The Fortunate Death of Jonathan Sandelson

by Margaret Killjoy

Genres: Short Stories

ebook

Published January 1, 2018

About the author

Margaret Killjoy is a transfeminine author and editor currently based in the Appalachian mountains. Her most recent book is an anarchist demon hunters novella called The Barrow Will Send What it May, published by Tor.com. She spends her time crafting and complaining about authoritarian power structures and she blogs at birdsbeforethestorm.net.

Reviews

[Courtney]

http://strangehorizons.com/wordpress/...

This was published in 2018, but reading it in 2025 I can’t help but think of the death of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, Brian Thompson, and the nonsense of ICE now (possibly) raiding graduations. And of course the nonsense with cops and the FBI have been occurring since the beginning.

Speaking of ICE Killjoy ends her story with this gem:
My new AI was just learning its first words.

noobgirl01: what is your directive?

magonobot: to render ICE incapable of performing its duties; to perform this task without oversight in order to grant you plausible deniability; to perform this task without causing harm to any humans or non-human animals

Sitting on that shitty couch with that shitty cat licking my neck, a shitty workday waiting ahead of me, another dangerous venture about to begin, I was as happy as I’d ever been. I was likely as happy as I’d ever be.


Also loved this part:
There must have been a snitchnet on top of the network at work. It’s not standard Taco Dick’s protocol, and I’d double- and triple-checked when I first started working there, but the regional manager must have installed it after I’d convinced the guac box to leave work and go join the May Day parade downtown and dispense free guacamole and chips for demonstrators. I can’t believe I hadn’t checked again before making the alias. That’s amateur shit.

[Armin]

Very fun short story with a lot of interesting near-future sci-fi concepts and actually good politics