Message Ends

Interesting if a little short.  I liked they style you used, with the APP-D telling what was going on from its perspective.  It would have been nice to have a little detail on what happened in the Woman's appratment and perhaps a little more about her friend.  I'm assuming the techie was male, as I didn't see any particular gender specified.  The ending could have used a little more elaboration as well, perhaps a more definite sign off or end of file message or something like that.  Ending where it does works ok, but leaves things a little too open ended.  It would be better to close the conversation.

Anyhow, nice read!

I love the idea of a sentinent smartpaper. I think you might have ridden that particular vehicle a bit farther. What would it be like, being a paper? 

It feels like the structure of the overall story wasnt fully balanced. You introduce the (terrorists?) halfway through, but there is no real drama to it. Could you have delivered the start of the apocalypse a bit more dramatically? Maybe with the paper overhearing a crucial part of the terrorists dialogue as they set the wheels in motion? 

I got that the paper is being corrupted in the very end. Loved that - you could have done more with that, I think. A super-intelligen librarian whose library is burning - inside his head. 

Wow, what a fascinating perspective on a revolution. I enjoyed reading this.

I don't have a ton to say on this one. It's one of the shorter pieces, which isn't bad, but you did leave me wanting just a little more. Soooo....that probably means it's near the right length. I think it's a little rough around the edges, but that's nothing a few more passes wouldn't smooth our. Sure, it's a computer talking to us, but take a look at the flow and make sure things are smooth..

The book was one of the most human characters I've seen. Scatterbrained and competent enough with the language to swear. Don't be afraid of the humanity in your machine here--it's what endears us to your main character.

A fun story, but for some reason I was a little unsatisfied. I think it's because it's questionable whether you have a true ending. It's more difficult to be engaged with the story when your main character can only observe. You have a nice introduction, and when the conflict happens, we actually start to get less information than before--due to the towers. So, confusion sort of sets in. But hey, I understand that's what happens when things go south. Still, as a reader, I'm trying to make sense of it all. I feel there's something missing, though I'm not entirely sure what it is. I think maybe some more explanation of how exactly the book compiles information on the liberators/destroyers. I felt like the book should have made more use of it's networking during the conflict to find out more about what was going on.

Regardless of all that, I liked it. :) Thanks for sharing.

I accidently refreshed the page and had to go find it again. I had to scroll through far too many pages to get back, so hopefully my positive rating will boost this up a bit.

Though I agree it could use some work, I thought this was definitely one of the lighter, more entertaining reads. A lot of the authors (myself included) are trying to get across these heavier themes, and while there isn't anything wrong with that, the charm of this story was definitely a needed breath of fresh air. I realize how difficult it can be to write from the perspective of an AI, since I tried, failed, and abandoned the attempt to do so in my own submission.

First off, the concept of smartpaper was neat and well-explained, though if you revise, I would try to do the explaining within the context of the main story, instead of before it. It took a tad too long to get into the action, and while the description of the technology and character introduction were fine, it only served to emphasize how little action there actually is here. The first half of this story is almost like a commercial for smartpaper narrated by the paper itself.

The ending of the story also didn't hold as much impact for me as it could have. The story itself isn't quite fleshed out, leaving me to guess that you came up with the story to justify the character (which is fine). You could definitely increase our interest and sympathy with the character by showing the smartpaper actually interacting with the world, rather than narrating everything to us (maybe even in real time?). Or introduce us to another, distinct piece of smartpaper. Or increase the dialogue. You have a million different avenues you can explore, and I think your central character and concept are interesting enough to make it worth pursuing.

Though I could be biased because I also have a bit of a weird facination with libraries, and smartpaper sounds both incredible and terrifying for the future of books.

Anyway, well done overall. I think, even at worst, you have a great place to jump off with here, and you should definitely look to expanding this character and world you've created. And let me know when you do.