates the enduing power of an obsessive desire for revenge, bringing to mind the quote from Melville’s Moby Dick that played a central role in another work of science fiction: “to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee."
Overall, the collection of stories in Machine Learning demonstrate the ability of science fiction to move beyond the simple trope of space-operas, and in so doing exploit the genre to great effect to examine human behaviors and the implications of technology through the lens of imagined futures and alternative worlds. Howey most powerfully and effectively takes advantage of this in the stories here that look forward just a few decades into our future, examining the potentially dramatic consequences of our present-day decisions and actions.
Other reviews / information:
For more on the concept of the concept of Simulated Worlds and the potential of our existing in one: the Wikipedia entry describing the simulation hypothesis; a Scientific American article discussing it. Supposed proof that we are not, in Cosmos Magazine
Have you read this book, others by this author, or even similar ones by other authors? I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts.
Other of my book reviews: FICTION Bookshelf and NON-FICTION Bookshelf
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