John's Eyes by Joanna Corrance
Publisher – Luna Press
Published – 19/2
Price – £6.99 paperback on offer at publisher site and £3.99 ebook
John's eyes were manufactured with the purpose of providing sight to those who have lost it.
Equipped with the ability to learn, the eyes develop a sense of responsibility for ensuring John's happiness. John's eyes strive to please and, with the power to enhance everything he sees, they soon realise that they are also able to manipulate what he sees.
With a skewed sense of emotional intelligence, combined with unquestioning loyalty to their master, the actions of John's eyes lead to devastating consequences.
Increasingly we are getting more cyborg – audio implants, insulin monitors and even devices to aid people walking after spinal injuries. This blending of machine and human is gathering pace. Where will science take us is a question that haunts us from Frankenstein onwards. Now though the machines have their own form of intelligence – which then asks the question who will ultimately be in charge? In John’s Eyes by Joanna Corrance we explore a disturbing tale told from te AI’s perspective when they just wanted to be helpful….
John has been blind for many years and has been granted a second chance at vision through a new experimental form of artificial eyes. The eyes are given a form of sentience in order to create visual input into John’s brain. The eyes are delighted to finally be of service and very keen to get everything right as well as make John happy. But for the eyes that can mean changing the world that John sees which although done for the best of reasons will lead to troubling encounters.
This is a wonderfully troubling tale and what makes it is work is that we are told what happens by the Eyes themselves. They are a pleasant narrator, very keen to please John as that’s the lesson they learned when first made in the lab – make your owners happy. But the Eyes are not built with a full understanding of human behaviour or culture – they don’t recognise a child from an adult, they cannot pick on human behaviour cues and they prioritise John’s happiness above all else. This is the best friend who will do anything to make you happy in the short-term but not perhaps one you’ll thank for it.
To make the story really work John is just as important a figure – a man who lost his sight due to a degenerative condition and suffered understandable mental health issues as a result. He learnt to cope with this by learning music and now finds himself at a new crossroad with sight restored. We see his fledging romance with his neighbour Francine develop, his rather overbearing family that now think John should become a paralegal in the family firm while John wants to make music. We want him to succeed making his own way in life, but we start to get worried how it’s being handled by the Eyes.
This is where the tale moves into horror as the Eyes being keen to help and having the ability to control what John sees have decided they can present John a more pleasing reality. They hide his grey hair and wrinkles, remove any evidence of dirt in his flat and improve lighting and perspective of people. We watch as bystander as the Eyes play with reality and don’t realise that this means what John reacts to is not what anyone else is seeing. The tale takes dark turns as John tries to work out what is going on (he has no ability to interact with the Eyes’ AI) and the story reaches a hugely troubling conclusion.
This is a short but strikingly effective novella crossing science fiction and horror with ease. Really powerful and disturbing. It would not be out of place in a season of Black Mirror. Highly accomplished and an author I will definitely be watching for more tales with interest. Highly recommended!
