Early Adopter by Drew Harrison Book Review

by Catalina Bonati

4.25/5 stars

Early Adopter (2024) by Drew Harrison is a science fiction short story collection. It ranges from space opera to techno utopia/dystopia and encompasses plots that delve in AI art, AI girlfriends, planetary gentrification, connected minds, biotech, robots, and reflections on what it means to be a god. Written in simple language, this book is unpretentious, engaging and has a fluid pace.

The collection begins with the story “To Run Again,” which plays with the concept of biotech as a machine learning tool that is integrated into the body and that quickly surpasses its original purpose into the realm of horror. As an introductory piece, it works well in introducing AI horror and scientific greed which are recurring themes in this collection. The following story “Commercialopolis” is a bright story of a sales robot trapped in a routine loop within an abandoned space station. It uses upbeat 1950s marketing dialogue and a portion of the story is written in rhyming verse, which highlights the robot’s experience as an idealized capitalist fantasy. This story is charming and although a bit sad, it’s a sharp and quick read that stands out from the rest for its narrative style. It’s a bit like The Outer Worlds (2019) videogame, which indulges in 1950s nostalgia in a gritty dystopian world. The stories “Early Adopter” and “The Final Artist” both portray relationships between AI and the infinite knowledge of the internet. In “Early Adopter,” the protagonist creates an AI girlfriend for company, yet she quickly outgrows him despite showing him tenderness. This story clearly takes inspiration from the film Her (2013). In “The Final Artist,” an AI is nominated for a Pulitzer and it discusses the computational meaning of art to humans, which is math-based and opposed to the human interviewer’s point of view. “Alignment” and “The Emulated” deal with the human god complex applied to military avarice and the corporate power of acquisition. In “Alignment,” the American military has invented a weapon which allows a subject to will anything they want into reality, which they call the power of a god. The story revolves around a game devised by a hired philosopher in which nations must abide the rules and structure set by a god without losing their wealth or properties (it was a form of monopoly), yet despite its premise the game does not seem to relate so much to the idea of an all-encompassing powerful individual. In “The Emulated,” the final story, a reverend is invited to participate in a program in a company which creates a real world written through code. Along with another person on the project, together they become the gods of this simulation, which is an emulation of their own world. It reads like an open world god game in which they intend to do good but do things such as remove obstacles for their people, which make the emulations become stronger in their religious exaltations and their warfare. Although it is meant to emulate our own world, the removal of obstacles (such as having many good crop years, not having viruses or illness, and increasing the presence of wildlife) would instead lead to an entirely different kind of society in which culture, war, politics and even climate and nature would differ completely, thus voiding the premise of the military wanting to cash in on the emulation in order to experiment with warfare. In “Homonoia,” inspired by Sense8 (2015-2016), a scientific experiment merges the minds of seven leading scientists in order to create one mind that will single-handedly solve the global warming crisis. The hive mind later becomes hungry and begs of its bodies to consume more minds, which is a brilliant idea reminiscent of Star Trek’s Borg. “The Terminal on Europa” is a space opera in which the settlers who terraform and mine Europa are tired of the tourism-oriented ambitions of the planet’s business focus. This story touches upon cloning and teleportation in quite a uniquely funny and dark way.

This collection includes a variety of themes, some of which repeat, but are even then told through different perspectives such as in the AI stories. These stories are mainly told in fluid, uncomplicated language and the pacing for these stories are just right, which focuses the narrative on the plot and the setting, all of which are unique yet inspired. All these stories are futuristic or in the near-future and builds upon current technological developments, such as the utopian/dystopian machine learning biotech horror in “To Run Again” and the coded simulated world in “The Emulated.” Most of these stories expand on feasible developments out of not just modern tech, but on current military processes and sociopolitical scenarios. All stories are accompanied by an illustrated title page, all of which use different artistic styles which is always a welcome addition in books. Overall, Harrison’s writing style is not centered on the cyberjargon of the harder sci-fi novels, but is reminiscent of Ray Bradbury and Ted Chiang’s laidback and open storytelling. Early Adopter is an easy-to-approach science fiction collection which is recommended for those who wish to read softer sci fi and who like science fiction that is intelligent and engaging with imaginative technological worldbuilding.