Zima Blue and Other Stories
Short story collection by the critically acclaimed author of Revelation Space and Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days. Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Timesbestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.
Stats for nerds
1recommend
3mentions
3people
2019–2025years
33% recommend67% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- The short story was good too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zima_Blue_and_Other_Stories
- Zima Blue is the name of the story. It was made into a Love Death and Robots episode. The book Zima Blue and Other Stories is the most widely known collection that its found in (since its in the title), but it has been published in many others.
- SPOILERS BELOW (Love, Death and Robots)
There's an episode of Love, Death and Robots called Zima Blue, where a robot that scrubs the tiles on the side of a swimming pool is progressively upgraded over many years by engineers until it becomes a fully conscious android. It then obsessively pursues the meaning of life through ever larger art projects, some reaching planetary scale. It eventually concludes it has found the meaning of life and in it's final art project it disables all it's higher cognitive functions and "downgrades" itself back to it's original tile scrubbing form with just enough awareness left to take pleasure in the singular menial task.
EDIT: I just found out it was adapted from a book called Zima Blue and Other Stories by Alastair Reynolds
