The short story “The Memcordist” by Lavie Tidhar was published for the first time in 2012.

Pym is a memcordist and that means that all his experiences are recorded and broadcast to his followers. The Narrative of Pym is followed by millions of followers with his trips to various places of the solar system, up to Pluto’s moons, first with his mother and then when he’s traveling on his own and in particular during his relationship with Joy.

Published for the first time in 2012, “The Memcordist” is the kind of story that, after just a few years, if it was set on Earth and not across the solar system it would seem barely science fiction. A technology that allows to record with that level of completeness the a person’s experiences to broadcast them doesn’t exist yet but today some social media stars have a life that starts getting close to that of this story’s protagonist as they basically put online for their followers everything they do and everything that happens to them.

Pym is aware that he has always lived for his followers so his story is not like “Truman Show”, on the contrary it’s in some ways opposite. “The Memcordist” tells some fragments of the Narrative of Pym, taken between what in that future is the normality of the people who travel in space and has romantic relationships and the abnormality of sharing their experiences with anyone interested. His most intimate moment is also the one that gets the highest audience peak.

The story doesn’t proceed chronologically but rather going back and forth to tell a number of significant moments in the life of the protagonist, who asks himself common questions: for example he wonders who he is and at the end of his life why he never went to Joy. His perpetual performance for his followers and his continuous introspection create another contrast in his story.

“The Memcordist” is set in the same fictionals universe of the novel “Central Station“: the two works are autonomous but Pym is explicitly mentioned in the novel so among Lavie Tidhar’s short stories this is perhaps the one that complements the novel the most. In my opinion, the various contrasts created by the author give the story its emotional strength, which is why I believe it’s worth reading. “The Memcordist” is also available in the anthology “The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Thirtieth Annual Collection”.