(urth) New Wolfe Story at Subterranean Press

[Nigel Price]

I think it's a really good short short-story. As already pointed out, there
seems to be a distinct possibility that the narrator is him-, her- or itself
a robot. The situation on "his" world is paradoxical. It is sterile because
humans have opted for the mechanical rather than the biological, but
introducing segregation between humans and machines turns out not to be the
answer to solving the problem. It introduces pain and sorrow without solving
the preference. This seems to be in part because the dogs retain a natural
preference for their own kind which humans have lost. The girls, in
contrast, prefer their opposites. The robot girl is made miserable by the
way the robot dog shows her her own lack of humanness while the human girl
and her family are burdened by the biological inconveniences of a real dog.

It's a sad little tale, but brilliantly told and full of unexplainedly
sinister notes and references. The narrator has from the start a slightly
devilish quality that isn't quite substantiated by the apparent facts of the
story. He begins with references to devils hauling sinners off to hell and
acts and speaks throughout like a stalker or a paedophile, though nothing
that he does actually justifies this impression. He's interfering and
unwise, that's all. But maybe that's enough, and maybe that's the - or a -
point of the story. If you're miserable and disatisfied, it's easy to spread
your unhappiness to others. The narrator lives, by his own description, in a
machine paradise and he's the snake in the garden introducing machine
unhappiness.

Maybe he really is a robot Satan, or at least a robot Satan analogue?

Nigel

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