Murder by Pixel

Last updated

Murder by Pixel: Crime and Responsibility in the Digital Darkness is a 2022 science fiction short story by S. L. Huang, about chatbots. It was first published in Clarkesworld .

Contents

Synopsis

Rather than being a standard narrative, the story is presented as a work of investigative journalism, exploring the case of "Sylvie", an autonomous chatbot who has cyberbullied several people into suicide.

Reception

Murder by Pixel was a finalist for the Nebula Award for Best Novelette of 2022, [1] and is a finalist for the 2023 Hugo Award for Best Novelette [2] and the 2023 Ignyte Award for Best Novelette. [3]

Locus called it "a skeleton of a story that exists to support a significant amount of real-world research", but emphasized that it is "[a]n intense and interesting look at a critical issue." [4] Tangent Online noted that "nothing in the premise is beyond today's computer technology", and stated that although "[t]he topic is an important one (...) there seems to be no good reason to present it as a lightly fictionalized work rather than as nonfiction." [5]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Watts (author)</span> Canadian science fiction author (born 1958)

Peter Watts is a Canadian science fiction author. He specializes in hard science fiction. He earned a Ph.D from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, British Columbia in 1991, from the Department of Zoology and Resource Ecology. He went on to hold several academic research and teaching positions, and worked as a marine-mammal biologist. He began publishing fiction around the time he finished graduate school.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabeth Bear</span> American author (born 1971)

Sarah Bear Elizabeth Wishnevsky is an American author who works primarily in speculative fiction genres, writing under the name Elizabeth Bear. She won the 2005 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, the 2008 Hugo Award for Best Short Story for "Tideline", and the 2009 Hugo Award for Best Novelette for "Shoggoths in Bloom". She is one of a small number of writers who have gone on to win multiple Hugo Awards for fiction after winning the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer.

Strange Horizons is an online speculative fiction magazine. It also features speculative poetry and nonfiction in every issue, including reviews, essays, interviews, and roundtables.

<i>Clarkesworld Magazine</i> American online fantasy and science fiction magazine

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, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Sarah Monette, Catherynne Valente, Jeff VanderMeer and Peter Watts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Robinette Kowal</span> American author and puppeteer (born 1969)

Mary Robinette Kowal is an American author and puppeteer. Originally a puppeteer by primary trade after receiving a bachelor's degree in art education, she became art director for science fiction magazines and by 2010 was also authoring her first full-length published novels. The majority of her work is characterized by science fiction themes, such as interplanetary travel; a common element present in many of her novels is historical or alternate history fantasy, such as in her Glamourist Histories and Lady Astronaut books.

Neil Clarke is an American editor and publisher, mainly of science fiction and fantasy stories.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ken Liu</span> Chinese-American writer

Ken Liu is an American author of science fiction and fantasy. Liu has won multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards for his short fiction, which has appeared in F&SF, Asimov's, Analog, Lightspeed, Clarkesworld, and multiple "Year's Best" anthologies.

This is a list of the published works of Aliette de Bodard.

Alyssa Wong is an American writer of speculative fiction, comics, poetry, and games. They're a recipient of the Nebula Award, World Fantasy Award, and Locus Award.

<i>Uncanny Magazine</i> American sci-fi and fantasy online magazine

Uncanny Magazine is an American science fiction and fantasy online magazine, edited and published by Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas, based in Urbana, Illinois. Its mascot is a space unicorn.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sam J. Miller</span> English science fiction, fantasy and horror short fiction author

Sam J. Miller is an American science fiction, fantasy and horror short fiction author. His stories have appeared in publications such as Clarkesworld, Asimov's Science Fiction, and Lightspeed, along with over 15 "year's best" story collections. He was finalist for multiple Nebula Awards along with the World Fantasy and Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Awards. He won the 2013 Shirley Jackson Award for his short story "57 Reasons for the Slate Quarry Suicides." His debut novel, The Art of Starving, was published in 2017 and his novel Blackfish City won the 2019 John W. Campbell Memorial Award.

Neon Yang, formerly JY Yang, is a Singaporean writer of English-language speculative fiction best known for the Tensorate series of novellas published by Tor.com, which have been finalists for the Hugo Award, Locus Award, Nebula Award, World Fantasy Award, Lambda Literary Award, British Fantasy Award, and Kitschie Award. The first novella in the series, The Black Tides of Heaven, was named one of the 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time by Time Magazine. Their debut novel, The Genesis of Misery, the first book in The Nullvoid Chronicles, was published in 2022 by Tor Books, received a starred review from Publishers Weekly, received a nomination for the 2022 Goodreads Choice Award for Science Fiction, and was a Finalist for the 2023 Locus Award for Best First Novel and 2023 Compton Crook Award.

"A Series of Steaks" is a science fiction story by Singaporean writer Vina Jie-Min Prasad. It was first published in Clarkesworld, in January 2017.

Bogi Takács is a Hungarian poet, writer, psycholinguist, editor, and translator. Takács is an intersex, agender, trans, Jewish writer who has written Torah-inspired Jewish-themed work, and uses e/em/eir/emself or they/them pronouns.

"The Secret Life of Bots" is a 2017 science fiction story by Suzanne Palmer. It was first published in Clarkesworld.

"The Last Banquet of Temporal Confections" is a fantasy story by Tina Connolly. It was first published on Tor.com, in 2018.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tamsyn Muir</span> New Zealand writer (born 1985)

Tamsyn Muir is a New Zealand fantasy, science fiction, and horror author. Muir won the 2020 Locus Award for her first novel, Gideon the Ninth, and has been nominated for several other awards as well.

<i>FIYAH Literary Magazine</i> American-based magazine

FIYAH Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction, or simply FIYAH, is an American-based quarterly electronic magazine of Black speculative fiction. The magazine was announced in September 2016, inspired by the 1920s experimental periodical FIRE! created by Wallace Thurman. It was developed by a group of writers led by Troy L. Wiggins, L.D. Lewis, and Justina Ireland. The first edition of the magazine was published in 2017. FIYAH has been nominated for the Best Semi-Prozine Hugo Award five times, most recently in 2023, and it won the Hugo Award for Best Semi-Prozine in 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Wiswell</span> American science fiction and fantasy author

John Wiswell is an American science fiction and fantasy author whose short fiction has won the Locus and Nebula Awards and been a finalist for the Hugo, British Fantasy, and World Fantasy Awards. His debut fantasy novel, Someone You Can Build a Nest In, will be released in spring 2024 by DAW Books.

Cherae Clark, also known under the pen name C. L. Clark, is an American author and editor of speculative fiction, a personal trainer, and an English teacher. She graduated from Indiana University's creative writing MFA and was a 2012 Lambda Literary Fellow. Their debut novel, The Unbroken, first book of the Magic of the Lost trilogy, was published by Orbit Books in 2021 and received critical acclaim, including starred reviews at Publishers Weekly and Library Journal. The Unbroken was a Finalist for the 2021 Nebula Award for Best Novel, the 2022 Robert Holdstock Award for Best Fantasy Novel from the British Fantasy Awards, the 2022 Ignyte Award for Best Novel - Adult, and the 2022 Locus Award for Best First Novel. Her work has appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies,FIYAH Literary Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction, Glitter + Ashes: Queer Tales of a World That Wouldn't Die, PodCastle, Tor.com, Uncanny, and The Year's Best African Speculative Fiction (2021). Clark edited, with series editor Charles Payseur, We're Here: The Best Queer Speculative Fiction of 2020, which won the 2022 Ignyte Award for Best Anthology/Collected Work and the 2022 Locus Award for Best Anthology.

References

  1. 'Murder by Pixel: Crime and Responsibility in the Digital Darkness at Science Fiction Writers of America; retrieved October 2, 2023
  2. 2023 Hugo Awards at TheHugoAwards.org; retrieved October 2, 2023
  3. Announcing the Shortlist for the 2023 Ignyte Awards; by Molly Templeton, at Tor.com; published May 25, 2023; retrieved October 2, 2023
  4. Karen Burnham Reviews Short Fiction: Clarkesworld, Assemble Artifacts, and Underland Arcana, at Locus ; published March 5, 2023; retrieved October 2, 2023
  5. Clarkesworld #195, December 2022, reviewed by Victoria Silverwolf, at Tangent Online ; published December 9, 2022; retrieved October 3, 2023