Heads up — you can now read “?oyfriend” at WorldChanging’s main site. This is what editor Julia Levitt said:
It’s unique for its ability to tell an engaging story while intermingling technologies that we are only beginning to imagine, but that might one day become a part of our everyday lives. Although pure fiction is not our usual fare here at Worldchanging, we found this story — and the discussion it inspired on Worldchanging Canada — to be both imaginative and entertaining, and wanted to share it with our global audience.
Please excuse me while I dissolve into a puddle of blushing goo. (Special thanks to Mark Tovey at WorldChanging Canada for introducing her to the piece, and Karl Shroeder for introducing me to WorldChanging!)
Read Boyfriend – nice story. Thanks!
No, thank you! I’m glad you liked it.
Hello there madeline… I landed here via the ‘crawl’, and I followed the link to the ‘boyfriend’ story. I really Iike your story ideas… I read bf part 1 and 2: I think part 1 was my favorite because its so jarring… when you realise what the boyfriend actually is, and her relationship to him…
Thank you so much, Leona! I’m happy you enjoyed it, especially the jarring aspect. I really worry about how to accomplish those kinds of effects — I have serious issues with worldbuilding — and so it’s good to hear that this time, it actually worked.
Our relationships with synthetic entities is one of the things that always fascinates me in fiction, so I write about it fairly often — either creatively or academically. Plus I was really excited to write this story after talking about it with the editor. We probably thought up about five different ideas before figuring out which one would work best.