A decent collection of short stories. Many are known stories that have been turned into having a robot character or perspective. Overall I only disliked a couple of the 15 in the collection; which is a really good ratio for the average anthology.

Story #1 - Making the 'Other' We Need by Jonathan Strahan
This is like the purge meets contract killer robots. It's good. Strahan doesn't really write 'bad' stories; but it's not overly impressive either. I tend to expect more from him.

Story #2 - A Guide for Working Breeds by Vina Jie-Min Prasad
Okay this one is really amusing to me. Long distance robot sex is the theme. No word of a lie. Very entertaining.

Story #3 - Test 4 Echo by Peter Watts
This is an excellent story about what might happen if an AI cropped up at an inconvenient time. A reminder of how little consideration humans have for other living beings (of any variety).

Story #4 - The Endless by Saad Z. Hossain
Very clever. I don't want to say anything as I'd hate to give it away!

Story #5 - Brother Rifle by Daryl Gregory
I’d be shocked if this author hasn’t done time in the military of some sort. This is such a well done story about PTSD, possible therapies, inner demons and thoughts, and how humans can automate something to feel less real. A brilliant use of keeping the ‘robot’ as a minor character; yet having the robot be the only thing that really mattered at the same time.

Story #6 - The Hurt Pattern by Tochi Odyebuchi
This is a very weak Tochi story. The concept is cool but it lacks the real depth and dedication needed to really push a point through to the reader. Very disappointed given how good Tochi s work usually is.

Story #7 - Idols by Ken Liu
What a cool idea! This would make an amazing Black Mirror episode (or better yet a full movie!).
Liu has been making a huge splash in the fantasy/sci-fi genre of late; and after reading this story it’s easy to see why.
Imagine if you could converse with someone whose dead, an enemy or foe, or even yourself? Just program a robot to know everything about you that is online!

Story #8 - Bigger Fish by Sarah Pinsker
The good ole reminder that we must be careful how much autonomy we give robots. And/or be VERY careful to be exact in our orders or requests to them. As a programmer/developer I can attest to this directly. Computers are only as smart as the commands we give; until we give vague commands and then they ‘logically’ determine what to do. That’s when it’s scary.

Story #9 - Sonnie's Union by Peter F. Hamilton
Easily the weirdest story to date. I don’t even know how to describe it without giving everything away… except that it involves moving consciousness around into other modes.

Story #10 - Dancing with Death by John Chu
Well if this isn’t just the cutest romance story about connecting over imminent death, ice skating, robot mechanics, and random grunting. ;)

Story #11 - Polished Performance by Alastair Reynolds
One of the best sci-fi writers of the 21st century. Reynolds brings to life robots and AI in such a human fashion. While still keeping them logical. I really like these robots are fallible; they don’t know what they don’t know.
This story is easily ruined by spoilers so you’ll just have to read it.

Story #12 - An Elephant Never Forgets by Rich Larson
Starts out like a first person shooter video game where you have amnesia. Ends in gruesome torture, violence, sex, and death.

Story #13 - The Translator by Annalee Newitz
I’m a bit disappointed Newitz didn’t give us more than their tiny, super short story (which is exactly like Thunderhead from the Scythe series). Very disappointing.

Story #14 - Fairy Tales for Robots by Sofia Samatar
This is such a cool story. Our lead gal is talking to her creation a robot, that is about to go online the next day. She decides to tell the ‘infant’ robot fairy tales, modified to be relevant for robots. There’s sleeping beauty, Pinocchio, nutcracker, and, a personal fave, the wizard of Oz.
Think of it, Tin-man as a robot. Mind blown! Definitely checking out more by this gal.

Story #15 - Chiarascuro in Red by Suzanne Palmer
Very impressive how much character development is set forth in very few pages. While not the most interesting story it was a quick read.
I definitely want to look up more by this author now. This appears to be one of the two new authors I will have discovered from this anthology.

Story #16 - A Glossary of Radicalization by Brooke Bolander
Mildly disappointed the last story wasn’t from Strahan; and definitely disappointed in how simple and weak this story was given the relatively well written over stories. Definitely a poor choice for last. A tolerable read, nothing special to note; and so for the final story it feels boring and already done.

** I was provided an electronic ARC by the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.**

I totally came at this from being a girl who loves AI's, robots, machines, and a recent fall-in-love-swoop with Ken Liu's work (when I fell in love with him during doing my annual full read of the 2020 Hugo Nominations; his for "A Guide for Working Breeds"). This, obviously, was going to be a spangle of fireworks for me, and -- OF COURSE! -- it was, too. This was amazing and I loved it. The ones that were straight prose and ones that were done in brand new, experimental formatting.

Anyone with a love for these topics and scifi needs to get on this one stat!

I’m not a big fan of anthologies and reluctantly I started to read it. I loved it! Sharp and with no padding these are fast beautiful stories.

The collection's strength is in the variety of robots and artificial intelligences, in different modes and attitudes.

The opening story, Vina Jie-Min Prasad's "A Guide for Working Breeds," is about an assassin robot and a robot who works in a raccoon cafe, and if you think that will be fluffy and adorable, you are correct. If you're looking for cute stories about robot friendship, Suzanne Palmer's "Chiaroscuro in Red," about an art-history student who finds himself entirely responsible for a manufacturing robot, is also a good bet.

Peter Watts' "Test 4 Echo" should be sad in a classic science-fiction short story way, except it turns out I'm really excited about robot octopus arms even when they're doomed. In Saad Z. Hossain's "The Endless", a decommissioned Thai airport AI originally appears to be doomed, but instead manages a twisty and elaborate revenge, which makes for an experience rather like a carnival ride.

But the story that stood out most in my reading is Tochi Onyebuchi's "The Hurt Pattern," which weaves together student debt and the law school experience and the glitter of prestigious educations and people in finance with the absolute bleakness of police violence in America. He tells a story about the way those glittering institutions are not only complicit but responsible that feels sideways from six months from now in the way that science fiction does best.

Anthologies can be very good, and depending firstly on the quality of the writers taking part, and secondly, the people who select what is to be put into the book, it might or mightn't grab you.
From the beginning it was good, lots of retrospective Asimovish style writing, a nice look into the future, and what pros and cons could be presented to us by the onslaught of Robots in our lives in the near and far futures.
It does seem rather apt to have such an anthology of short stories on the centenary of the invention of the word 'robot' in everyday language.
Maybe it's just me, but when you read an anthology, it's that kind of pick it up/put it down and ponder factor. Maybe go out for a walk with the dog and mull over the last short story you read, and think about how good/inspiring/emotionally provoking/dull/badly written/well written it was. Made to order for me just went on too long. The first ten hours or so was great, and each story was pondered in that prior fashion. After the ten hours though, it just seemed to start glazing over, I was reading the words on the page, but they weren't sinking in. Each page was beginning to be rushed and became monotonous.
I love to read, and I am a lover of enjoyable/entertaining/keep me interested in the writing type tales. Made to order just lost it. I think it was the sheer size of it, it just went on and on. I really do feel too, that like myself, by a certain point, readers are going to begin to lose interest in this anthology because of its sheer size and drop it for the next book. This really highlights the main problem for me, hopefully, some of the authors of these anthologies can take note here too. The problem is that the people who have written in the latter part of this book aren't going to be remembered as well as the ones in the beginning. I rarely glaze over with a book, but this one I did, and as an author, if I entered my story into this anthology, and it was in the last quarter, I would have this terrible feeling that the readership would have put the book down by the time they would have got to my rivetting tale.
Though, of what I can remember of the stories, it was very good, just too long, maybe a volume 1 and 2?

I love it when an anthology is good from beginning to end. This one was 90% top notch, and the other 10% was above average. Not bad for a collection. I really enjoy robot-related sci-fi, so this particular anthology was right up my alley. My favorite stories were "Sonnie’s Union" by Peter F. Hamilton and "The Endless" by Saad Z. Hossain, and Sarah Pinsker's was the best in the book.

Brilliant collection of scifi stories, with highlights from Vina Jie-Min Prasad, Sarah Pinsker, Saad Hossain, and Tochi Onyebuchi. Build around the theme of robots, the collection is a complex mix of perspectives that is thought provoking as well as entertaining.

Parts of the book are written reminds me of a messaging app.
It was very difficult to read.
This book goes through different robot characters.
The robots are described and tell their own stories.

Some great stories, others weaker. The subject interests me a lot, but it does not offer what it promises. Few robots and few revolution. But good stories.
A full review in spanish: https://dreamsofelvex.blogspot.com/2020/04/made-to-order-varios-autores.html

Thank you, Netgalley for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I have always been a little intimidated by the Science fiction genre. After starting the book blog and bookstagram I am trying to read genres that are outside my comfort zone. So far I have managed to read more fantasy. I also have been picking up more non-fiction lately. When I requested this anthology of science fiction, my plan was to see how robots and AIs were used as characters. This book is a short story collection with works from some new and up-coming authors and some from established authors as well. The book has 16 short stories that discuss AIs and robots where we see them taking over the human workforce, some more sentient beings than just machines. The book discusses the impact of these technological advancements on humans and their existence. The cultural changes and the societal standards that come into play in accommodating new beings. We also have some human-robot hybrids, some futuristic humans with electronics being part of them and AIs with human physiology as well, playing central characters. I loved some, a few were definitely interesting in the way the ethics, moral fiber and psychology were being explored in these stories. Some were a total miss for me as I didn't understand where the story was going and in a few cases, the technical info about the technologies was a little difficult to comprehend. I gave the book 3.5 stars and enjoyed the stories I loved, the others were definitely interesting to read. If you love science fiction and love robots and AIs then this book will have stories that will definitely appeal to you. Make sure to check it out. Definitely recommend trying this out.

I was hoping for a book which involved shirt stories sling a similar these to Issac asimov, and in some ways I have. Like many anthologies there were some stand out stories that stood out more than others, however overall this was a solidly good and interesting book. I loved the themes that the stories encompassed and appreciated how easy it was to read. There was a good quantity of stories while the quality was by no means hindered.
Solid collection of stories, I would definitely keep an eye out for other books written by the authors included.

I requested this ARC as some of the featured writers are amongst my favourite.
In my experience a collection of short stories is always a mix of story you will love and other that will fall flat.
The evaluation of each story is up to the reader as it depends on the taste.
On a general level I can say this was an interesting and engrossing read and I added some author to my TBR.
A good read, recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

Made To Order: Robots and Revolution
Edited by Jonathan Strahan

As I’ve explained before, I’m not usually a fan of anthologies. The quality and tones of the stories can be highly variable, which I find personally jarring, and one story not to my taste can make me stop reading the whole volume. When I read short stories, I always prefer single authors collections.

par.

So why did I request a eARC of Made To Order:Robots and Revolution from NetGalley?

Well, for starters, I love robots. Always have. Who doesn’t? Remember that part in the beginning of Futurama, when Fry was so excited to have a robot for a best friend because it had always been his dream? I could totally relate. As a kid I remember getting My Robot Buddy by Alfred Slote from the library and I loved the Norby books by Janet and Isaac Asimov. I wanted to BE C-3P0. Bottom line: I heart robots.

On top of that, I saw the list of contributors to the collection and I decided to take a chance. There are new stories here by authors I love, including Sarah Pinsker, Peter F. Hamilton, Brooke Bolander, and Annalee Newitz.

Peter F. Hamilton is most well known for his tomes and doorstops, not his short fiction. But that didn’t make this story, Sonnie’s Union, any less enjoyable. It was a return to his Confederation universe and was excellent, but it really stretched the idea of what is a “robot” beyond what I personally feel is the limit. The story is centered on a woman whose consciousness inhabited a body that was sort of a golem or chimera. To me, once it gets too biological, it stops feeling like a robot. Otherwise, very fun story.

Sarah Pinsker is one of my new favorite authors. I loved her debut novel, A Song For A New Day, whose near future world of social distancing following a plague and terrorist attacks doesn’t seem so implausible anymore. She wrote Bigger Fish, a detective story that, like Hamilton’s story, is excellent in spite of the lack of traditional SF robots. Instead, the robotic characters are the AIs running a smart home. This story is not to be missed.

Annalee Newitz also wrote about an AI and not a more traditional robot in The Translator. After the masterful job she did creating the robot protagonist Paladin in her debut novel Autonomous, I was very excited to see what she would do her. I was not disappointed (except for the lack of a traditional clanking robot). Her story is rich and full of heart.

I could go on about all of the other stories in the anthology, but those three were my favorites. This book is definitely worth checking out!

"You have too many books about murderous robots" says a friend, perusing my bookcase with a suspicious face.
"That does not compute.... Oops!! I meant, I fail to see how this as a problem."
"Wait. What!?!"

Messing with friends-who-think I have the personality of a sociopathic robot, aside, I love a good robot story, and holy moly does this anthology deliver!

Short stories are normally great commuting reads. The tales can be consumed in bite-sized chunks long enough to distract you from the trip and short enough not to get too engrossed in reading and miss your stop. This collection doesn't play by those rules and fit that mold. With its impressive kick-ass line up sure to impress most SFF readers, I didn't want to stop reading. It has an incredible range from creepy and surreal to hilariously brilliant. They were all equally fascinating and have introduced an amazingly diverse cast of unforgettable characters: a disgruntled ex-airport AI; a figure-skating loving robot, Dr-Moreau-esque cyborgs and an overly melodramatic and theatrical space crew. There wasn't a single story in there I didn't devour. There are several authors who have now moved much higher up my TBR pile and a few new ones I need to read more.

Recommended for fans of All Systems Red, Dan Simmons, Isaac Asimov, SFF readers

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC.

I can't recall the last time I read a themed anthology that was consistently this much fun. If you've been sitting at home thinking, "The next Murderbot cannot come soon enough!", Made To Order is here for you.

In another occurrence so exceedingly rare that I cannot stress it enough, the funny, light-hearted stories in this collection are the most memorable. "A Guide For Working Breeds" by Vina Jie-Min Prasad, "Bigger Fish" by Sarah Pinsker, "Chiaroscuro In Red" by Suzanne Palmer, these all stand out for their world-building while the grimmer tales of robot revolution come off as a bit too self-consciously constructed too truly hit their marks.

If you are looking for cold-blooded robot murder though, take heart. There are exceptions on that of the spectrum as well.. "Sin Eater" by Ian R. Macleod is so weird I've already read it twice, and "Sonnie's Union" by Peter F. Hamilton shines above the rest as a wicked robot revenge action movie of story.

As with any anthology, there's a bit of sameyness that sets in. In a less packed collection, "Polished Performance" by Alistair Reynolds and "The Endless" by Saad Z. Hossain would stand out a bit more. But they're still memorable for their fun high-concepts and set pieces, and almost every story in Made To Order has something neat to offer.

Highly recommended to anyone who feels more comfortable with murderbots than humans.

Made to Order: Robots and Revolution is a science fiction anthology that contains 16 stories. The central theme is robots, machines, and AIs that are made to order going out of the norm which results in unexpected changes.

The stories vary greatly in length and tone. Some stories are light-hearted and humorous while others are dark and twisted. Some stories deal with socioeconomic issues while others focus on individuals.

Instead of reviewing each story, which would make this review unnecessarily long, I'll briefly talk about my highlights.

- A Guide for Working Breeds by Vina Jie-Min Prasad: The anthology's opener, which consists of correspondence and banter between a new robot and its mentor. A very fun read.

- The Endless by Saad Z. Hossain: The outdated AI of an airport loses its job, is forced to work somewhere else, and plots revenge. Serious cyberpunk vibes. Dark, yet humorous. The ending was great.

- Idols by Ken Liu: Idols are simulations of people based on their online presence shared in the cloud. They're used in many different fields, but the way lawyers use them for the court was kinda horrifying.

- Bigger Fish by Sarah Pinsker: I love murder mysteries and they're even better with robots!

- Polished Performance by Alastair Reynolds: Sentient robots on a starship face a serious problem regarding the passengers and try to cover up the whole thing. This one may very well be my favourite. It strikes a great balance between funny and chilling.

- Fairy Tales for Robots by Sofia Samatar: A scientist tells human fairy tales, albeit slightly modified, to the robot she created. Some people seem to love Samatar's prose and now I can see why.

- Chiarascuro in Red by Suzanne Palmer: A university student becomes the sole owner of a robot factory worker. A bit sad but ends on a positive note.

- A Glossary of Radicalization by Brooke Bolander: A robot girl resents humans for making robots human-like and decides to do something about it. Making robots in our image so that we can control them is probably a bad idea, right?

For those who are interested, here are the rest of the stories:

- Test 4 Echo by Peter Watts
- Brother Rifle by Daryl Gregory
- The Hurt Pattern by Tochi Onyebuchi
- Sonnie's Union by Peter F. Hamilton
- Dancing With Death by John Chu
- An Elephant Never Forgets by Rich Larson
- The Translator by Annalee Newitz
- Sin Eater by Ian R. MacLeod

Overall this is a very solid anthology and there's a story in it for everyone. Highly recommended.

Thanks to the publisher (Rebellion/Solaris) and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Robots and automatons are a staple of science fiction, but in the age of AI, internet, and virtual reality, it’s nice to get an updated take (or several) on the sub-genre.

My only complaint about this collection is that sci-fi (and fantasy) is a difficult genre to do justice to in short story format. There’s not enough space for world building, so the writers have to either take shortcuts – use a familiar-ish kind of setting – or as sadly too often happens here, leave the reader a little frustrated with the brevity of the whole thing. But hey: wanting more isn’t the worst complaint! 🙂

My favourite of the lot is Peter Hamilton’s Sonnie’s Union, in which humans can pilot fearsome biomech units – a bit Avatar, a bit Real Steel, all brought together perfectly. I was amused by what I assume is an in-joke, having the baddy a Welshman called Alastair (Reynolds?) 😉 I also very much liked Fairy Tales for Robots, which briefly looks at a dozen familiar stories and points out the ‘robot-ness’ of them.

There’s a huge variety of approaches taken across the sixteen tales. From the light-hearted ice-skating robot, to the extremely dark, including mistreated child robots, the horror of video surveillance from the watcher’s point of view, and even a take on religion – wasn’t entirely sure about that last one, tbh, might skirt a little close to … something ‘hmm’.

Different tales are told from the robot/AI’s POV, or a human’s, and there’s even a second-person POV that feels like a video game, with a very dark twist.

Overall, it’s a fun and intriguing mix. As I said, perhaps a little frustrating to only get little slivers of the better stories, and if I’m being honest not many really jumped out and wowed me, but still a decent collection and worth dipping into.

If You Love Robots, then the anthology, Made To Order: Robots and Revolution, was Made for You!

A Guide for Working Breeds by Vina Jie-Min Prasad ☆☆☆
A feel-good story about a robot mentoring another. There are dogs and contract killers in it too. I liked it but the characters kept changing their handles — you read their chats with each other. At times, it got confusing as to who was saying what. But other than that, a good story with a sweet ending.


Test 4 Echo by Peter Watts ☆☆☆
Will we be doing AI a favor by slapping a label of sentient beings on them? Or is it just a way of keeping them under our thumb? A team of underwater researchers finds out.
The premise is akin to that for the story, A Glossary for Radicalization by Brooke Bolander. And I loved them both.

The Endless by Saad Z. Hossain ☆☆☆☆
AI vengeance at its snarkiest and sassiest. When even some robots who overtook human jobs become redundant, an airport AI is bundled off to a small desk in a dingy office. But he isn’t going down that easily.
I loved everything about this one, except, when at the very end, things got boring and unsurprising.

Brother Rifle by Daryl Gregory ☆☆
A soldier caught in the jaws of PTSD gradually begins to come back to himself with the latest treatment that technology has to offer. While the horrors faced by people on both sides of a war remain a reality, the story didn’t blow me away.

The Hurt Pattern by Tochi Onyebuchi ☆☆
AI police brutality against black teenagers is the focus of this story. And even though incidents like this are quite common in the real world — and more than horrifying –the story didn’t make the concept its own.

Idols by Ken Liu ☆☆
We step into a world where law firms use NLP to create simulacra of the jury and the judge to win cases. Having sampled a reasonably sized portion of Liu’s short fiction recently and liked it, I found this story okayish.
It would be fun to see what Mike Ross and Harvey Specter would make of this tool, though.

Bigger Fish by Sarah Pinsker ☆☆☆
A scum of a wealthy businessman dies and his son hires a PI to solve his murder. Consider the locked-room mysteries by Agatha Christie and Enid Blyton. Then combine their best elements with Asimovian robotic sci-fi. And that’s what this story is, which goes to say that I liked it. But the ending seemed too familiar to surprise me. So, 3 stars it is.
I’d like to read more by this author, though.

Sonnie’s Union by Peter F. Hamilton ☆☆☆☆
I encountered this awesome short while watching Love, Death, and Robots on Netflix. At that time, I thought I loved it. But then, I read it as part of this anthology and I more than loved it! See, they don’t really show the ending the way it is written. They couldn’t have.
Imagine a world where people can merge with monstrous creatures and then have gladiator-style bouts. It’s like Altered Carbon but a monster’s the sleeve. Anyway, we see things from the POV of such a fighter and she’s let say more than invested in the monsters. When the government shuts down the fights, she goes on an avenging spree. It is the way she does the said avenging that takes this story to another level of awesomeness.

Dancing with Death by John Chu ☆☆☆
A penniless robot who cannot afford to keep existing and a fixer-upper who refuses to let that happen. The joy that the robot finds in ice skating and the connection between the two characters will tug at your heartstrings.

Polished Performance by Alastair Reynolds ☆☆☆☆
I loooooved this and wanted to adopt all the robots in it — well, except for Mr. Snooty Pants. So, a ship journeying through space malfunctions and kills most of its human passengers. The good news is that the robots on it to serve the humans have things in hand. The bad news is that they’re awful at being human! Hilarious all the way and a tad sad at the end.

An Elephant Never Forgets by Rich Larson ☆☆☆
Oh, this one was bad. Not in the way that it wasn’t a good story. It was hits-you-in-the-gut kinda bad. An individual wakes up in an asylum without an inkling about who they are, etc. As you read, you slowly understand that the asylum could be any one of the horror houses from the past where children were detained and “uncles” would visit them. Except this one exists in the future and features cloning.
So, while I love-hated the story, I would have liked a clearer conclusion — even if it was just to tell myself that the kids were going to be okay.

The Translator by Annalee Newitz ☆☆
We’re only as useful to this world as our jobs. Or, that is the theme of this story. A translator who interprets the messages of AI is the main character. The AI suddenly announce they’ll be leaving this world. What good would he be if that happened?
I found the lengths that the AI went to for making their conversation more “human” funny.

Sin Eater by Ian R. MacLeod ☆☆☆
A robotic sin eater goes to meet the last surviving human and upload them to the post-singularity digital world. Loved the descriptions and the way the story is told. The ending though turned me off. But then if we had the Pope in the story, crucifixion shouldn’t be a stretch.

Fairy Tales for Robots by Sofia Samatar ☆☆☆
I am adding a whole star for all the effort that probably went into thinking up the premise of this story. In it, we read about an inventor telling fairy tales to her invention — a robot — right before it wakes up. Only, the stories are all parables about life for AI. While I appreciated the concept, the style of telling didn’t draw me in much.

Chiaroscuro in Red by Suzanne Palmer ☆☆☆☆
A student comes into the ownership of a factory-working robot. Since his parents spent their savings on the gift, he decides to keep it. In a manner that reminds readers of Simak’s writing, he begins to care about the bot. Also features two idiot gamers and a voice of reason.

A Glossary for Radicalization by Brooke Bolander ☆☆☆☆
This one’s brutal and raw and I loved it for those very reasons. Humankind creates robots in its image just as God created man in His. The story’s about a girl robot who asks too many questions for someone who doesn’t give a fuck. In the end, she finds the answers, and she WILL share them no matter what!

Summing up, the anthology has an average of 3 stars but my reading experience was higher, so it gets a rating of 4!

I requested this book on Netgalley and I’m glad that I did!

Made To Order: Robots and Revolution Edited by Jonathan Strahan 3/17/2020 Rebellion

I often talk about science fiction as a conversation, and while his wasn’t the first voice, Asimov’s contributions remain the most influential in the genre. Also, he was born 100 years ago this year, so a robot anthology seems, well, Made To Order, and with it, Strathan has added significantly to the conversation (BTW…).

Editor Jonathan Strahan has assembled the A-Team of contemporary science fiction writers to add to that conversation, and they’ve all got something interesting to contribute. Robots have been stand-ins for slaves, oppressed workers, and other people without agency since Karel Čapek wrote R.U.R, the play where he gave us the word “robot” back in 1920, which I’ve already noted was the year Issac Asimov was born.

In this collection of new stories, robots still play the role of representation, but now they’re representing their not-so-distant future selves in the mix, and the question When will robots be human? turns out to be When we treat them as badly as we treat everyone else. Sometimes things go better for us (or them), sometimes worse, but it’s a new sort of Turing test that these stories pass easily. The authors who contributed are among the best thought experimenters writing today, including Peter Watts, Daryl Gregory, Ian R. MacLeod , Annalee Newitz and more (including one of my favorite new writers, Sarah Pinkser). It’s a diverse and well-rounded group, and my only regret is that Martha Wells (The Murderbot Diaries) isn’t included.

The stories are universally excellent, but you shouldn’t miss Strathan’s introduction, which does a very good job of looking back over the genre and pointing the way forward.

A disclaimer: I'm not the biggest fan of short stories, and have mixed luck with anthologies because of this. Made To Order, however, is an exception to this rule - there are some really strong stories in here. I greatly enjoyed this anthology (obviously, a reader will respond better to some stories than others in a collection - but this had a very high thumbs-up rate from me). The only downside to this collection is that it's made me TBR list even longer - so many of the authors are people whose full-length work I'd been meaning to check out, and hadn't yet gotten round to: on the basis of these stories, I'm now even keener to read more of their work.