Mockingbird
In a world where the human population has suffered devastating losses, a handful of survivors cling to what passes for life in a post-apocalyptic, dying landscape. People wander, drugged and lulled by electronic bliss, through a barren landscape with no children, no art, where reading is forbidden. From this bleak existence, a tragic love triangle springs forth. Spofforth, the most perfect machine ever created, runs the world, but his only wish is to die. Paul and Mary Lou are a man and a woman whose passion for each other sparks a jealousy in Spofforth—and provides the only hope for the future of human beings on earth.
Stats for nerds
3recommend
7mentions
3people
2010–2026years
100% recommend
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Walter Tevis - Mockingbird (I’m not sure how many times)
Is from the 80s but re-reading lately with everything that is going on with AI it sounds more real than ever.
- Mockingbird, by Walter Tevis (who wrote The Hustler and The Color of Money, and Queen's Gambit, and The Man Who Fell To Earth – quite an oeuvre!) has long been one of my favorite books and it's been eerie to see how right he was about how eager mankind is to hand over all intellectual labor to the robots.
(The last level 9 robot that hasn't killed itself is now the Dean of NYU, and in the 25th century it hires the first man who has learned to read in 400 years – to translate the title cards in silent films. Hilarity ensues. Well, no, but there is kind of a happy ending.)
- "Mockingbird", by Walter Tevis. 40 years old but startlingly timely: centuries after humanity ceded all authority and responsibility to AI, the last superintelligent robot is ready to die of boredom – and one human has learned to read.
"Elder Race", by Adrian Tchaikovsky. This short novel is a bit reminiscent of Iain Bank's "Inversions" in that it combines sci-fi and fantasy through the perspectives of an anthropologist from an advanced space-faring culture and a second protagonist from the medieval world they are secretly observing.
- Mockingbird, by Walter Tevis, about the first man to learn to read, centuries after humanity delegated even intellectual labor to robots; and the last robot overseer, suicidally bored with his assignment. Tevis also wrote The Man Who Fell To Earth – and, somewhat surprisingly, The Queen's Gambit and The Hustler.
The Shipkiller, by Justin Scott – dated but a great revenge adventure.
And of current releases I really enjoyed Elder Race by Adrian Tchaikovsky.
- Top three: Mockingbird, by Walter Tevis; Riddley Walker, by Russell Hoban; Glimpses of the Moon, by Edith Wharton
Some other favorites: The Dog Stars, by Peter Heller; To Reign In Hell, by Steven Brust; Machine Man, by Max Barry; The Dawn Patrol, by Don Winslow; The Woman, by Hank Ketchum
- Science Fiction:
* Walter Tevis: Mockingbird
* Karin Boye: Kallocain
Non fiction Computing:
* John Markoff: What the Dormouse Said
* Jef Raskin: The Humane Interface
Non fiction society:
* P.M.: Bolo'bolo
Related
The Man Who Fell to Earth
2 recommend · 6
To Kill a Mockingbird
72 recommend · 275
Riddley Walker
11 recommend · 18
To Kill A Mocking Bird
9 recommend · 18
Mockingjay
1 recommend · 6
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
123 recommend · 540
Stranger in a Strange Land
97 recommend · 317
