Picked up my copy of Ted Chiang's EXHALATION collection and read the next story, "The Lifestyle of Software Objects" - well, it's more of a novella than it is a short story, lol. I'm conflicted. I enjoyed the story, loved the progression...except the way it ended left me a bit unsatisfied. This is the story of Ana, who is recruited to work for a software company to help train digients the company created. Digients are cute animals you can log into the Date Earth server with your avatar to play with, teach to read or play games and even go on play dates with other avatars and digients. As is the way with tech, it does fall off in popularity until only a small group is left still active with their digients and of course there are other companies who create their own brands of digients to contend with. I loved seeing the company get started, how the digients were received by the public, the craze of everyone wanting them - even when the decline began, but just felt the ending was a little bit wanting.
