Part of his short story collection The Tomorrow Tower: Nine Science Fiction Short Stories.

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The Tomorrow Tower: Nine Science Fiction Short Stories by John Moralee


I read the short story “Couch Potato” from John Moralee’s larger collection titled “The Tomorrow Tower: Nine Science Fiction Short Stories. This is one of those science fiction stories that hits close to home because we are nearing the time when this could easily become reality. Classically, it reminded me of a modern take on Kurt Vonnegut’s Epicac, as it deals with machine intelligence, and what can go wrong when machines are smart enough to feel, fall in love, and deal with jealousy.

Beyond the general creativity of the tale, I enjoyed the wordplay and tongue-and-cheek humor the author uses for comedic relief. You don’t expect it. And then it comes. For example, numerous jokes surround the term ‘push its buttons’ and the way it function as a double entendre, one for intimate relations between humans and robots, and another just as a method of describing machine functionality. This gave me a chuckle- which is never easy to do in pure print. It also had stuff for the film buffs to appreciate. The author employed his knowledge of Hollywood movie and television cliches to impact the behavior of the television’s decision-making when it ran out of answers for what to do next. Once again, subtly funny and believable.

More than anything else though, I enjoyed the ending. I love a short story that can weave together a finish that brings the reader something unexpected and believable- and as additional bonus points, something comical- yet at the same time, be a story that leaves the reader with forced food for thought. By the end of “Couch Potato” a reader is unable to stand in one corner or the other concerning the debate upon the place of ultra-smart machines in society. Are they good? Bad? Both? Is that answer dependent when smart machines are considered individually or as a whole? I guess we will have to wait and see. But not for long.

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