I read from this chapter at the Augusta House earlier this year. Enjoy! The sign on the door read: PORTIA’S WANTED. Amy’s teacher had let her skip ahead to the third grade unit on contractions and possessives, but she remained uncertain whether the sign was a joke or just a typo. Amy had not eaten in five days. She saw everything in greyscale, now, even the maps on Rick’s reader. She had searched frantically for news about her parents before…
How this day began Me: Your coffee mugs are self-replicating. Him: Sorry, I missed them. Me: (Blinking sleep out of my eyes, noting the surprising lack of pain in my knees, considering a skirt, suddenly realizing why I made that joke) Hey, doesn’t my book come out, today? Him: (smiling) Why yes, yes it does. So yes. vN: The First Machine Dynasty is out, today. It’s been available in some stores for a few days now, but that’s because they’re…
So, I wrote a guest post for the Qwillery’s Debut Author Challenge, and it’s called Gynoid Trouble: The heroine’s journey is the transition from object to subject. More specifically, the gynoid heroine’s journey is the transition between “automaton” to “autonomous”. From a piece of consumer technology to one who can never be owned. As Rei Ayanami says, “Wastashi wa anatta no ningyo ja nai; watashi wa anatta ja nai mono.” I am not your puppet; I am not your thing….
It’s been a crazy week. I wrapped up some stories for a client, snagged another contract, and ate delicious cake at a belated birthday celebration. (My birthday was last week. I turned 29.) Oh, and did my taxes. On time. Like a 29-year-old. I was also interviewed at Civilian Reader regarding vN. What’s something readers might be surprised to learn about you? I’m very short. Like, five feet. It’s the thing that tends to surprise people when they see me…
DARPA has decided it would like a humanoid robot sometime in the near future, and is willing to pay you to build it. Here are the reasons I’m excited about this news: I’m writing a series of novels about humanoid robots. (Scroll down for some most excellent blurbage.) DARPA has agreed to allow unpaid teams to enter the Grand Challenge competition. This means that hackers/makers/NewAesthetes/kitbashers can get in on the fun. You there, in your garage! This means you! Hie…
And you can read it right here! Special thanks to Rudy Rucker for deciding to share it with everybody. Coincidentally, I am now sitting in almost the exact same location I was when I wrote the first draft of this little vignette, way back before I knew it was a novel, and long before I had any inkling that anybody would want to publish it. I’m on retreat with my writers’ workshop, and it was on just such an occasion…
Last week, I gave my first reading of vN for the fine people of the Chiaroscuro Reading Series, (AKA the ChiSeries to those in Toronto). I was really proud to be asked, because it’s one of my favourite regular events in the city. I was also happy that we went with a Valentine’s Day theme for the evening, because then all the pieces I selected could be about human/vN relationships. Here is another snippet, from the novel’s prologue, that is…
It’s absurd that I haven’t blogged this before, but tomorrow night, February 8, I’ll be at the Augusta House, reading from vN. I’ll be joined by none other than writers Mike Bryant and Adrienne Kress, and ukulelist Kari Maaren. The Facebook event page is here, so you can throw your name in the ring of attendees. This will be my first time reading from vN, and it’s a little intimidating — not least because I’m still recovering from the flu,…
My novel vN has a really lovely cover, and now you can see it for yourself!
The swell chaps at Angry Robot Books (AKA my publishers) have posted the premise of vN: Amy Peterson is a self-replicating humanoid robot. For the past five years, she has been grown slowly as part of a mixed organic/synthetic family. She knows very little about her android mother’s past, so when her grandmother arrives and attacks her mother, little Amy wastes no time: she eats her alive. Now she carries her malfunctioning granny as a partition on her memory drive,…