soph (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sophia_sol) wrote2019-12-05 08:19 pm
sophia_sol) wrote2019-12-05 08:19 pm
Catfishing on CatNet, by Naomi Kritzer
A number of years ago Naomi Kritzer wrote a short story called Cat Pictures, Please about a baby AI trying to figure out morality and how to interact with humans. It was very popular and won awards. I liked it a lot too!
This book is something of a sequel to that story. It's a near-future YA novel about a teen girl named Steph whose mom is constantly on the run from her abusive ex-husband but won't tell Steph hardly anything about the situation. Steph, because of all the moving, gets most of her social interaction online on a site called CatNet where she has a group of good friends. One of whom is secretly the slightly-less-baby AI from the short story!
A quick, easy read. I don't have a lot to say about it but it was an enjoyable way to spend an evening. Also: lots of queer characters, for those for whom that's a draw.
My one complaint is that the ending is more of a set-up for a sequel than a satisfactory ending on its own. Dangit, don't end books with brand-new game-changing information that you're not going to address in that book!
This book is something of a sequel to that story. It's a near-future YA novel about a teen girl named Steph whose mom is constantly on the run from her abusive ex-husband but won't tell Steph hardly anything about the situation. Steph, because of all the moving, gets most of her social interaction online on a site called CatNet where she has a group of good friends. One of whom is secretly the slightly-less-baby AI from the short story!
A quick, easy read. I don't have a lot to say about it but it was an enjoyable way to spend an evening. Also: lots of queer characters, for those for whom that's a draw.
My one complaint is that the ending is more of a set-up for a sequel than a satisfactory ending on its own. Dangit, don't end books with brand-new game-changing information that you're not going to address in that book!
no subject
Heh, yeah, that ending was definitely sequel bait. I would have ironically liked it better if it had ended like that and *not* had a sequel, just sort of an open-ended "hey, you know what, this world is bigger than you thought." Oh well!
no subject
At this point it's been enough time since I read the book that I actually don't remember the game-changing sequel-bait information at the end of the book that I reference, so it's no longer a problem for me :P Anyway yeah it is interesting how the way the author frames that kind of new information at the end of a book makes such a difference in terms of whether it's clearly setting up a sequel or not. I usually prefer books to be sufficient unto themselves, even if they are part of a series, even if the books in the series do work better if they're read as a series. But when I end a book I want to feel like I've finished something!