Flash Fiction Online #127, April 2024

“Toby on Third“ by Jim Kourlas (literary, not reviewed)

“Please Click” by Lettie Prell

“Just a Greedy Ifriti” by Damyanti Biswas

“Like Blood for Ink” by Aimee Ogden (reprint, not reviewed)

Reviewed by David Wesley Hill

It’s a common science fictional assumption, going back to Asimov’s I, Robot (the book, not the action movie), that robots, and AIs in general, are too literal for their own good. Such is the case in “Please Click” by Lettie Prell, the first of two original genre offerings in the April issue of Flash Fiction Online, where the narrator, a “non-sentient inorganic intelligence that perceives, synthesizes and infers information,” is helping its creator order concert tickets online. The problem is it’s currently incarnated “within a robotic body,” and thus faces a conundrum when asked to click a box that reads “I am not a robot.” What follows is an amusing take on an ancient trope, and an interesting addition to the canon.

From SF we turn to fantasy with FFO‘s second original genre offering this month, “Just a Greedy Ifriti” by Damyanti Biswas, a rote genie-in-a-bottle tale—except for the narrative voice, which is rather engaging. Also, I learned a new thing from the story—the Arabic word for “human” is “insaan.” Makes sense to me.