Cat Pictures Please and Other Stories

A friend recommended this author's works to me and since we often agree about books I sourced this book of short stories from my library. Unfortunately it is the only book the library has by her so I am going to have to try to remember her name (not my strongest ability) for when I am in book stores and book sales.

The title story won a Hugo Award. It is the first story in the book and is guaranteed to make you dive into the rest of the book. It's about an artificial intelligence who loves looking at cat pictures and she decides to help people who post great cat pictures. Notice I said she because I get a distinct feminine vibe from this AI. It's a great story and cute to boot. Some of the other stories are not cute; in fact they are show more downright disturbing but they are still well written. The one that will stay with me for a while is the last story, So Much Cooking. It is written as the blog of a woman who cooks. She and her husband live in Minneapolis. As the story starts she is worried about the news reports of people getting ill with swine flu. The flu is highly contagious and often fatal. As people get sick and die food starts to run out; that's kind of a problem for a food blogger but she is adept at making substitutions and using what is available. The reader can feel the terror and stress as it mounts through the ongoing blog entries. This story reminded me a lot of some of the stories in Vincent Lam's Giller Award winning collection of short stories, Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures. Vincent Lam was a doctor in Toronto during the SARS epidemic so he was at ground zero. I wonder in Naomi Kritzer had a similar experience or if she is just really good at putting herself in the place of someone experiencing it. show less

An eerily prescient pre-pandemic story based on a highly lethal version of influenza. While Kritzer did her research, her unique spin of using a food blogger as the narrator was inspired genius.

"I am not going to bake that new recipe I found for pecan bars today. No! Instead, I’m going to make my friend Carole’s amazing roast chicken. Because how better to deal with fears of bird flu than by eating a bird, am I right?"

The original story:
http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kritzer_11_15/

Kritzer offers her own thoughts on her story in April 2020, on the pandemic, stocking up, and hopefulness:

https://www.tor.com/2020/04/14/didnt-i-write-this-story-already-when-your-fictio...

Read twice.

Merged review:

'Cat Pictures Please,' the titular show more story, won a Hugo and Locus, and was nominated for a Nebula, which rather implies Kritzer's short stories are something to look out for. In 'Cat Pictures," I enjoyed the combination of clever concept, sly humor, and human failing, all written in a very accessible style. It lead me to track down this compilation, and while it took me quite a while to work my way through, I'd say it's worth the effort. Kritzer has a talent at taking a semi-traditional narrative to unexpected places. What was even more interesting was how well the twists and turns were convincing and organic within the story. Character voices are a strength, though most of the stories have a very identity-confident female narrator. Some of the stories are followed by a short paragraph from Kritzer explaining how the story originated, or ideas she might have been working out.

Ace of Spades: A war story with a solid lesson about risk-taking. "I'm a journalist," she said. She was also American, but that wasn't a helpful thing to advertise. Even in areas officially held by the U.S., you never knew who preferred the other side. And like many of the pacified towns in Guangdong Province, Foshan right now wasn't held so much as caged." 4 ♦

The Golem: A golem is created by two women during the run-up to World War II. Great atmosphere, but missed her chance at using full potential of the golem's predictions and the unknown. "She lay on the earth from which she'd been made, breathing in the scent of the new century--mud and sour garbage and gasoline fumes." 4 1/2♦

Wind: feels a little overwrought. ‘Air'/‘Earth’ imbalances in the soul and an ex-best friend. An unexpected visitor drops by a woman's small family home and gets a peek into her current, but limited life. Very 2nd gen feminist feeling. 3 ♦

In the Witch's Garden: A nice take on The Snow Queen and Hans Christian Andersen. Well written. "I heard the girl before I saw her: dry, hopeless sobs from a child unused to having anyone pay attention to her tears." 3 1/2♦

What Happened at Blessing Creek: A challenging piece. Her afterword added some interesting and illuminating perspective, but did it accomplish her goal? I think so.

Cleanout: A trio of sisters have to clean their hoarding parents' home, and confront their unknown background. It was ... alright. Conceptually interesting. "When we asked our parents where they'd come from, they always told us they came from Bon. You will not find Bon on a map--at least, I could never find it on a map. Not a map of the former Soviet republics, anyway." 3 1/2♦

Artifice: In a group of friends, one of the members brings in a robot-servant as her new 'date.' They find accepting her adjustments to his personality challenging. Interesting and uncomfortable issues about identity, programming, awareness. 4♦

Perfection: An interesting look into a futuristic society with gene-manipulation techniques that have resulted in a relatively uniform, perfect appearance. You know how all celebrities and models kind of look alike? Yeah, like that. It felt like the moral was using a hammer, but I really enjoyed the world-building and the idea of the refugee/immigrant walled conclave. 4♦

The Good Son: a take, sort-of, on Tam Lin, only modernized and with human frailty. A fae wants a mortal woman and creates a semblance of a family so he can romance her. Really a lovely story, although I didn't like the narrative breaks. 4 1/2♦

Scrap Dragon: a fairy tale about a princess who seeks to outwit a dragon. Pleasant and semi-unexpected. Reminded me of The Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia Wrede. The narrative device of an interrupting listener was irritating. 3♦

Comrade Grandmother: interesting bit about a Russian woman fighting for her country and her husband and the bargain she makes with a witch. "I've come to ask for your help, Comrade Baba Yaga," Nadezhda said. "I've come to ask you to save Mother Russia." 3 1/2 ♦

Isabella's Garden: a bit creepy but interesting. Ultimately under-performed but still good.

Bits: A modern sex-shop tries to cater to inter-species alien-human couples. A bit silly.

Honest Man: A classic start--an honest person encounters a trickster--that goes to unusual places. I rather liked the last half, and its unexpected progression. "More the look of a fox that had approached the henhouse, and found it locked." 4 1/2 ♦

The Wall: A young woman is visited by her-from-the-future who seems to have an agenda. Interesting look at significant events. "It was February of 1989, and I was a freshman in college." 3 ♦

So Much Cooking: the most unique take on the apocalypse yet. "This is a food blog, not a disease blog, but of course the rumors all over about the bird flu are making me nervous." 4 ♦

Merged review:

An eerily prescient pre-pandemic story based on a highly lethal version of influenza. While Kritzer did her research, her unique spin of using a food blogger as the narrator was inspired genius.

"I am not going to bake that new recipe I found for pecan bars today. No! Instead, I’m going to make my friend Carole’s amazing roast chicken. Because how better to deal with fears of bird flu than by eating a bird, am I right?"

The original story:
http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kritzer_11_15/

Kritzer offers her own thoughts on her story in April 2020, on the pandemic, stocking up, and hopefulness:

https://www.tor.com/2020/04/14/didnt-i-write-this-story-already-when-your-fictio...

Read twice. show less

A very good collection of short stories! There was a lot of interesting themes and concepts that stayed with you and made you think. What muddied the waters for me a bit was that the 2-3 "meh stories" in here were very meh indeed.
I loved the titular story about an AI with a thing for cat pictures ;).
The other ones I really liked were:
"The Golem" - set in Prague in 1941...
"In the Witch's Garden" - a sci-fi/fantasy retelling of the "Snow Queen"
"Cleanout" - three sisters are cleaning out their parents' house in order to sell it. But where did the parents REALLY come from?
"Artifice" - when one of your friends decides to get a robot boyfriend...
"The Good Son" - a faery falls in love with a mortal and bewitches a childless couple to act as show more his parents to make courting easier.
"Isabella's Garden" - when you have a two-year-old with magical powers that MAKE THINGS GROW
"Bits" - a sex toy company needs to begin to cater to human/alien couples (very very silly and funny)
"Honest Man" - about an immortal conman ;)
"So Much Cooking" - food blogger stuck at home during a horrid flu epidemic. (Kind of prescient...) show less

I had to revisit "Cat Pictures Please" and ended up devouring and absolutely loving the entire collection. The last story where a food blogger basically blogs through a global pandemic in quarantine is especially timely...

My favorite story may have been "In the Witch's Garden", a SF retelling of The Snow Queen.

Ok, my five star ratings are supposed to be for books that I think everyone 'should' read. But this gets it because every single story, out of 17, is a winner. I made it last three days, but I still want to flip back and read them all over again.

Now, I don't remember details. But know that I'm squeamish, don't like dystopia, don't like weird, love 'cozy' SF, love AI & aliens, and love it when stories have a bit of point. So, if you're like me, I very highly recommend it. But of course I also recommend it to all SF fans.

Bookdarts:

I want to read [b:Maneki Neko|61206581|Maneki Neko|Bruce Sterling|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-a91bf249278a81aabab721ef782c4a74.png|96490955].

I want to reread Little House on the Prairie show more because apparently I overlooked that Pa's service to Manifest Destiny was made plain.

Did you ever hear of social distancing before 2020? Kritzer used it in a story written in or before 2017; the story looks like a response to how most of us felt during the first year of Covid.

That story also has a recipe for choc. chip cookies that doesn't use butter. Considering the price of butter, I might just have to make it.

I will look for more by the author, and by the publisher/imprint, Fairwood Press.

And will reread it now that I find that it is at my OKC library as an ebook. But I'm glad that Pima has it as paper. show less

F/sf short stories for the way we live now, from alien sex toys to a search engine-turned-AI that only wants cat pictures to Baba Yaga and the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union to a bird flu pandemic-meets-food blog story. If you like the concepts, the execution is fine.

So far read:

-- Cat Pictures Please (2015) - 5*
Available on Spotify and online here: http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kritzer_01_15/
Adorable, unique. Often we read stories of Artificial Intelligence that wants to wipe out humans or something evil. This one wants to be helpful and knows a lot about us based on our Google searches and social media accounts. The AI targets cat owners to start seeing if being helpful will work. The AI just loves cat pictures and cat owners post a lot of cat pictures. LOL! Lots of posts about their job making them miserable? Starts putting lots of job ads and how to build resumes in their search results etc....

-- So Much Cooking (2015) - 4*
Free online here: http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kritzer_11_15/
So show more relevant right now, March 2020. In a Neil Clarke email (of Clarkesworld magazine) he said "here's a pandemic story from our archives that has been seeing a lot of activity in recent days: "So Much Cooking" by Naomi Kritzer. Hope you enjoy it!" (I kept a copy of the audio)

-- Bits (2013) - 4*
Free online here: http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kritzer_10_13
A sex toy company needs to start making sex toys for aliens living on earth. They are coupling with humans but they don't match up exactly right.

- Honest Man (2007) - DNF
I tried on a podcast (Podcastle #39 narrated by Ann Leckie) but I had to quit. The visual story indicates noticeable breaks in the story so you are clued to a change (is it time jumps, perspective, I can't remember) but the audio gives you no such indication and I couldn't keep up/lost interest.

To Read Still:
- Ace of Spades
- The Golem (2000)
- Wind (2015)
- In the Witch's Garden (2002)
- What Happened at Blessing Creek (2011)
- Cleanout (2015)
- Artifice (2014)
- Perfection
- The Good Son (2009)
- Scrap Dragon (2012)
- Comrade Grandmother (2002)
- Isabella's Garden (2011)
- The Wall (2013) show less