With a Little Help

It's been a while since I last read science fiction, so I suppose it was inevitable that I'd be impressed by Cory Doctorow's With a Little Help.

The self-published anthology -- available to purchase in hard copy or free to download -- is a collection of short stories that Doctorow had been commissioned to write throughout the years. Each represents a forward-looking peek at where business and society may be headed given the trajectory that technologies -- namely, computers and the internet -- appear to be taking us.

What's striking in what With a Little Help has to offer is how plausible the stories seem, regardless of how rosy or dystopian each future comes across. Clearly, Doctorow's familiarity with the technical details of what he writes about has much to do with this, what with the occasional interjection of just the right amount of jargon to remind us that he does know his stuff (or at least to give that impression). But it's really by imbuing each tale with plenty of humanity -- through characters that express anxieties and emotions we probably would -- that they come to life, whether it's a story on what might happen if Google reneges on their promise not to be evil ("Scroogled") or about neuroeconomics in a world where unbelievably wealthy individuals get to live forever ("Chicken Little").

Personally, my favorite addition of the bunch was the Ubuntu-inspired "Epoch", in which the first genuine artificial intelligence, already outdated as the story unfolds, begins to try and prolong its existence. It's intelligent, funny and believable overall, which to my mind ultimately captures the best of what With a Little Help represents.