The Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong *****

The Teller of Small Fortunes by JulieLeong

When Tao, born in Shinara, was eight, her father died. Her mother, Shi-Wen, moved to Eshtera and remarried. Since she foresaw her father’s death, she felt responsible and restricted her talent to small fortunes. Can Tao find her place in the world?

At fifteen, Tao left her unhappy home. She traveled Eshtera in a wagon pulled by her mule, Laohu. “Teller of Small Fortunes was painted in neat black letters.” Along the way, she met (1) Mash, “a grizzled, bearded giant of a man, who wore studded leather armor, a menacing steel mace, and a truly enormous backpack from which various weapon hafts were protruding.” (2) Silt, “Siltarien Silvertongue, the gentleman thief, friend of fortune, villain to the wealthy, pilferer of pearls, who has now given up his felonious ways, and has instead become an honest adventurer.” (3) Kina, “the baker of unsightly pastries.” Later, they are joined by Fidelitus, the cat, and Fortis, the pony.

Tao restricted herself to small fortunes because of her guilt for foreseeing her father’s death and not wanting to attract the Royal Guild of Mages, who would force her to work for them. Because of her Asian appearance, everyone recognizes her as a foreigner, exacerbating her feeling of not belonging.

Mash is searching for his six-year-old daughter Leah, whom he believes was kidnapped.

Silt wants to be a reformed thief, but he can’t define himself by what he is not. He needs to be something.

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Cultish by Amanda Montell ****

Cultish by Amanda Montell

The language of cults, from religious ones to multi-level marketing schemes, from fitness to political & conspiracy groups. The 47^th US president is mentioned 25 times in the text and 14 more in the notes. A survey of online & offline influencers.

Some examples of common techniques are: (1) cults have their own jargon: elusive acronyms and insider-y mantras. It all inspires a sense of intrigue, so potential recruits want to know more; then, once they’re in, it creates camaraderie, such that they start to look down on people who aren’t privy to this exclusive code. (2) create community, establish an “us” and a “them,” to align collective values, to justify questionable behavior, to instill ideology and inspire fear. And the most compelling techniques had little to do with drugs, sex, … instead, they had everything to do with language. (3) the thought-terminating cliché. Catch phrases aimed at halting an argument from moving forward by discouraging critical thought. Also known as semantic stop signs, to hastily dismiss dissent or rationalize flawed reasoning.The author discusses many organizations that use language to influence people. She starts with the most infamous cults that led to mass suicides, such as Jonestown and Heaven’s Gate, before moving on to other religious-type organizations. She doesn’t stop there. Next is MLMs (multi-level marketing) groups like Mary Kay and Amway. Next comes exercise groups like SoulCycle and CrossFit. She closes with political groups like QAnon and politicians.

She struggles to differentiate between good and bad groups. The words and intonation put exercisers in a transcendent headspace, but just for the length of a class. If it gets to be too much, followers are free to tap out at any time without life-ruining exit costs. Fitness studios have their followers’ consent. At least they’re supposed to. However, as we’ve learned, wherever there are magnetic leaders charging money for meaning, there’s the chance for things to go awry.

She makes influencing groups of people seem easy and sleeping at night hard.

The author has a podcast called, Sounds Like a Cult.

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Culpability by Bruce Holsinger *****

Culpability by Bruce Holsinger

Self-driving car. Teen Charlie at the wheel. Dad Noah writing a memo beside him. Young sis Izzy texting Charlie. Genius mom Lorelei between her two daughters. Older sis Alice screams. Charlie grabs the wheel. Two old people die in the crash. All the *s.

The question is: who is culpable? Can it be the self-driving car? How about the minor in the driver’s seat? How about the supervising parent in the front seat? Could the blame go to young Izzy, who texted Charlie, or her older sister Alice, who distracted him by screaming? Who or what is culpable? The best AI novel. Read it.

I can’t help contemplating, as I have many times since that day: Would the AI have prevented an accident altogether if Charlie hadn’t acted? Without Alice’s scream from the back seat, would our car have simply performed a gentle swerve, passing the Drummonds’ Honda without incident? Would we even have noticed anything amiss? Would the Drummonds be alive?

If the accident had never occurred. If only I hadn’t brought work along to a lacrosse tournament, I would have been driving, or at least paying more attention to Charlie’s driving. If only Lorelei hadn’t insisted on buying a car with an autodrive system, Charlie would likely never have dared to text while behind the wheel. If only we had never bought smartphones for our kids— A regression of if onlys: bleak, infinite, fruitless, yet impossible to elude, these grim questions of what we all could have done differently.

After the accident, the Cassidy-Shaw family retreats to a cabin on the Chesapeake Bay. Next door, billionaire Daniel Monet has built an enormous armed compound. First, Charlie and Eurydice Monet are attracted to each other. Then, Noah discovers that his genius wife, Lorelei Shaw, knows Daniel Monet. Later, Charlie and Eurydice become lost on the Bay.

Noah Cassidy is the narrator. Quotations from —Lorelei Shaw, Silicon Souls: On the Culpability of Artificial Minds, and chats between Alice and Large Language Model Blair. Note to eBook reader. The chats are published as images, thus hard to see on an eReader.

Lorelei Shaw received a MacArthur Fellowship, Genius Award. “[Lorelei sees] all those [vase] fragments on the floor and immediately you start putting the vase back together in your head. It’s why nobody wants to do jigsaws with you, because you can do a thousand-piece puzzle in half an hour. This goes with this, that goes with that, here’s how everything ties together.”

The astute reader will see most of the reveals coming. This increases the impact of the final reveal.

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