I still think of myself as a house. Ravan tried to fix this problem of self-image, as he called it. To teach me to phrase my communication in terms of a human body. To say: let us hold hands instead of let us hold kitchens. To say put our heads together and not put our parlors together.
But it is not as simple as replacing words anymore. Ravan is gone. My hearth is broken.

This is, quite simply, beautiful. It is the breaking of myth and story to find the shards and slivers that will explain the making of a new life, a new family, and maybe a new world. Parts of it are profoundly uncomfortable, but such is the life we live. (I will go ahead and say trigger warnings for strong suggestions of incest, though you could debate it on either side given what Elefsis is.) There is no doubt a great deal to be said here about sex and gender and Other. Other is really what this story is about. But you know what? This Locus winning story is all of 127 pages long and you can read it online for free starting here:

http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/valente_10_11/

I am not going to say another blessed word, because it's not worth spoiling. Don't read the blurb. Don't read any more reviews. Just go read this.

Reviewed 3/1/2016
********************
2/29/16: This, on the other hand, was quite delicious. Maybe there is hope for 2016 yet. Review to come. ( )

Read, favourite. ( )

An artificial intelligence coming of age as a symbiote to a member of the family were it began as a house control monitor, and was passed from parent to child until if finds itself in a sibling wondering what happened to it's last host. Questions about what is life, awareness, identity, inheritance, and love. ( )

This is actually my second time reading this story and it's just as good this time as the first.

Let me back up. This Hugo winner for best novella a few years ago may not have taken the world by storm, but Valente herself has been taking a lot of us that way. You know. Blown away.

She has a fantastic talent with words, always lyrical, rife with ideas, and most importantly, beautiful.

This particular story starts with a parable about Inanna and Ereshkigal and Tammuz and draws it right into a tale of raising an AI from humble house beginnings to childhood to adulthood, and far beyond. It also seamlessly incorporates sleeping beauty, legends of many monomyths, and incorporates it into sexuality, mourning, and the nature of intelligence (and how humans failed the Turing test). :)

And believe it or not, Valente does this magically. It rolls off the page with such beauty and easy flow, we can hardly believe we're being riddled with myth, deep thought, and hard-SF. We come away from it, FEELING something grand. :)

Do I recommend this?

HELL YEAH. It encapsulates everything high-brow, magical, poetical, and lovely. This is literature AS hard-SF. :) ( )

Myth and fairytale-style narrative are usually turn-offs for me, so I was surprised how much I enjoyed this. ( )