Beautiful Machines: Tales of the Uncanny

By: Seth Chambers

Narrated by: Anna Maria Miosky, Jon

Length: 4 hrs and 45 mins

Publisher's Summary

The uprising of machine consciousness is beautifully terrifying and arouses frightening questions. To what desperate lengths will an android go to fit in? How will we cope with boredom after the machines solve all our problems? Can a robot go insane? Is Artificial Intelligence an existential threat? Are thinking machines our friends? Our enemies? Or both?   

In these tales, you will encounter machines that laugh and cry, and kill and make love, and write bad poetry. You will delve deep into that uncanny valley wherein humans and machines share a common, existential crisis.

©2018 Seth Chambers (P)2019 Seth Chambers

Some really good stories!!

As with all short story compilations, some are good, some not so much. This collection was no different. I must say that the good ones were insanely good and totally worth having to go through the not so good ones.

The stories were imaginative and thought-provoking, especially those that seemingly attacked the listener's comfort zones. Chambers did not pull his punches on a few of his expertly crafted tales.

I liked the narration on most. Just a few stories missed their mark but like the written words themselves, that was a minor price to pay for some very compelling and intriguing short stories.

11 Intriguing Stories Audible was AWESOME

Talk about twists! The author has an imagination gone wild.
What if you were dying and could make a synthetic version of yourself so that your husband and your #2 could create a happy home for your only child?
Or your best friend fell in love with a robot? Or, crazy as it sounds...you did?
Out of all of these amazing stories...I cast my vote for Continue Program being my favorite...or maybe She Has a Lovely Voice...
Difficult to choose just one!

Beautiful Machines

An engaging collection of short sci-fi stories that all revolve around artificial intelligence. Some are more in depth and longer than others. Each one gives the listener interesting ideas to think about. How far could we advance with artificial intelligence and just how far are we willing to go. The author does a good job with world building and character development. I was quickly immersed in the stories. They have fast moving plots that will keep you interested and entertained. The narrators did a nice job of keeping the narrative flowing but narrator Anna Maria Miosky was a little to robotic when voicing some of the human characters and some of the voices for other characters were hard to listen to from either narrator.
I received this audiobook at my request and I voluntarily wrote a review.

What a great listen!

What a great listen. This book captures the best of the human spirit -“Never say die” approach to life. I loved this book and recommend it highly.

Great stories

Really enjoyed the different tales in the book....brought different viewpoints that in some instances will give you a good laugh

Highly Addictive!

These short stories had me laughing so hard! I enjoyed every minute of listening to this book. It sounds crazy but some of the stories sound very possible in our near future. It will have you thinking about all the technological features you have in your house now.


I was given this audiobook review copy at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

Pretty good sci-fi collection

There are some really good stories in this collection. Trust me. Some are absolute crap, but it was worth it to get through them, because some are gold.
The narration on a few of them was absolutely horrid as well, but just like the stories, others are fantastic.

At my request, I received this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

Far to Robotic for me .

I was given this audiobook free of any cost at my request & in return I offer my unbiased opinion & review . I found this audiobook hard to follow because of the many twists in the story . I also would have preferred the chapters to be longer , some chapters were over in seconds , many in just over a minute or two . Hardly time to hear one chapter before it was over & into the next one . The humor I found to be ok but more was needed . The narrators were very clear & easy to listen to but they seemed to be in a hurry which I feel detracted from their performance . This might be because of the shortness of the chapters . Over all , many people will probably enjoy this audiobook & disagree with my views , it simply wasn't more than 3 stars for me .

Very Strange indeed!

I just could not get into this story. It has to do with the Machines aquiring a valid ability to think for themselves and how a machine could possible cope with the everyday social traps that humans take for granted. I received this audio book for free in exchange for an unbiased review. Good Luck!

Not my favorite.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

It’s ok, doesn’t really keep your interest, can’t really recommend it and the narrator has some annoying voice acting at parts. (Like the son in the first book)