We have a bit of theme going on this week don't we? Something like man in the machine, with a ghost, briefly, possessing a cleaning robot in the first one, a sewing machine possesed by a feisty grandma in the second one and just the general conciousness of AI or the simulated human brain at the center of their brain lizard-brain style. (brain, brain, brain)
Mom Heart
This one is really sweet. I had a good idea where it was going, but it did it really well. The kids were characterized nicely, including the stupid neighbour kid, you got a real sense of the mom through the dad's recollections and imitation. All-in-all though I think bit-a-lemon Bob is my favourite character.
I'm not sure this approach was the right idea, it was very sweet, though, and you had a couple of different reactions to it that were all understandable. Of course bit-a-lemon Bob had the right idea in just leaving.
I liked the scene where the dad talks to himself as his wife and it really does comfort him, maybe he's just saying what he thinks she'd say and the memory helps him, but maybe he's 'inspired' by her to say something. I liked the whole thing with 'dad doesn't play' and how that gets resolved.
Just solid all around I'd say.
This Stitch, This Time
This one's ok. I wonder if I'd liked it better if I hadn't read it after the one above.
InspectorCaracal wrote: ↑Sun 05 Dec, 2021, 3:46 am
Those frame-story bits really felt a lot like that, but flipped around. They were responding to "me", the reader, as though I was questioning the narrator in a particular way, a way that reflects my own opinions, which immediately put me on edge. "How do you know what I would say?" kind of a thing. And nothing about the story made me feel like I would have asked the implicit questions in the intro.
The question in the intro doesn't make a lot of sense to me either and I'm not sure who they're asked to, I mean they had a meeting about the ghost sewing machine with all the top engineers, they were plenty warned. I guess it was to an outsider or us, but I just got here, Lady, I don't know what's going on!
I like the Grandma, though.
The Death Haiku of the Azure Five by L Chan
Hey, we got poems after all! Five, no hold on, four ones and they're integrated into the story.
I skimmed this one again after reading it and I'm still not sure I get the ending completely. Their Death Poems are going to be a part of some virus-type thing that's going to be transmitted to all the psyches in the universe to kill them and end the war?