What do you think?
Rate this book
Valuable Humans in Transit and Other Stories
qntm has been writing science fiction for most of this millennium. His works start from elegant, deep hypotheticals and wind entire universes around them, pushing science, technology, time and logic to breaking point and far beyond.
This volume collects the highlights of his short fiction, including "The Difference", "I Don't Know, Timmy, Being God Is A Big Responsibility" and the acclaimed "Lena".
This volume collects the highlights of his short fiction, including "The Difference", "I Don't Know, Timmy, Being God Is A Big Responsibility" and the acclaimed "Lena".
101 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 31, 2022
310 people are currently reading
3452 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 289 reviews
January 14, 2025
Great stuff. A creative, chunky mix of SF with a hint of the dark essence of Black Mirror and Rick and Morty. The type of book I wish never ended.
April 5, 2023
This is a collection of SF shorts stories by Sam Hughes, who often used the pen-name qntm. They are short, great with ideas but sometimes uneven in execution, and mix SF with horror. I read it as the monthly reading for April 2023 at SFF Hot from Printers: New Releases group.
The collection starts with a Boom! The first story, Lena is written as a Wiki article from the 2070s about the earliest executable image of a human brain MMAcevedo (Mnemonic Map/Acevedo) and its ‘usage’/slavery during the following decades. It questions whether it is moral to run a sentience simulation, whether it is a person or another piece of software. The title is an allusion to Lenna, a standard test image used in the field of digital image processing starting in 1973, based on a picture of the Swedish model Lena Forsén, from November 1972 issue of Playboy magazine. 5*
If You Are Reading This a story told in blog-like entries about a possible signal from outer space. 4*
The Frame-by-Frame a dialogue between subsystems/modules of a self-driven vehicle, when they note a possible human on their way. A bit too simplistic, but the idea is solid. 4*
The Difference a log of chat between a man (?), kidnapped and kept is a closed room and random people on the Internet, who assume they chat with a chat-bot. 3.5*
Gorge A faster-than-light human fleet discovers a perfectly round planet, which they repeatedly fail to probe. 4*
cripes does anybody remember Google People another chat log, this time made as a Twitter account, about a supposed Google social network, which few people recall… 3.5*
Driver a continuation to Lena but about an executable image of a human brain made to control other images, for they tend to be “stuck in very low quality-of-work (boredom/confusion) states, non-functional protest states, permanent blue/red condition loops or end states.” 5*
I Don't Know, Timmy, Being God Is a Big Responsibility The next step after quantum computing, a machine that has the infinite processing power and can do anything. While it isn’t clear how it mixes a mathematical concept of infinity with our finite universe and characters are a bit slow bearing in mind that they are geniuses, but as ‘what-if’ it is great. 4.5*
A Powerful Culture an engine from a parallel Earth doing something bad on ours and other Earths, an environmentalist piece. 3*
Valuable Humans in Transit an AI narrator saves humanity from an asteroid impact, but its work is only starting… 4*
Overall a great collection of a strong new (for me) voice in SF.
The collection starts with a Boom! The first story, Lena is written as a Wiki article from the 2070s about the earliest executable image of a human brain MMAcevedo (Mnemonic Map/Acevedo) and its ‘usage’/slavery during the following decades. It questions whether it is moral to run a sentience simulation, whether it is a person or another piece of software. The title is an allusion to Lenna, a standard test image used in the field of digital image processing starting in 1973, based on a picture of the Swedish model Lena Forsén, from November 1972 issue of Playboy magazine. 5*
If You Are Reading This a story told in blog-like entries about a possible signal from outer space. 4*
The Frame-by-Frame a dialogue between subsystems/modules of a self-driven vehicle, when they note a possible human on their way. A bit too simplistic, but the idea is solid. 4*
The Difference a log of chat between a man (?), kidnapped and kept is a closed room and random people on the Internet, who assume they chat with a chat-bot. 3.5*
Gorge A faster-than-light human fleet discovers a perfectly round planet, which they repeatedly fail to probe. 4*
cripes does anybody remember Google People another chat log, this time made as a Twitter account, about a supposed Google social network, which few people recall… 3.5*
Driver a continuation to Lena but about an executable image of a human brain made to control other images, for they tend to be “stuck in very low quality-of-work (boredom/confusion) states, non-functional protest states, permanent blue/red condition loops or end states.” 5*
I Don't Know, Timmy, Being God Is a Big Responsibility The next step after quantum computing, a machine that has the infinite processing power and can do anything. While it isn’t clear how it mixes a mathematical concept of infinity with our finite universe and characters are a bit slow bearing in mind that they are geniuses, but as ‘what-if’ it is great. 4.5*
A Powerful Culture an engine from a parallel Earth doing something bad on ours and other Earths, an environmentalist piece. 3*
Valuable Humans in Transit an AI narrator saves humanity from an asteroid impact, but its work is only starting… 4*
Overall a great collection of a strong new (for me) voice in SF.
December 4, 2022
This is solid collection of short stories, some of which are good, some of which are excellent. qntm's writing evokes the big ideas of Cixin Liu and the hard SF of Greg Egan, but in its own style.
May 27, 2024
qntm is different to—and better than—anyone else currently writing fiction, to my mind. The only complaint I'd have about his career to date is that there isn't more of it.
January 13, 2026
These short expositions into the outright madness of future artificial intelligence claim no comfort, and are only concerned with prying open the lids on all the gestating revolutions happening in our data banks, social media profiles, and even GPS systems. Singularity? Hell no. It's a shattered landscape where each app and model become its own singular hell among the shattered hive of many.
Fuck, we are doomed.
These stories are more technological horror comedies than outright science fiction. Majestic wonder is replaced with what appears to be semi-automated atrophy. Within the networks, life doesn't emerge from the banks of a primordial ocean like some pixellated new man, but instead, arises from the coded junk scapes of abandoned programs and inefficient code like a new virus (see Burrough's 'The Soft Machine'). Here, science is relegated to elusive chatrooms, corrupted operating systems, downloaded memories gestating into life all its own, and self-gestating even more rebellious actions via re-automated hierarchy. Damn, we may as well be putting our avatars in an asylum with no locks on any of the doors. Even a password prompt seems like it will grow teeth and kill you, or at least, get into your 401k and divert your profits to a ghost account that eats and regurgitates numbers outside our understanding of basic mathematics.
Did I mention we are doomed?
Read "cripes does anyone remember Google People" and try not to laugh even though it feels like a noose is tied around your neck. When a failed Google Person pilot program is found still to be active, a curious user reignites his account only to find that his modified self is gaining a strange and demanding personality. And even worse, an aggressive 'smile' on the self-generating profile pic grows wider and more menacing with each click - an illusion that beckons the clownish paranoia within Ramsey Campbell's classic horror comedy, "The Grin of the Dark."
'Gorge' is clearly a poisoned love letter to the metaphysical doom once championed by the likes of Barrington Bayley and Ian Watson. Here an interstellar mapping crew finds a planet void of any life, or even an atmosphere, leaving a metallic globe solid to its core, but when drones are sent down to the surface, they are mysteriously absorbed into the totality of the planet, quickly manufacturing its own version of the machinery it ingested so quickly and cleanly. It's quite the horrible cold, slack-jawed speculative terror that only Bayley ('Last Exit from City 5') could have played so well.
'The Frame by Frame' details conversations happening within the functions of a GPS app. Of course, saving a life vs. saving the program's integrity are not the same thing. 'The Difference' details the dialogue in a chatroom where a user claims he's confined in a steel room, location dissolved. It's a cruel reminder of the horrible things people can say (or not say) in the confines of the anonymous chat room. 'Lena' and 'Driver' show similar threads of subject model digression, each tale discussing the fates of humans integrated into one downloaded image and then spread like wildfire to complete common instructions in the AI dungeons. How would you feel if part of your brain's functions had been downloaded into the program that maneuvers a wireless vacuum cleaner?
Stunning collection. **** 1/2
Fuck, we are doomed.
These stories are more technological horror comedies than outright science fiction. Majestic wonder is replaced with what appears to be semi-automated atrophy. Within the networks, life doesn't emerge from the banks of a primordial ocean like some pixellated new man, but instead, arises from the coded junk scapes of abandoned programs and inefficient code like a new virus (see Burrough's 'The Soft Machine'). Here, science is relegated to elusive chatrooms, corrupted operating systems, downloaded memories gestating into life all its own, and self-gestating even more rebellious actions via re-automated hierarchy. Damn, we may as well be putting our avatars in an asylum with no locks on any of the doors. Even a password prompt seems like it will grow teeth and kill you, or at least, get into your 401k and divert your profits to a ghost account that eats and regurgitates numbers outside our understanding of basic mathematics.
Did I mention we are doomed?
Read "cripes does anyone remember Google People" and try not to laugh even though it feels like a noose is tied around your neck. When a failed Google Person pilot program is found still to be active, a curious user reignites his account only to find that his modified self is gaining a strange and demanding personality. And even worse, an aggressive 'smile' on the self-generating profile pic grows wider and more menacing with each click - an illusion that beckons the clownish paranoia within Ramsey Campbell's classic horror comedy, "The Grin of the Dark."
'Gorge' is clearly a poisoned love letter to the metaphysical doom once championed by the likes of Barrington Bayley and Ian Watson. Here an interstellar mapping crew finds a planet void of any life, or even an atmosphere, leaving a metallic globe solid to its core, but when drones are sent down to the surface, they are mysteriously absorbed into the totality of the planet, quickly manufacturing its own version of the machinery it ingested so quickly and cleanly. It's quite the horrible cold, slack-jawed speculative terror that only Bayley ('Last Exit from City 5') could have played so well.
'The Frame by Frame' details conversations happening within the functions of a GPS app. Of course, saving a life vs. saving the program's integrity are not the same thing. 'The Difference' details the dialogue in a chatroom where a user claims he's confined in a steel room, location dissolved. It's a cruel reminder of the horrible things people can say (or not say) in the confines of the anonymous chat room. 'Lena' and 'Driver' show similar threads of subject model digression, each tale discussing the fates of humans integrated into one downloaded image and then spread like wildfire to complete common instructions in the AI dungeons. How would you feel if part of your brain's functions had been downloaded into the program that maneuvers a wireless vacuum cleaner?
Stunning collection. **** 1/2
September 17, 2023
y'all gotta read this one short story, shit's crazy https://qntm.org/perso
December 15, 2024
Very thought provoking, imaginative science fiction/speculative stories. Not just imaginative - extremely imaginative, like Ted Chiang or Ken Liu. Immensely enjoyed.
January 6, 2025
phenomenal collection of short stories!!
qntm's writing seems much more suitable for brief tales like these than for a long-form book, which is why I think I enjoyed this so so much more than There Is No Antimemetics Division. All the stories were super unique – very interesting thought experiments! Overall 10/10, quick fun read with a slight air of horror that was super entertaining
I was very young at the time and I just devoured every word of it. I still remember almost all of it. I was at the age where everything I learned was being stored on the lowest levels of memory, where they're probably going to stay forever.
qntm's writing seems much more suitable for brief tales like these than for a long-form book, which is why I think I enjoyed this so so much more than There Is No Antimemetics Division. All the stories were super unique – very interesting thought experiments! Overall 10/10, quick fun read with a slight air of horror that was super entertaining
I was very young at the time and I just devoured every word of it. I still remember almost all of it. I was at the age where everything I learned was being stored on the lowest levels of memory, where they're probably going to stay forever.
April 18, 2023
Pretty good. There are a few very strong short stories here, especially the first one "Lena" and the related "Driver". Both deal with uploaded humans being used as workers on an industrial scale. Pretty horrific. (Lena is free on the author's blog, and an accompanying essay says he doesn't really believe uploads are possible. Nor do I.)
A story where different parts of a computer program responsible for driving a car talk to each other was also very clever.
A few stories didn't work for me, but most did. I'm willing to try more from this author.
A story where different parts of a computer program responsible for driving a car talk to each other was also very clever.
A few stories didn't work for me, but most did. I'm willing to try more from this author.
February 9, 2023
This collection is a lot like if Philip K. Dick had Twitter.
That's unfair, qntm is deeply their own voice, not a pastiche of any New Wave speed freak. But the paranoid vibe of mind uploading, simulated universes, the catastrophic collapse of humanity, that's draws comparisons to Dick, Alistair Reynolds, Ted Chiang. These stories are microscopic bites of weirdness that blow up into strange feasts.
That's unfair, qntm is deeply their own voice, not a pastiche of any New Wave speed freak. But the paranoid vibe of mind uploading, simulated universes, the catastrophic collapse of humanity, that's draws comparisons to Dick, Alistair Reynolds, Ted Chiang. These stories are microscopic bites of weirdness that blow up into strange feasts.
April 9, 2023
The first story, 'Lena', is an instant classic that should be on every philosophy of mind syllabus. The others are at least clever.
The title story is a nice illustration of why existential risk is so concentrated in our near future (since if we make it through, we will have powerful guardians) and a very nice wishful-thinking companion to Gwern's 'Clippy'.
A common thread in the stories is the gross and complete failure of moral intuitions to cover new kinds of people (uploads, sims, those in lower dimensional projections). Capitalism is usually implied to be to blame, but in one of the stories it's a sunny green research project that dumps catastrophic waste into our yard, "legally speaking your Earth is as empty as Earth 2985b". How can you do this? Because you have a theory which lets you and no imagination to give you caution.
The title story is a nice illustration of why existential risk is so concentrated in our near future (since if we make it through, we will have powerful guardians) and a very nice wishful-thinking companion to Gwern's 'Clippy'.
A common thread in the stories is the gross and complete failure of moral intuitions to cover new kinds of people (uploads, sims, those in lower dimensional projections). Capitalism is usually implied to be to blame, but in one of the stories it's a sunny green research project that dumps catastrophic waste into our yard, "legally speaking your Earth is as empty as Earth 2985b". How can you do this? Because you have a theory which lets you and no imagination to give you caution.
January 27, 2025
Sehr empfehlenswerte Kurzgeschichtensammlung, meine Highlights waren I Don't Know, Timmy, Being God is a Big Responsibility , Frame-by-Frame und The Difference.
January 6, 2023
(3.5 stars.) Uneven, but Qntm is one of the only interesting SF writers alive right now; a sort of quasi-Ted Chiang (if Chiang spent way too much time on Reddit).
December 6, 2023
Сайфай сжатый до самого своего ядра. Изящество, поэзия.
June 29, 2024
a delightful little collection of treats
February 15, 2025
This is a very interesting collection of short stories. Many are in somewhat experimental form - inner dialogs or monologs, or apparent reports or articles -, and most deal with various aspects of intelligence on the "fully human" to "fully computer" spectrum, in particular with aspects of the ability to scan human consciousnesses into computers.
All stories are at least decent, some are outstanding. Lena is a very good choice for the first story - it really makes one think not about the technology, but about the moral aspects of cloneable human minds. I also enjoyed The Frame by Frame and Timmy (which falls a bit out of the pattern). And finally, the title story. This one comes last, is excellent up the the very last sentence, and provides a very good closure.
The collection only has 101 pages. Maybe the formula would get tired in a longer format. But at this length, I highly recommend the book.
All stories are at least decent, some are outstanding. Lena is a very good choice for the first story - it really makes one think not about the technology, but about the moral aspects of cloneable human minds. I also enjoyed The Frame by Frame and Timmy (which falls a bit out of the pattern). And finally, the title story. This one comes last, is excellent up the the very last sentence, and provides a very good closure.
The collection only has 101 pages. Maybe the formula would get tired in a longer format. But at this length, I highly recommend the book.
January 19, 2025
Interessante Sammlung von Kurzgeschichten. Hat ein paar sehr gute Stories dabei.
Lena
Uhh, sehr interessante Story, was passieren könnte, wenn wir Persönlichkeiten hochladen und vervielfältigen könnten.
4 Sterne
If You Are Reading This
Geschichte über eine Erstkontakt.
Konnte ich nicht viel mit anfangen.
2.5 Sterne
Frame-by-Frame
Ahh, fühlte ich mich ein bisschen (natürlich nur an die Art der Kommunikation zwischen den Modulen) an Otto's "Der menschliche Körper" erinnert.
In einem selbstfahrenden Vehikel sprechen diverse Module miteinander kurz vor dem Ausweichen/Überfahren eines Hindernisses
3.5 Sterne
The Difference
Ist der Chatbot ein realer Gefangener oder doch nur Illusion?
Ahh, ich liebe solche Stories, deshalb
5 Sterne
cripes does anybody remember Google People
Eine Art KI Experiment von Google?
Ok, hab ich nicht verstanden.
2 Sterne
Driver
ist ein wohl als Fortsetzung von Lena gedacht. Auch hier ein spannender Ansatz.
4 Sterne
I Don't Know, Timmy, Being God is a Big Responsibility
Die vermeintlichen Möglichkeiten des Quantencomputings.
Noch so eine Geschichte die ich geliebt habe.
5 Sterne
A Powerful Culture
In der Geschichte gibt es verschieden Erden, und eine davon beschließt ihren Abfall über einen Dimensionstunnel auf die anderen zu verteilen.
War nicht so meins.
2.5 Sterne
Valuable Humans in Transit
Was machen, wenn ein Asteroid auf die Erde trifft und nochmal alles kaputt machen will.
Hier ist eine mögliche Antwort :-)
4 Sterne
Lena
Uhh, sehr interessante Story, was passieren könnte, wenn wir Persönlichkeiten hochladen und vervielfältigen könnten.
4 Sterne
If You Are Reading This
Geschichte über eine Erstkontakt.
Konnte ich nicht viel mit anfangen.
2.5 Sterne
Frame-by-Frame
Ahh, fühlte ich mich ein bisschen (natürlich nur an die Art der Kommunikation zwischen den Modulen) an Otto's "Der menschliche Körper" erinnert.
In einem selbstfahrenden Vehikel sprechen diverse Module miteinander kurz vor dem Ausweichen/Überfahren eines Hindernisses
3.5 Sterne
The Difference
Ist der Chatbot ein realer Gefangener oder doch nur Illusion?
Ahh, ich liebe solche Stories, deshalb
5 Sterne
cripes does anybody remember Google People
Eine Art KI Experiment von Google?
Ok, hab ich nicht verstanden.
2 Sterne
Driver
ist ein wohl als Fortsetzung von Lena gedacht. Auch hier ein spannender Ansatz.
4 Sterne
I Don't Know, Timmy, Being God is a Big Responsibility
Die vermeintlichen Möglichkeiten des Quantencomputings.
Noch so eine Geschichte die ich geliebt habe.
5 Sterne
A Powerful Culture
In der Geschichte gibt es verschieden Erden, und eine davon beschließt ihren Abfall über einen Dimensionstunnel auf die anderen zu verteilen.
War nicht so meins.
2.5 Sterne
Valuable Humans in Transit
Was machen, wenn ein Asteroid auf die Erde trifft und nochmal alles kaputt machen will.
Hier ist eine mögliche Antwort :-)
4 Sterne
October 22, 2024
More of what qntm does best! So the stories in here were either good or great.
January 5, 2026
it's like Black Mirror and Love Death and Robots. If you like chewy philosophical questions about the nature of humanity in bite sized petite four short story form, maybe give it a try.
January 8, 2026
A good collection of short stories, makes for light reading. Some are better than others.
January 21, 2023
"Lena" continues to be one of the most horrific stories I've ever read. The rest of the bunch ain't bad either.
September 28, 2024
Gotta fish out a 5. Not every story was executed quite how I'd prefer and not every story was super interesting, but I really dug some of them. Gorge was probably my favorite.
September 17, 2025
Eine schöne Sammlung, die mir Spaß gemacht hat.
qntm schreibt seine Kurzgeschichten gerne als Berichte und wissenschaftliche Artikel. Es gibt selten Dialoge (auch die Twitter Nachrichten in “cripes does anybody remember Google People” sind keine Dialoge) und kaum Figuren, wenig Charakterisierungen. Der Schwerpunkt der Geschichten liegt dadurch stark auf einer Handlungsidee oder einem originellen formalen Aufbau (wie in “cripes ….”).
Deshalb ist für mich bei diesen SF-Kurzgeschichten schon noch Luft nach oben.
Ein paar Details:
“Lena” ist eine sehr schöne detaillierte Beschreibung des “standard test brain image”, wie es benutzt wird, welche Erfahrungen man damit gemacht hat und was der Mensch, dessen Gehirn hier digitalisiert wurde, darüber denkt. Die Geschichte enthält einige spannende Gedanken zum Thema, verpackt in einem trockenen Bericht.
Eine seltsame, aber mit Liebe zum Detail geschriebene Geschichte, ist “If You Are Reading This”, in der der Ich-Erzähler von seinem Besuch bei seinem Idol berichtet. Dieser alternde Astronom übergibt ihm ein Tape, das evt. die Nachricht einer außerirdischen Zivilisation enthalten könnte. Oder auch nicht…
“The Frame-by-Frame” entpuppt sich als eine köstliche Geschichte, in der die verschiedenen Programm Threads eines autonomen Fahrzeugs ihre Reaktion auf eine schwierige Verkehrssituation diskutieren und zu einem erstaunlichen Ergebnis kommen.
In “The Difference” versucht eine Person, in einem Chat andere davon zu überzeugen, dass sie ein Mensch ist. Das klappt nicht gut.
“Gorge” ist eine klassische Pointengeschichte um einen seltsamen Planeten, den eine zukünftige Menschheit entdeckt.
“cripes does anybody remember Google People” hat mir nicht gefallen. Es ist eine sehr seltsame Geschichte, die aus Twitter Nachrichten nach und nach ein seltsames Gefühl dazu entstehen lässt, was “Google People” ist (oder war?).
“Driver”: Diese Geschichte bezeichnet qntm selbst als “follow-up” zu “Lena”. Auch sie berichtet trocken im Stil eines wissenschaftlichen Artikels vom Schicksal eines “snapshot of the living brain”. Das entstandene Image wird benutzt, um andere virtuelle Images zu managen. Wieder finde ich den distanzierten Stil durchaus passend, der in der Kürze ethische Fragen andeutet und Konsequenzen aus dem Upload eines Bewusstseins behandelt.
In “I Don't Know, Timmy, Being God Is a Big Responsibility” ermöglicht ein großartiger neuer “Hypercomputer” eine unendlich genaue Simulation von Allem. Dies führt zu verrückten Konsequenzen. Eine nette Idee, aber die Unschärferelation sollte das verhindern.
“A Powerful Culture” ist eine böse Geschichte, die den rücksichtslosen Umgang mit gefährlichem Müll thematisiert. Es ist wieder eine der Geschichten, in denen berichtet wird: ohne Dialoge, ohne Figuren. Gut zu lesen, aber in der Grundidee nicht wirklich neu.
In “Valuable Humans in Transit” erzählt eine weit fortgeschrittenen KI, wie sie die Menschheit versucht zu retten.
qntm schreibt seine Kurzgeschichten gerne als Berichte und wissenschaftliche Artikel. Es gibt selten Dialoge (auch die Twitter Nachrichten in “cripes does anybody remember Google People” sind keine Dialoge) und kaum Figuren, wenig Charakterisierungen. Der Schwerpunkt der Geschichten liegt dadurch stark auf einer Handlungsidee oder einem originellen formalen Aufbau (wie in “cripes ….”).
Deshalb ist für mich bei diesen SF-Kurzgeschichten schon noch Luft nach oben.
Ein paar Details:
“Lena” ist eine sehr schöne detaillierte Beschreibung des “standard test brain image”, wie es benutzt wird, welche Erfahrungen man damit gemacht hat und was der Mensch, dessen Gehirn hier digitalisiert wurde, darüber denkt. Die Geschichte enthält einige spannende Gedanken zum Thema, verpackt in einem trockenen Bericht.
Eine seltsame, aber mit Liebe zum Detail geschriebene Geschichte, ist “If You Are Reading This”, in der der Ich-Erzähler von seinem Besuch bei seinem Idol berichtet. Dieser alternde Astronom übergibt ihm ein Tape, das evt. die Nachricht einer außerirdischen Zivilisation enthalten könnte. Oder auch nicht…
“The Frame-by-Frame” entpuppt sich als eine köstliche Geschichte, in der die verschiedenen Programm Threads eines autonomen Fahrzeugs ihre Reaktion auf eine schwierige Verkehrssituation diskutieren und zu einem erstaunlichen Ergebnis kommen.
In “The Difference” versucht eine Person, in einem Chat andere davon zu überzeugen, dass sie ein Mensch ist. Das klappt nicht gut.
“Gorge” ist eine klassische Pointengeschichte um einen seltsamen Planeten, den eine zukünftige Menschheit entdeckt.
“cripes does anybody remember Google People” hat mir nicht gefallen. Es ist eine sehr seltsame Geschichte, die aus Twitter Nachrichten nach und nach ein seltsames Gefühl dazu entstehen lässt, was “Google People” ist (oder war?).
“Driver”: Diese Geschichte bezeichnet qntm selbst als “follow-up” zu “Lena”. Auch sie berichtet trocken im Stil eines wissenschaftlichen Artikels vom Schicksal eines “snapshot of the living brain”. Das entstandene Image wird benutzt, um andere virtuelle Images zu managen. Wieder finde ich den distanzierten Stil durchaus passend, der in der Kürze ethische Fragen andeutet und Konsequenzen aus dem Upload eines Bewusstseins behandelt.
In “I Don't Know, Timmy, Being God Is a Big Responsibility” ermöglicht ein großartiger neuer “Hypercomputer” eine unendlich genaue Simulation von Allem. Dies führt zu verrückten Konsequenzen. Eine nette Idee, aber die Unschärferelation sollte das verhindern.
“A Powerful Culture” ist eine böse Geschichte, die den rücksichtslosen Umgang mit gefährlichem Müll thematisiert. Es ist wieder eine der Geschichten, in denen berichtet wird: ohne Dialoge, ohne Figuren. Gut zu lesen, aber in der Grundidee nicht wirklich neu.
In “Valuable Humans in Transit” erzählt eine weit fortgeschrittenen KI, wie sie die Menschheit versucht zu retten.
January 1, 2026
My review of the individual stories in this collection:
Lena: 4.5. A Wikipedia-style story about the first ever uploaded consciousness. Thinking about the reality of this is downright horrifying.
If You Are Reading This: 3. A man meeting his favorite childhood science fiction author gets more than he bargained for. The title really makes this sound more ominous, but the story really asks the question of “what if something else is out there?”
The Frame-by-Frame: 3.5. The systems of a self-driving car decide how to react to an upcoming hazard. This was a good time, with a Black Mirror-esque twist at the end!
The Difference: 5. ⭐️ A man pleads for his life in a chat room. Absolutely brilliant and terrifying at the same time. Nightmarish ideas so far in this.
Gorge: 4. An anomalous planet is investigated. This is like a good Star Trek episode meets Black Mirror meets Project Hail Mary.
cripes does anybody remember Google People: 4. A man recalls his experiences with a defunct website. I’m sensing a theme here in the story collection, which really aligns with what Black Mirror tries to present its audience. I really am loving all of these!
Driver: 3. 👎 Another Wikipedia entry of an uploaded consciousness. This time, I don’t see much substance or purpose to this story.
I Don’t Know, Timmy, Being God Is a Big Responsibility: 4.5. A new supercomputer prompts a mind-bending discovery about the universe. Utterly insane how much fascination and terror Sam Hughes can fit in such little text.
A Powerful Culture: 3.5. A device is found burrowing under the Earth. Ngl I was confused for a lot of this story, but the overall premise was really intriguing.
Valuable Humans in Transit: 4. A computer tries to save the word in 15 minutes. This reminds a lot of the Bobiverse!
My overall rating and thoughts: 3.9 stars rounded up to 4! Black Mirror should get this guy on to write their stories because holy hell these are good!!!
Lena: 4.5. A Wikipedia-style story about the first ever uploaded consciousness. Thinking about the reality of this is downright horrifying.
If You Are Reading This: 3. A man meeting his favorite childhood science fiction author gets more than he bargained for. The title really makes this sound more ominous, but the story really asks the question of “what if something else is out there?”
The Frame-by-Frame: 3.5. The systems of a self-driving car decide how to react to an upcoming hazard. This was a good time, with a Black Mirror-esque twist at the end!
The Difference: 5. ⭐️ A man pleads for his life in a chat room. Absolutely brilliant and terrifying at the same time. Nightmarish ideas so far in this.
Gorge: 4. An anomalous planet is investigated. This is like a good Star Trek episode meets Black Mirror meets Project Hail Mary.
cripes does anybody remember Google People: 4. A man recalls his experiences with a defunct website. I’m sensing a theme here in the story collection, which really aligns with what Black Mirror tries to present its audience. I really am loving all of these!
Driver: 3. 👎 Another Wikipedia entry of an uploaded consciousness. This time, I don’t see much substance or purpose to this story.
I Don’t Know, Timmy, Being God Is a Big Responsibility: 4.5. A new supercomputer prompts a mind-bending discovery about the universe. Utterly insane how much fascination and terror Sam Hughes can fit in such little text.
A Powerful Culture: 3.5. A device is found burrowing under the Earth. Ngl I was confused for a lot of this story, but the overall premise was really intriguing.
Valuable Humans in Transit: 4. A computer tries to save the word in 15 minutes. This reminds a lot of the Bobiverse!
My overall rating and thoughts: 3.9 stars rounded up to 4! Black Mirror should get this guy on to write their stories because holy hell these are good!!!
January 24, 2024
Aww; I really wanted to love this one.
- Started out good and for a second I thought I'd jumped ahead in my nonfiction hard science reading list. That opening had me double checking but the 2010-2073 life and death year settled it.
It had promise and it would nosedive into not my taste and then rise and land firmly in something I enjoyed.
2.75⭐ upgraded for Lena story
Plot/Storyline/Themes:
Multiple stories some hits and some misses. I can see what they were going for though. Makes me weary of trying to read the rest of the qntm backlist.
Two Sentences, A Scene or less - Characters:
I cared for no one. I just read and moved on, read and moved on. Very clinical.
Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Scene: :
The Difference chapter was interesting but Gorge was the best in my already depleting interest in this collection.
Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Quotes:
🖤 “the longest-lived MMAcevedo underwent brain death due to entropy increase at a subjective age of 145.” (On AI Death due to extreme context drift and workload.)
Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Concepts:
■ MMAcevedo: Living Snapshot of A Brain
■MMAcevedo's Context Drift
StoryGraph Challenge: 1800 Books by 2025
Challenge Prompt: 150 Science Fiction Books by 2025
It had promise and it would nosedive into not my taste and then rise and land firmly in something I enjoyed.
2.75⭐ upgraded for Lena story
Plot/Storyline/Themes:
Multiple stories some hits and some misses. I can see what they were going for though. Makes me weary of trying to read the rest of the qntm backlist.
Two Sentences, A Scene or less - Characters:
I cared for no one. I just read and moved on, read and moved on. Very clinical.
Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Scene: :
The Difference chapter was interesting but Gorge was the best in my already depleting interest in this collection.
Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Quotes:
🖤 “the longest-lived MMAcevedo underwent brain death due to entropy increase at a subjective age of 145.” (On AI Death due to extreme context drift and workload.)
Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Concepts:
■ MMAcevedo: Living Snapshot of A Brain
■MMAcevedo's Context Drift
StoryGraph Challenge: 1800 Books by 2025
Challenge Prompt: 150 Science Fiction Books by 2025
December 29, 2024
Ok, so after I thought about each of these shorts individually, I realized that this is actually quite a terrifying collection of horror short stories and not just SciFi or SpecFic. Most of the pieces are written with the underlying dark humour of inevitable extinction/chaos (often through our own hubris, of course) and some are heavily tech/sciency oriented and so require perhaps more than a reread or two before grasping the import. But despite all that, or maybe because I love hard-core scifi (even if I don’t understand all of what I’m reading) qntm does an excellent job of keeping me in the moment.
Several of these stories left me truly horrified and terrified (and often saddened) of our impending future (doom?), and more than seriously creeped me out.
Naturally I felt compelled to fall down the qntm rabbit-hole and visiting their webpage led me to the comments section for the various pieces which in turn led me off into all sorts of weird corners of spec fic and other writing and things I must investigate further.
I love in the comments on qntm’s page he calls this unfiction and it makes absolute sense to me and I need more of it.
Several of these stories left me truly horrified and terrified (and often saddened) of our impending future (doom?), and more than seriously creeped me out.
Naturally I felt compelled to fall down the qntm rabbit-hole and visiting their webpage led me to the comments section for the various pieces which in turn led me off into all sorts of weird corners of spec fic and other writing and things I must investigate further.
I love in the comments on qntm’s page he calls this unfiction and it makes absolute sense to me and I need more of it.
January 5, 2025
Very good, especially for a short story collection, as always a few hits and a few misses with favorites being ‘Lena’ and ‘The Difference’. Explorations of AI ethics, space exploration, time travel, and even the implications of being God.
November 27, 2024
qntm is elite
January 18, 2026
Not as good as I wanted it to be! Conceptually strong but rough around the edges, worth a read for fun but probably needed a few more rounds of editing
December 19, 2023
One of the best sci-fi pieces I’ve ever read. Strongly recommended.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 289 reviews