This story is set in a near future school where various electronic devices have taken over the classroom and the students. A teacher on her last year before retirement plans for her class to read and perform Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

Asimovs July/August 2024

The teaching of Hamlet is the binding narrative, but it was everything else going on that I found noteworthy in this story. It focuses on two students, where one is a boy with very religious parents. He has some eye implants that adds an overlay to everything he sees, to basically show him a “christian” version of the world. Like it will show good people as angels and whomever it decides to be bad people as devils. Things get complicated when he fancies a girl in class, whom his parents don’t approve of.

The whole concept of editorialising the physical world like that is frightening and I kind of wished van Pelt unpacked this more, but what stands is a very touching and positive story on the powers of good teaching that goes beyond technology.

Read in Asimov’s July/August 2024
Rating: 3