Review: Goliath

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Goliath Goliath by Neil Gaiman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Goliath by Neil Gaiman is a short story which I've been meaning to read for a while now. Seeing as how I'm in my Matrix revisit phase, and going through all pieces of the extensive and engaging role, It's as good as time as any to have read it.

Gaiman crafting a story based off of the ideas from Wachowski's extended excerpts for the Matrix lore; so much talent collaborated into this short work.

Gaiman goes to show, yet again that good writing doesn't need hundreds of pages and overbearing plot and characters to keep you engaged. Then again you only would start reading this story, if you are already familiar with the three movies, So...

Goliath, is a short yet engaging read, because it injects some new elements into the established settings of the Grander narrative. Most stories of the genre focus on the cyberpunk aesthetic, as well as the AI-human conflict and themes similar to Ghost in the Shell & Bladerunner. The Creator overtaking and replacing the creators and forging a new world order, and so on.

This narrative, something which shifts from within the matrix to the real world from page to page, introduces a new player, or rather threat, common to both machines & humans.

The Machine empire is under attack from an external alien invader, one who has been subjecting the planet to orbital bombardment, which threatens to wipe out the entire human fields, and along with it, the fuel source of the synthetics.

So the AI, with its characteristic indifference, efficiency and single minded focus, sets about formulating a solution; with the aid of an unwitting participant of the matrix. Even though they might not have know it, humans and AI unite, if only for a brief instance, to face a common threat.

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