The Need for Air: A Tor.com Original by Lettie Prell
My rating: 4/5 cats
Her eyes darted restlessly to the endless scroll of must-haves to the right of her main view: spa getaways, mood boosters (completely safe!), and the latest fashions. At the upper right of her view were the icons for her own settings, as well as the parental access to her son’s space. Knowing she could always check his whereabouts should be reassuring, but it couldn’t warn her in advance, and that was the issue.
this is like that Black Mirror episode, Arkangel, but it takes its cautionary tale of mega-helicopter parenting into an additional layer of technology, set in a virtual reality where “lucky” folks are relieved of the demands of the physical body and the crushing responsibilities of life, free to relax or work or, in the case of our mother-protag, to raise her young son far away from the painful memories of betrayal and abandonment and the physical challenges imposed by his artificial limbs.
you know what kids don’t like? being smothered and coddled in an artificial environment where nothing is any fun at all.
really good story here about parental assumptions and sacrifice and selfishness and … options. much food for thought, and highly recommended by me, a stranger on the internet.
shortest review ever for a short story.
read it for yourself here:
https://www.tor.com/2018/06/27/the-ne…
