The Scarecrow’s Boy (short story): Lifelong Learning and the New Term Problem (Video Review)

Recommendation: Read this, then get the audio version and play it as a cautionary tale for your rebellious pre-teens.

Robots: humanoid, autonomous car, networked robots

The Scarecrow’s Boy is the deeply moving short story of a boy being rescued by an intelligent personal assistant robot who has been displaced from the house to be a scarecrow in the fields. The story explores what has happened to the robot over the years and how it has adapted. Stanwick is one of my favorite writers, especially his Nebula award winning Stations of the Tide. Stations of the Tide is a combination of Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca (like Rebecca, we never learn the name of the protagonist) and Cordwainer Smith’s Instrumentality of Mankind universe. Stanwick hasn’t written a large volume of work, but even his short stories, such as The Scarecrow’s Boy, are densely packed with interesting ideas and emotions.