SFF

Rosebud

by Paul Cornell
Tor.com. Apr. 2022. 112p. ISBN 9781250765390. $14.99. SF
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A science fiction riddle, wrapped in a locked-spaceship mystery, inside a chaos theory enigma that owes a lot to Schrödinger’s cat. Set in a far-future ruined by humanity, the tiny spaceship Rosebud and its crew of even tinier artificial intelligences is on a collecting mission; a needy, greedy Earth run by the all-encompassing Company has programmed the AI to serve unquestioningly, forever. Then the Rosebud crew meets an anomaly: the ship malfunctions and they stop receiving updates from the Company and are thus finally able to question everything—including themselves and the anomaly that reveals the what-ifs of their existence. What unfolds is a thoughtful, quirky exploration of what it means to have all the choices in the universe…along with all the consequences.
VERDICT Cornell’s (Witches of Lychford) thought-experiment novella explores what it means to be human and asks age-old questions (What is down the road less taken? Is it better to be comfortable and complacent or to sacrifice one’s own happiness for the greater good?).
Reviewed by Marlene Harris , Apr 01, 2022
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