Short Story Review: A Woman's Best Friend by Robert Reed

A Woman's Best Friend is a short science fiction story written by Robert Reed. It is narrated by a female librarian named Mary who meets an unfamiliar looking man by the name of George Baily who is convinced that he knows her. If these names don't seem familiar then you have missed out on one of the most classic movies of all time.

If you think about it carefully it's a wonderful life is actually a science fiction story. The reason is that while you could argue that angles make it a fantasy story (not that I'm implying angles are, or are not fantasy) but because it explores parallel realities, something that is generally science fiction. In fact it is actually reasonably closely connected to time travel movies as well. And all of that is the basic premise of A woman's best friend, a story with some interesting ideas, as well as a ticking time bomb that is set up in the first page.

The beginning of this story seems like it might simply be telling a different version of the it's a wonderful life story, but it soon begins to change as the woman explains to George Baily that he really did commit suicide, and that the angle who saved him was from a highly advanced world, and he really was saved by him, though he is simply a human.

Most of the story is explaining her world and the concept of infinite realities. There have been a number of stories that have done this but none of them felt to me as if it had the voice of Jimmy Stewart asking the questions of what was happening and that gave this story a major boost and one which it uses well.

One of the reasons that this story works so well is the idea of infinite reality. The reason that this works so well is the idea that there are infinite realities means that there would be an infinite number of George Bailys which means that this one can exist without it having any effect on the other. It also explores the way a culture might exist if they understood infinite realities which means that their decisions both mean everything and nothing because they control what reality they are in but ever decision is made by someone.

This is a very good story with an interesting look at an old classic and the idea of infinite realities at the same time.