Tantie Merle and the Farmhand 4200

English language

Published by Uncanny Magazine.

4 stars (1 review)

https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/tantie-merle-and-the-farmhand-4200/

2 editions

A nice story about a robot, a goat, and the sparking of intelligence.

4 stars

A lovely story of a grandma in need of help looking after her house and garden and a goat. What she gets is a helpful robot that takes on the task of moving the goat around the field. Only, it keeps getting destroyed or eaten by the goat. The robot communicates with its other versions in an attempt to solve the problem, keeps failing, and gets into what appears to be a depression. Then a comment by the grandma changes its perspective, and it achieves its goal. And in doing so, the grandma may have finally sparked the robot and its kind into intelligence.