Sentiment, Inc.

Sentiment, Inc. by Poul William Anderson poses a chilling question: what would happen if your feelings could be rewritten and sold back to you? In this classic science fiction tale, Anderson imagines a world where emotional associations—the webs of memory and meaning that create affection, loathing, and attachment—can be artificially altered by savvy technocrats and profit-driven corporations. The story explores the mechanics and consequences of engineered sentiment: the technology that severs or grafts associations, the ethical fog around consent, and the social fallout when emotions become commodities. Anderson balances cerebral speculation with human drama, tracing characters who must confront identity, responsibility, and the uneasy line between healing and control. Themes of manipulation, personal autonomy, and the commercialization of inner life resonate against a mid‑century backdrop of technological optimism and Cold War anxieties, giving the narrative both historical bite and timeless relevance. Ideal for listeners who crave thought-provoking, character‑driven science fiction, Sentiment, Inc. will appeal to fans of moral puzzles, speculative ethics, and classic SF storytelling—an unsettling, elegant listen that keeps you thinking long after it ends.