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Since it's been brought to my attention that I ought to also link to publications here--



Go to Baen's Universe to read "Salvaging Scottwell," my story about an obsolete police dog robot that gets an upgrade with unintended consequences to the Powers That Be: http://baens-universe...

Excerpt:

Max woke up inside his kennel, unplugged his tail from the wall, and ran an automatic systems check. Recharging his battery had taken a half-hour longer than last month. He connected to the BigDog network so that he could send an error report about the battery. The automated reply told him that his error report had been filed, and a handler would contact him if any further action was required. The last handler contact recorded in Max's memory log was three years old.

He limped to the door of the jailhouse. His right third leg had broken down two years ago. It had taken three weeks for his movement pattern to functionally reform, but he still limped. His speed was a fraction of his original specifications. His right second leg couldn't provide the same motive power. It had been designed for stability, not speed.

He stepped out into Scottwell neighborhood to begin his patrol. His tail wagged once. Scottwell was more than just the neighborhood that he guarded; it was as much a part of him as his paws. When he kept himself and his neighborhood protected and well-maintained, he was a Good Boy.

His tail drooped. He hadn't been a Good Boy for a long time.

Read more.

It was based on this entry. Which means this whole thing was originally inspired by me seeing a guy wearing bunny ears. ;)
Their chests ticked when they walked past her store, and the ticks dragged slower as they headed home at the end of the day, where their faithful wives would feed them dinner and put away their shoes and wind their stopwatch hearts. A gold chain went from their pocket to where there used to be a fob watch, but she knew that the chain went through the pocket of their waistcoat and between their ribs, right into the shining globe holding their stopwatch heart where there used to be a real one. Somewhere, the hearts were hidden, and when they remembered, the businessmen with stopwatch hearts might even try to find out where, not remembering exactly why it was important, since everything ran so smoothly by the ticking of their new heart, but because perhaps their wife would nag them until--

Inspiration: "Businessmen with Stopwatch Hearts" - Delirium
Story Potential: High
Notes: Mixes: heart of stone, deal with the devil, corporation as evil, steampunk, quest to regain loved one. Good stuff, could tap pretty deeply into Story Mythos. And, y'know, clockwork hearts!


Edited to add: Written as "Businessmen with Stopwatch Hearts," rewritten as "The Key to His Heart," and published 01/24/2010 at Thaumatrope.
They were obsolete. They sat on the shop's back cabinet and sighed to each other. "Nobody likes blondes anymore," complained the curvaceous doll.

The redhead scoffed at her. "That's not true, silly. Just nobody likes you. I saw the markers out front--blondes sell most."

"Why not me?"

"Because you're not the type they're looking for," the brunette spoke up, turning her head and staring directly at them with her empathic brown eyes. "They're looking for the later dolls."

"Those things?" the blonde protested. "You can't hardly tell they're supposed to be human!"

"They're not," chimed in the black-haired doll reclining on top of the cabinet, inspecting her nails. "They're something else. We're all meant to be human--"

Status: Written as "Unloved Dolls." Published under a pseudonym at Ruthie's Club (currently closed, plans to reopen in 2010) in the Valentine's Day 2009 issue.


Inspiration: "obsolete"
Story Potential: High. I find this creepy.
Notes: Right, so the (Japanese and elsewhere) trend for sex dolls, along with more human-like robots and better AI, is naturally leading in this direction. Duh. That's old news. But when the more human-like models swing out of fashion? What do they do? This could be done as erotica, but I think it would be more effective played as...ahem...straight science fiction. Heck, I could write 'em both.
The rabbit ears bounced around on the top of its head as it rolled along the cracked sidewalk. Not ideal operating conditions at all. It would have shaken its head regretfully, but it had lost that functionality two years ago when a couple of teenagers threw their beer bottles with unexpected accuracy. Perhaps, had its trajectory-calculation program still been functional, it would have been able to dodge the bottles. That had been knocked out when it was only six months out of the factory, though, entirely by accident, but still distressing. Piece by piece, its equipment was dying, and with it, its usefulness. Graffiti crawled up the sides--

Inspiration: I saw a guy with rabbit ears on his head today. Bunny rabbit ears, but still....
Story Potential: High.
Notes: I was going to say low potential, but then I thought about an old, mostly defunct police robot starting to scavenge parts, to improve himself and his neighborhood, and how he'd get them, and what the results would be, and I found it more interesting.


Status: Written as
"Salvaging Scottwell."
Published in the December 2009 issue of
Baen's Universe
.

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penthius

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