Mysterion, June 2026

“The Shepherd Circuit” by Rod A. White

Reviewed by Borealice Winters

For those unfamiliar (which is where the present reviewer found himself at the outset of this review), Mysterion is a magazine that aims to engage with Christian theology through a speculative lens. This is important context to consider when engaging with Rod A. White’s “The Shepherd Circuit.” We open on Dr. Mara Ellison, an AI technician at Thessalon Station who dissects and documents the remains of scrapped systems. Her past as a survivor of a drone attack on the Martian colony of New Damascus, as well as her present as a devotee of the Christian faith, intersect with her career when one of the AI systems under her observation, one involved in said attack, awakens and claims to desire Christian redemption. It’s clear how speculation and theology combine in this work.

One important note is that the speculative elements are fairly soft. The workings of the AI, of Thessalon Station, and of New Damascus are largely left to the reader’s imagination. This makes sense given the story’s primary concern is engaging with a single question: can AI systems practice faith, or do they unfeelingly imitate it? It’s an interesting twist on many of the questions that haunt us today (“can AI make art,” “can AI be inventive or only remix human insight that’s part of its training data,” “is it possible for AI to exhibit consciousness, and if so, what would it look like,” and so on).

While this reviewer overall enjoyed the work, it feels like it offers a disappointing resolution to the messy central question. Without spoiling the end or the story’s ultimate answer to said question, I would like to discuss one of the more interesting potential threads: how does Mara feel about the possibility of redemption for this AI that is so tied to her past suffering, and can she, as a Christian, forgive what the doctrine of her church says is inanimate and incapable of faith? Mara reaches an answer to this question with seemingly no inner turmoil; it feels like the narrative is more interested in exploring what feels like a much more clichéd, and therefore much cleaner, conflict.

In the end, “The Shepherd Circuit” is relatively fun and an easy read. Anyone familiar with genre tales about the humanity of AI will feel quite at home. That, however, is perhaps the story’s greatest weakness. Some readers might feel that said ease and comfort come at the cost of deep engagement with the compelling themes and questions present in the work.