52
votes
Utility by Jack Nicholls - fun sci fi short in which a super powerful future human tries very hard to impress and reassure a 21st century human
Link information
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- Title
- Utility
- Word count
- 4301 words
This is what science fiction would look like if written for a Leslie Neilson movie and it's simply fantastic.
Thank you for sharing this !
Omg I was trying to imagine who'd be in my dream cast for a live action version of this and you nailed it 😂
I just read the sci fi short Utility by Jack Nicholls, and it's a total riot. I was expecting something Black-Mirror-esque from the title, so I was pleasantly surprised by the comedy. What a fun sci fi read! You can read it in its entirety at the posted link. Here's my own description of the premise, but it really doesn't do the story justice:
More of my thoughts on this story, **including spoilers**:
First of all the character names. Extract-of-malt. Major Bedlam. 😂 These perfectly capture the mood of the story.
I love that in a society that has transcended scarcity and the very limits of the physical body, humans are still human enough to leave obnoxious comments on (their version of) social media like calling Extract's simulated water "FAKE" (yes, in all caps) and "amateur hour".
The ending with Extract's blunders being interpreted as a totally intentional and well-executed strategy-- perfect. And Extract "suddenly regretting curing the major's cancer"-- it's hard for me to imagine another context where this line would actually be funny, the way it is in this story!
OK, this was fun, thanks for bringing it to attention
That was so fun! Thank you for sharing!
Really delightful!