I’ve been reading Ken Liu’s anthology ‘The Hidden Girl and Other Stories’ and finally got to the story I wanted to read most. The trilogy is what the AMC show ‘Pantheon’ is based on, and I was such a fan of the show I just had to go back and read the source material. Given that I’ve seen the show first, it’s hard not to compare while reading. I’ve actually already reviewed the show on this blog, so I think I’ll focus on the differences between these versions of the stories since that’s what interests me most. I’ll review the first story in this post, and then the other two in later posts next week to keep these to a digestible length.

Maddie has been having trouble at school since her father died. His laptop is all she has left of him, a reminder of the time they spent together when he taught her all about technology and computers. Bullies at school have been following her home lately through that same technology though, and what was once a source of pride and happiness has become torment. That is, until a mysterious stranger who only types in emojis contacts her via the laptop. ‘Emo’ somehow manages to hack into all the mean girls’ emails, redirecting their hateful messages to one another before they can reach Maddie and turning their bullying back on themselves. She’s delighted by this incredible use of technology, but doesn’t understand how Emo could have found her, who they are, or why they would help her. This intro is almost identical to the show, and I was surprised to see how close it was actually. It was a little bit faster, a little more tell than show, but that makes sense when you’re writing a short story instead of a TV series. The intrigue of a mysterious character talking through the laptop has always struck me as a great way to hold a reader’s attention.

The plot develops, again similarly to the show, after Maddie’s mother, Ellen, discovers that she’s been talking to a stranger on the internet. After a quick interrogation, they’re both shocked to learn that Emo knows about a poem that Ellen and David once loved. Ellen immediately calls up Peter Waxman, a old friend and colleague of Davids at the company he worked for, Logorhythms. As it turns out, the ‘failed’ cancer treatment they used on David was actually just an excuse to scan his brain with a laser and upload him into a computer. For me, this is easily one of the best hooks I’ve read. It’s great world building on top of the juicy character development that Maddie and Ellen go through on finding out that David is not quite dead, but not quite alive either. Peter explains that David’s uploaded brain has been used to solve a certain class of complex problems at Logorhythms for a while now, but the parts of David that they had kept repressed were trying to get out, and that’s why he contacted them.

The later half of the story goes by quite quickly. Maddie and Ellen demand that Peter give them David back, and the company complies, for some reason. I didn’t think this part was quite as intriguing. Maddie and Ellen have to a lot more work to get David back in the show. It’s a little unfair to compare them this way, but I think it works a lot better. The short story is more focused on the ideas at hand than the plot itself. It feels convenient by comparison. Maddie and Ellen take David and setup a large server at her grandmother’s house off the grid at David’s insistence. He’s convinced that a new class of being is coming to life on Earth, and that they will not be chained. Other UIs (uploaded intelligence) are vaguely introduced through some dialogue with David, but Maddie doesn’t actually meet them in the story, which was a little disappointing, but again, not a very fair comparison to make.

The story is a lot more bare bones, but the concepts are so cool and the hook is so strong I can see why the show runners kept the parts that they did. There are also some interweaved plots from the show that don’t show up in the first story because it focuses wholly on Maddie rather than having multiple perspectives, and I’m excited to see whether the rest of the cast will show up in the sequel. All in all, I think its a great story. Unfortunately, it does suffer in comparison with the show since it is much more limited, but the fact that it spawned such a sprawling narrative is a testament to how huge of a development the UIs are, and how interesting the world is.

Thank you for reading,

Benjamin Hawley