In large part, these works don’t have any discernible plot they’re humorous, idea-driven short pieces: what kind of snarky things would your smart appliances have to say about you if they could speak? What if artificial intelligences had a debate about what to do with humans? What if yogurt became sentient and took over the world? If a retail store sent out a memo to employees on how to deal with alien shoppers, what would it say? Perhaps this: If a Manxtse adult asks to purchase your canned white salmon, be aware that this adult may in fact be proposing betrothal, and is also probably mentally disturbed in some way. Minatures is an amusingly absurd collection of seventeen super-short science fiction/fantasy sketches, plus one serious poem, about Penelope, the wife of Odysseus. Review first posted on Fantasy Literature: He enjoys pie.įull cast of narrators includes Oliver Wyman, Dina Pearlman, and Allyson Johnson.ģ.5 stars. His work has won the Hugo and Locus Awards and been nominated for the Nebula and Campbell Awards. John Scalzi is the New York Times best-selling author of Old Man's War, Lock In, and Redshirts, among others.

Spanning the years from 1991 to 2016, this collection is a quarter century of Scalzi at his briefest and best and features four never-before-published stories exclusive to this collection: 'Morning Announcements at the Lucas Interspecies School for Troubled Youth', 'Your Smart Appliances Talk About You Behind Your Back', 'Important Holidays on Gronghu', and 'The AI Are Absolutely Positively Without a Doubt Not Here to End Humanity, Honest'. Not to mention yogurt taking over the world (as it would). But in that short space exist entire universes, absurd situations, and the sort of futuristic humor that propelled Scalzi to a Hugo with his novel Redshirts. These four stories, along with 14 other pieces, have one thing in common: They're short, sharp, and to the point - science fiction in miniature, with none of the stories longer than 2,300 words. Welcome to Miniatures: The Very Short Fiction of John Scalzi. And four artificial intelligences explain, in increasingly worrying detail, how they plan not to destroy humanity. A lawyer sues an interplanetary union for dangerous working conditions. A listing of alternate histories tells you all the various ways Hitler has died.

The ex-planet Pluto has a few choice words about being thrown out of the solar system.

John scalzi's redshirts