Lena
Lena by qntmby qntm
Hacker ApprovedRanked 4 of 32 short stories by recommenders
Recommended as a short, dark science fiction story about whole brain emulation that readers find brilliant and unsettling. Some say it reads as dated now.
Recommended as a short, dark science fiction story about whole brain emulation that readers find brilliant and unsettling. Some say it reads as dated now.
16 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 16
- criticize it
- 0
- approval share
- 100%
Recommended in 7 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 16 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- Nobody criticizes itNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 7 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Dark, unsettling and terrifying
“the cold but ominously normalizing one of Lena”
Comment from 3 Mar 2026 in “"That Shape Had None" – A Horror of Substrate Independence (Short Fiction)” “is both a wonderful story and terrifying”
Comment from 24 Dec 2025 in “Qntm's Power Tower Toy” “Super dark, super brilliant.”
Comment from 23 Apr 2026 in “Introducing GPT-5.5” Favourite quick read
“One of my favourite reads for sure”
Comment from 13 Feb 2026 in “MMAcevedo aka Lena by qntm” “Well worth the quick read”
Comment from 23 Apr 2026 in “Introducing GPT-5.5”
Other short stories people recommend
The four most recommended other short stories, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Last Questionby Isaac Asimov | 50 | 2 | 96% | 6 | 52 yrs3 owners | Approved |
| There Will Come Soft Rainsby Ray Bradbury | 27 | 3 | 90% | 4 | — | Approved |
| They're Made Out of Meatby Terry Bisson | 17 | 4 | 81% | 4 | — | Approved |
| Lenaby qntmThis page | 16 | 0 | 100% | 7 | — | Approved |
| The Machine Stopsby E. M. Forster | 15 | 0 | 100% | 9 | — | Approved |
What people said
12 of the 16 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“See https://qntm.org/mmacevedo and despair”
“Because of science fiction like the short story Lena [1] and the video game Soma [2], I've come to the realization that whole brain emulation[3] is unbelievably dangerous”
“Super dark, super brilliant.”
“Well worth the quick read”
“the cold but ominously normalizing one of Lena”
“I thought that the name changes were pretty amusing.”
“With such a narrow reading of what literature is , you are missing out.”
“One of my favourite reads for sure”
“it's striking how obsolete it reads now”
“is both a wonderful story and terrifying”
“definitely not convincing”
“qntm is good at plausible sci-fi”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.