Short rounds! One short story by Cory Doctorow and three short stories by Andy Weir.

The first, Scroogled, is a very short story, just hitting 20 pages. Written in the mid-2000s, when Google was beginning its transformation from Mew to Mewtwo (or from cool website to frightening tech giant), it depicts the consequences of Google pursuing a contract from the state to handle first customs, and then internal security more broadly. The main character, a former employee of Google, opens the tale running afoul of the new Department of Homeland Security because the ads his Google profile is receiving are alarming to the g-men — involving shrooms and rocketry. This is the result of a recent agreement forged between Google and the state, that in exchange for not having to constantly answer requests for core user data, Google is offering metadata (ad information, in this case) to them to browse freely. Anyone who has ever participated in NaNoWriMo is going to be in serious trouble. (Just check the ‘weird things you’ve had to Google‘ thread there.) The main character has a friend at Google who has created a tool to clean up profiles, but things don’t go to plan. The book is technically dated at this point, but the main issue is still — even more so — salient. In 2005, Google had access to its users’ search history and email: shortly after this was published it acquired YouTube, and given how much time people spend on that platform, it’s no doubt developed a very good notion of who someone is.For laughs or terror, check out your Google ad center and see what kind of person Google thinks you are. They don’t show nearly the detail they used to, but there are some basic demographic profiles they guess at users being in, with varying success. (Google thinks I’m married, for instance.) The story is driven by its premise, not its characters.

Andy Weir’s James Moriarty, Consulting Criminal, on the other hand, puts its titular character front and center. You’re there for him, although a book about a Sherlock-type detective who assists criminals would be interesting in its own right. I listened to this on Audiobook, and the narrator Graeme Malcolm excels both in general narration and in voicing Moriarty. (Devout Sherlockians may dispute this based on other Moriartys they’ve seen, but I only have Star Trek TNG‘s to go by.) I enjoyed three stories well enough, but they’re almost all discussion oriented, and the most saliently enjoyable aspect was the narration. Moriarty isn’t developed much as a character.