For the recent ask meme: What is your favourite novel?
Oh geez. It’s probably been over two years since I last read any fiction, with one exception, and I read fiction so rarely these days that I honestly can barely think of any novels that I’ve read… I dunno if I’ll be able to come up with an interesting answer for this, but I’ll try.
I think the best answer I can give, the exception I mentioned above, is a 20-page short story that was included in my Time of EVE Deluxe Edition set called “act0.5: SAME,” written by Yasuhiro Yoshiura, who came up with the original concept, and wrote and directed the series/movie. It’s a prequel to the series/movie told in first person by Dr. Ashimori, the kinda mysterious white-haired lady we don’t see much of who knows various things about the creation of the current generation of robot AIs and about Shiotsuki, who wrote the AI program.
(I don’t remember if you’ve seen either the ONA or movie version of Time of EVE, or if you’ve ever come across this short story, so, uh, potential spoilers ahead.)
The short story is Ashimori recounting her working relationship with Shiotsuki when they were building Sammy (her department worked on the hardware, his worked on the software), Shiotsuki’s disappearance, and her first encounter with Sammy, before her AI program was dumbed down/reined in to what we see in the series/movie (and OH BOY was it; I wanted to see original AI Sammy so bad after reading the story).
The story did a really great job of getting you in Ashimori’s headspace, especially in the scene where she first encounters Sammy. Her fear and revulsion at Sammy’s fully human-level AI, while Sammy herself is afraid and anxious, just wanting to know where Shiotsuki is, their emotions were so palpable. It was a fantastic experience that really stuck in my mind.
Sorry I don’t have a full novel to talk about… I feel like this wasn’t a very good answer. If you want, you can ask me another. It might be something I can give a better answer about.
