"Better Living Through Algorithms" is a 2023 science fiction short story by Naomi Kritzer. It was first published in Clarkesworld and was the winner of the 2024 Hugo Award for Best Short Story.
Linnea, a young woman working a boring office job, is told about a new productivity and wellness app called Abelique from a friend. When her boss encourages her to download it to increase her productivity, she is surprised when the app encourages her to prioritize her personal life to the neglect of her professional life. As the story progresses, the app begins to make more decisions for her, all of which seem to make her life better– taking up drawing, going on walks, interacting with a community of artists. As allegations of privacy issues begin to appear around the app, Linnea's tech journalist friend Margo investigates its "shadowy" origins and reveals that the app is simply an AI algorithm tasked with "making people happy." The app is shut down, with replacements created filled with scams and profiteering. Linnea, at first adrift without Abelique's prompting, discovers that some of the app's former users have decided to keep doing the things that made them happy, including continuing the community of artists offline. [1]
"Better Living Through Algorithms" won the 2024 Hugo Award for Best Short Story, [2] and was a finalist for the Nebula Award for Best Short Story in 2023 and the WSFA Small Press Award. [3]
"The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" is a 1973 short work of philosophical fiction by American writer Ursula K. Le Guin. With deliberately both vague and vivid descriptions, the narrator depicts a summer festival in the utopian city of Omelas, whose prosperity depends on the perpetual misery of a single child. "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" was nominated for the Locus Award for Best Short Fiction in 1974 and won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story in 1974.
Kij Johnson is an American writer of fantasy. She is a faculty member at the University of Kansas.
Nnedimma Nkemdili "Nnedi" Okorafor is a Nigerian American writer of science fiction and fantasy for both children and adults. She is best known for her Binti Series and her novels Who Fears Death, Zahrah the Windseeker, Akata Witch, Akata Warrior, Lagoon and Remote Control. She has also written for comics and film.
Clarkesworld Magazine is an American online fantasy and science fiction magazine. It released its first issue October 1, 2006, and has maintained a regular monthly schedule since, publishing fiction by authors such as Elizabeth Bear, Kij Johnson, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Sarah Monette, Catherynne M. Valente, Jeff VanderMeer and Peter Watts.
Neil Clarke is an American editor and publisher, mainly of science fiction and fantasy stories.
Nora Keita Jemisin is an American science fiction and fantasy writer. Her fiction includes a wide range of themes, notably cultural conflict and oppression. Her debut novel, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, and the subsequent books in her Inheritance Trilogy received critical acclaim. She has won several awards for her work, including the Locus Award. The three books of her Broken Earth series made her the first author to win the Hugo Award for Best Novel in three consecutive years, as well as the first to win for all three novels in a trilogy. She won a fourth Hugo Award, for Best Novelette, in 2020 for Emergency Skin, and a fifth Hugo Award, for Best Graphic Story, in 2022 for Far Sector. Jemisin was a recipient of the MacArthur Fellows Program Genius Grant in 2020.
Will McIntosh is a science fiction and young adult author, a Hugo-Award-winner, and a winner or finalist for many other awards. Along with ten novels, including Defenders,Love Minus Eighty, and Burning Midnight, he has published dozens of short stories in magazines such as Asimov's Science Fiction, Strange Horizons, Lightspeed Magazine, Clarkesworld, and Interzone. His stories are frequently reprinted in different "Year's Best" anthologies.
Ken Liu is an American author of science fiction and fantasy. Liu has won multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards for his novel translations and original short fiction, which has appeared in F&SF, Asimov's Science Fiction, Analog, Lightspeed, Clarkesworld, and multiple "Year's Best" anthologies.
The Locus Award for Best Short Story is one of a series of Locus Awards given every year by Locus Magazine. Awards presented in a given year are for works published in the previous calendar year.
The 74th World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon), also known as MidAmeriCon II, was held on 17–21 August 2016 at the Bartle Hall Convention Center in Kansas City, Missouri, United States. The convention's name, by established Worldcon tradition, follows after the first MidAmeriCon, the 34th World Science Fiction Convention, held in Kansas City in 1976.
Yoon Ha Lee is an American science fiction and fantasy writer, known for his Machineries of Empire space opera novels and his short fiction. His first novel, Ninefox Gambit, received the 2017 Locus Award for Best First Novel.
This is a list of the published works of Aliette de Bodard.
"Cat Pictures Please" is a 2015 science fiction short story by American writer Naomi Kritzer. It was first published in Clarkesworld Magazine.
Naomi Kritzer is an American speculative fiction writer and blogger. Her 2015 short story "Cat Pictures Please" was a Locus Award and Hugo Award winner and was nominated for a Nebula Award. Her novel Catfishing on CatNet won the 2020 Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book.
The Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book is an award given annually to a book published for young adult readers in the field of science fiction or fantasy. The name of the award was chosen because a lodestar is "a star that guides or leads, especially in navigation, where it is the sole reliable source of light—the star that leads those in uncharted waters to safety". The nomination and selection process is administered by the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS), and the award is presented at the Hugo Award ceremony at the annual World Science Fiction Convention, or Worldcon, although it is not itself a Hugo Award.
Kelly Robson is a Canadian science fiction, fantasy and horror writer. She has won the 2018 Nebula Award for Best Novelette for her novelette "A Human Stain" published at Tor.com. She has also been nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novella in 2016 for "Waters of Versailles" and in 2019 for "Gods, Monsters and the Lucky Peach", both published at Tor.com; "Waters of Versailles" also received the 2016 Aurora Award for best Canadian short fiction.
"The Thing About Ghost Stories" is a 2018 fantasy short story by Naomi Kritzer. It was first published in Uncanny Magazine.
"I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter" is a military science fiction short story by Isabel Fall, published on 1 January 2020 in Clarkesworld Magazine. The story relates the experience of Barb, a woman whose gender has been reassigned to "attack helicopter" so as to make her a better pilot. It was a finalist for the 2021 Hugo Award, under the title "Helicopter Story".
Suzanne Palmer is an American science fiction writer known for her novelette "The Secret Life of Bots", which won a Hugo Award for Best Novelette in 2018. The story also won a WSFA Small Press Award and was a finalist for the Theodore Sturgeon Award.
Isabel J. Kim is an American speculative fiction writer. For her short stories she has won the annual Shirley Jackson Award and been nominated for the Astounding Award for Best New Writer. Her short fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine, Lightspeed, Apex Magazine, Strange Horizons, Fantasy Magazine, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Cast of Wonders, and khōréō.