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Dec 09, 2017JCLChrisK rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
"I've given you the gift of uncertainty." It's not a spoiler to share that final sentence of this story, because the story is uncertain from the start. It's all about mystery and ambiguity. You see, Katya lives in a future where everything and everyone is connected. The computer network is everywhere. Even the dust floating through the air contains nanobots. Everything is recorded and can be recalled instantly when needed. And any item can be 3D printed on demand, so anything with history is valuable for the fact of its unique story. Katya collects and sells such "authenticities." This short novella is her latest and most unusual. It is a letter to an anonymous collector, and the item being sold is her memory of three days she recently spent off the grid. She has become an authenticity herself. "All of this is what I experienced, but I have no recorded memories of it. I can't play back this episode in my life and report on what I saw. I have to try to remember . . . "Have you tried to do this? Have you turned off your Lens, turned off your i-Sys, stepped away from the cloud, and just tried to REMEMBER something? It's hard, and the memories are mutable. "The cloud is just there, all the time. You reach for it without thinking and assume it will be there." The mutability of memory is what makes everything so uncertain, because there is no evidence to support the experience Katya remembers. And in a world where everything is known at all times, that is a novelty. The form of the book supports its content. It is brief and spare and reads as though Katya is a minor character in some bigger story that's taking place just off the page. The world-building is merely hinted at, with so many details left tantalizingly vague and unexplained. It adds to the nature of uncertainty Katya shares. It makes for a satisfyingly unsatisfying tale. Which is the point.