{"id":3459,"date":"2022-04-11T11:47:27","date_gmt":"2022-04-11T11:47:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=3459"},"modified":"2022-04-15T11:24:13","modified_gmt":"2022-04-15T11:24:13","slug":"bread-and-circuits-by-misha-lenau","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=3459","title":{"rendered":"Bread and Circuits by Misha Lenau"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong><em>Bread and Circuits<\/em><\/strong> by Misha Lenau (<em>Asimov\u2019s SF<\/em>, November-December 2021) begins with a sentient toaster (also described as a \u201ctoaster oven slash bread machine\u201d) turning up on the doorstep of the Nadia, who runs an orphanage for abandoned, self-aware appliances (which she calls \u201cquirks\u201d).<br>After trying to communicate with the toaster, Nadia eventually takes it to the basement where she keeps the other quirks. There are then a few more scrambled conversations before the toaster asks Nadia to reset it (essentially commit suicide, as its self-awareness will vanish if it goes back to the default software).<br>It later becomes clear, after Nadia makes further efforts to talk with the toaster, that it has lost its friends. We then learn that, because of a debilitating illness that restricts her movements, so has Nadia: she resolves to make friends with the quirks.<br>There isn\u2019t much to this really, but I suspect it will appeal to those who are fond of stories about sad and\/or lonely narrators which have a sentimental ending.<sup>1<\/sup><br>* (Mediocre). 5,800 words. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.podomatic.com\/podcasts\/asimovs\/episodes\/2021-11-15T07_54_57-08_00\">Story link<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>1. More SF readers like this sort of thing than you might think\u2014this was one of the Asimov\u2019s Readers\u2019 Poll short story <a href=\"https:\/\/www.asimovs.com\/about-asimovs\/readers-awards-finalists\/\">finalists<\/a> from 2021 (although those stories are, admittedly, a weak bunch).<br><br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bread and Circuits by Misha Lenau (Asimov\u2019s SF, November-December 2021) begins with a sentient toaster (also described as a \u201ctoaster oven slash bread machine\u201d) turning up on the doorstep of the Nadia, who runs an orphanage for abandoned, self-aware appliances (which she calls \u201cquirks\u201d).After trying to communicate with the toaster, Nadia eventually takes it to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[837],"tags":[21,50,4,838,840,12],"class_list":["post-3459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misha-lenau","tag-21","tag-50","tag-asimovs-sf","tag-misha-lenau","tag-sentient-machines","tag-short-story"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3459"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3543,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3459\/revisions\/3543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}