Drone Man by Andrew C. Broderick is a short novella exploring the temptation of an ordinary person using a position of unique capability (owning a small, manoeuvrable aircraft) to carry out vigilante action in a city, with all the associated ethical dilemmas that entails (unlawful, deceitful, guilt).

The glaring question if you choose to do this is “Do you become the thing you hate the most?” In other words, taking the law into your own hands might be satisfying and quicker but it turns the point of focus, the problem if you like, in on yourself. This is hardly a new existential question, as Nietzsche got there first, describing exactly the same pitfall in several different ways: "Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster” and “for when you gaze too long into the abyss...” and "If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself.” Strangely, Nietzsche’s students turned out to be the worst monsters of all, so they heard but they did not listen.

Drone Man is a good story, nothing wrong with the writing style, but I felt the author didn’t want to go through with the scenario far enough and give the hero a taste of his inner dark place. He sort of did but it was a little too polite and there should have been the Devil in this. He showed and skirted around the moment of choice but didn’t reach out and almost touch evil, a fingerprint away from the fall, before thinking again. An angel on one shoulder, a lying demon on the other, the demon is about to win the soul and then - No! The author, I think, wanted the man to be likeable all of the way through, from the fun gadget guy to the family man to the capable protector, but I think the story would have been more powerful if the writer had read Heart of Darkness before he journeyed up that river.

One other observation: A drone is, if I understand it correctly, a robotic autonomous vehicle with no pilot on board. This story is about a pilot in a gyrocopter. It’s about wrestling with one’s consciousness and choosing the right path, so represents an original and well told presentation of this concept, but I just don’t think Drone Man does that in a drone. He’s Gyrocopter Man.

Drone Man is okay, as a quick introduction to Andrew C. Broderick, but The Cosmic Bullet by the same author is a superior work and I recommend you start with that. ( )