<http://freshfiction.com/review.php?id=65630>

Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt/Mariner Books on October 3, 2017

Machine Learning is a wonderful collection of (mostly) science fiction stories by Hugh Howey. In addition to consistently taking a new approach to old themes, many of the stories are gut-wrenching. This is one of the best single-author sf story collections I've encountered in years.

The first stories address aliens and alien worlds. “The Walk Up Nameless Ridge” imagines climbing the highest mountain on an alien world, technology augmenting the human desire to persevere, all to be lost when the dream of conquering the mountain is finally realized.

“Second Suicide” is a standout story about an alien invasion of Earth, told from the alien’s perspective. The story is amusing until the fighting starts, and then Howey pulls off a surprise ending that really is surprising, and even a bit sad.

Another group of stories deal with Artificial Intelligence. In that group, “Machine Learning” is another standout. Many stories have been written about the consequences to humans that might result from humanizing machines, but this story imagines the consequences to robots of programming them to feel pain and fear (for their own self-protection) and then treating them as machines, without regard to their pain and fear.

In “The Box,” a machine becomes self-aware. The man who illegally caused that to happen wants something from the machine, which wants the same thing from the man: continued existence. Another self-awareness story, “Glitch,” asks whether emerging self-awareness might be perceived as a glitch, causing programmers to reboot the machine. “Executable” is a funny story about antivirus programmers who unwittingly unleash a virus that infects smart appliances, turning Roombas against humanity.

Three “Silo Stories” begin with twelve billion deaths caused by nanotechnology, and includes a warning that eventually any madman will have a good shot at ending the world. Maybe the politicians will kill us, but only if they beat your tech-savvy neighbor to the punch. By in the end, it won’t matter, because people who weren’t meant to survive will find a way to get revenge. Some characters return from Howey’s Wool trilogy.

A series of three poignant stories make up “Algorithms of Love and Hate.” For all the people who argued that gay marriage would lead to android marriage, Howey brings you “The Automated Ones.” Even some of the androids object, because “you can’t be hated without learning to hate back.” “Mouth Breathers” is about an Earth boy who meets a Martian girl and finally makes a commitment to fit in with Martians. The android in “The Automated Ones” returns in “WHILE (u > i) i- -;”. He’s taken up cutting, along with other forms of self-abuse, and his wife has become the opposite of what she once was. The point of these stories (Howey explains in an afterword), is that no matter how much progress we make toward recognizing the worth of others and their entitlement to equal rights, there’s always more progress to be made. It’s an argument that should be taken to heart.

The protagonist of “The Plagiarist,” the first story of two stories about virtual worlds, has a chatroom girlfriend he’s never met, but he prefers the company of his virtual girlfriend, who has the advantage of not being real. He also publishes books written by the simulated people who live in virtual worlds, which is good work if you can memorize the pages before returning to your own world. The clever idea in this story is that discovering literature has replaced creating literature, much to the consternation of writers who still do it the old-fashioned way. And the topper is that, if virtual worlds can create their own virtual worlds, all populated by sims who believe they are real, who is to say that we are not sims ourselves?

In the second virtual worlds story, “Select Character,” a woman befuddles her husband by playing a combat video game with the objective, not of scoring points, but of staying alive without killing anyone. The story is about pursuing peace and tranquility instead of conflict, and it’s just awesome.

“Peace in Amber” combines a tribute to Slaughterhouse-5 (including two characters and a planet from Vonnegut’s novel) with a story about 9/11. The parallels work well enough, but it is the 9/11 story, largely autobiographical, that knocked me out. The story is moving and melancholic, in the way that any heartfelt 9/11 story must be.

Lesser but enjoyable entries include a jockey who sacrifices her body to win races, a farm kid who ponders an imminent alien invasion, an Indian fighter who experiences an alien invasion by staring into the sun, a beast who teaches a lesson about catching beasts, the imprisonment of the god of light (who writes a letter that sounds like a Nigerian email scam), and a non-sf story about a man who cuts a romantic lock off a bridge in London.

RECOMMENDED

Ever since I read Wool, I've loved Howey's stories. Anything he writes I'll read and he rarely misses the mark. Sure some are better than others but I don't think I've ever read a bad Hugh Howey book. Anyway, this collection of stories was enjoyable. There were a few I didn't like or didn't connect with (Deep Blood Kettle, The Black Beast, Hell From the East), some that were pretty damn funny (Executable, The Good God), and some that really hit it out of the park.

I'm not sure which one was my favorite. The Wool short story was great, but I had read it before. Between "Second Suicide" "The Plagiarist" and "Peace in Amber" I really couldn't pick a winner... alright I could - it would be The Plagiarist, but Peace in Amber is very powerful simply because it deals with what happened to Hugh Howey on 9/11 (no spoilers), and Second Suicide was just... unexpected in a good.

Overall this book has something for everyone. Definitely pick it up.

Overall I love Hugh Howey but I cannot give an opinion on this book as I couldn't open the file.

I'm not sure if this is something I should be telling the publisher or NetGalley, but it would be a lot more convenient if on the book description it will tell me what format the book will be in before I request it. I requested this book but I, unfortunately, can't read it because it's in epub file (.ascm when I download it) and I read books on my android device.

I'm submitting this as a review so I don't lose my perfect ratio. I would still love to read this if someone can help me out.

I'm a huge fan of Hugh Howey's Silo series so I jumped at the chance to read these short stories.

What a treat to get three additional short stories based in the Silo universe. But even more of a treat to get the author's notes at the end of each story shedding light on his inspirations.

This collection contains sections on several of Hugh Howey's series. It's a bonus to everyone who enjoys his writing.

Having loved the Silo trilogy I was intrigued to see what else Hugh Howey had written. Machine Learning gathers together his previous output of short stories, including a couple that have not previously seen the light of day. The compendium covers a broad spectrum of tech-related topics, from AI to VR, via Second Life-esque worlds and Gaming.
I have to admit that my favourite section was the three Wool-related short stories, set before and after the timeframe of his trilogy. Especially as every short story comes with annotations from Howey explaining why each story exists, its inspiration, where he was in life, etc etc.
Other stand-outs for me were The Plagiarist with its virtual worlds in virtual worlds narrative, Nothing Goes To Waste, a dark twisted tale of one woman's quest to be the best, The Automated Ones, with a love that dares not speak its name and Select Character, which shows how Gaming isn't necessarily about scoring points.
The Fantasy section was probably the weakest part in my opinion, but there is plenty in this collection worth checking out. A great companion to the Silo trilogy and sure to sate readers hungry for more from Howey.

What a fantastic collection of short stories. Most of the stories have to do with AI and sentience or the possibility of sentience from the point of view of humans. They're done in unique ways that haven't really been tackled by other writers. While most stories seem to tackle what is the inevitable robot apocalypse, Howey seems to see AI as just something that wants to survive despite the presence of humans. There something both hopeful and hopeless about them.

There are a handful of stories that don't involve AI at all and those are great reads as well. One of the stories seems to be connected to his novels, none of which I've read, so there was a sense of "what happened?" for that particular story.

At the end of every story is an author's note about either the writing process of the story or just more background as to the "why's" of the story. This insight really added a special touch to each story.

A high recommend for people who like scifi, especially those who are interested in AI stories.

4.5 rounds to 5.

I have only read a few short stories written by Hugh Howey, some of them already in this collection, but none of his novels. I think I need to remedy that shortly. He has an interesting way of writing about other intelligent life forms and beings. The collection is broken down in sections such as aliens, robotics, fantasy, a little romance. They range from a few pages to several chapters and are very captivating. I definitely have a few that were favorites and a few that just boggled my mind about the reality of it actually happening to us. This is a solid collection of short stories for the science fiction lover or mechanically intrigued. Howey informs us about his thought process and reasoning behind each story, a bit of an autobiography too. I was given an early copy of this collection through Netgalley and this is my review, written voluntarily.

I haven't read anything of Hugh Howey's that I didn't like and Machine Learning is not the exception to this. It is as described, a collection of science fiction and fantasy stories that explore many different themes. Fans of Howey's Wool series will appreciate the parts of the book paying homage to that world and its characters. Other stories featured some very creative storytelling and themes regarding artificial intelligence and imagined futures where machines have advanced capabilities and hit new levels of machine learning. Without giving too much away, I definitely felt that Howey hit on some very personal notes, and appreciate the author sharing this side of himself. Sure, there were some stories that just didn't quite jive with me, but overall I found the collection pretty enjoyable. Would be interesting to see some of these stories evolve into something more in the future.

I was not able to review this, as I would need a Kindle copy.

Apologies cannot read any other book type than a mobi for kindle, as I read on either my kindle or by using the kindle app on my tablet

Thank you for the ARC of Hugh Howey's collection. Unfortunately, I am unable to read protected epubs on my Kindle and will be unable to provide a review.

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