Silently and Very Fast

Elefsis is an artificial intelligence, existing within the "Interior" - a sophisticated virtual space that alters with Elefsis' evolution. She grows and changes through five generations of a human family, sharing their worst and the best and most intimate moments.

The story is told in layers of dreams, images, metaphors, myths, and parables. It is memoir and science fiction, fairy tale and philosophy. The story prompts the reader to question what it means to be real, the importance of experiencing emotion, and how to define "human."

Not a new idea, to philosophize about humanness via a tale about an AI, but the author truly does something different with this theme. She offers no answers, only questions, obscuring Truth in an enigmatic riddle because, like Elefsis, each reader has an ever-changing Interior and the answer today may not be the answer tomorrow.

This novella is shockingly intense and emotionally profound, accomplishing more in its small space than do many tomes of much longer length. The prose is gorgeous and the styling is edgy. The author approaches - and crosses - the boundaries of grammatical rules and she does so with deft gracefulness.

Silently and Very Fast won the Locus Award for Best Novella in 2012 and deservedly so. I rated it 4 Stars, but I think it's a story that you would fall in love with more and more with every re-read, so I certainly plan to do. And perhaps then my rating will elevate to 5 Stars.