Evil Robot Monkey by Mary Robinette Kowal (The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction: Volume Two, 2008) starts with an augmented chimpanzee called Sly working at a potters’ wheel in what appears to be a zoo enclosure. When a passing school kid bangs on the window, Sly loses his temper and throws clay at his tormentor; then the chimp writes “Ass” on the window and makes explicit sexual gestures at the teacher.
Later, one of the chimp’s handlers, a sympathetic man called Vern, comes to talk to Sly about his behaviour, and tells him that his supervisor has instructed him to take Sly’s clay away as a punishment. The chimp almost loses control again but channels his rage into his wheel and, while doing so, makes a vase. Vern takes the vase away to be oven fired, and also takes Sly’s clay—adding “I’m not cleaning your mess” (hinting to Sly that he will still have the clay he threw at the window).
This is a pretty good scene (***+ quality), but it is a fragment (imagine reading two pages of Flower for Algernon). Awful title.
** (Average). 1,000 words. Story link.
Ken Papai says:
Well said, Paul!
EVIL ROBOT MONKEY, Mary Robinette Kowal (originally published in the Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, vol. 2 edited by George Mann) (illo by the author)
Three versions of this story, https://maryrobinettekowal.com/journal/evil-robot-monkey/
This is a very short, economical story. It was a Hugo Finalist in 2009, Ted Chiang won it for his “Exhalation”. Sly is not a real robot nor a real monkey, but a hybrid augmented chimp. A chimp who loves clay potters wheels and throwing crap against his pen’s viewing glass. His keeper Vern tries to keep Sly in check.
It’s such a SHORT story I wonder how this bubbled to the near top of the heap of Hugos? I don’t get it.
2.7/5.0 – KJP 1/27/2023