Shop Talk

Kris Larson works as a journalist and music critic in San Francisco. She has a degree in English Literature from San Francisco State University, yet somehow has managed to remain out of the food service industry. This is her first robot fiction. You can visit her portfolio at http://krislarson.cementhorizon.com. Read more

Sarah Castle, a self-described “consumate welsh-woman” graduated from Medical School in 1996 and then spent six years in the Royal Navy. She now works as a Child & Adolescent Psychiatrist. In her free time, she writes science fiction, fantasy, and fiction about mind control. Today, she presents us with an edgey piece of robot fiction about a neural pattern of shutting down once the robot’s mission is accomplished.

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To those just joining in. Robot in the Woods Publishing runs original short fiction about Robots every friday at 7:59am. We are deeply interested in quality content, with matters of intellectual property and with making friends. We are also interested in your robots! Written or drawn! Robot-o-philes and robot-o-phobes please participate.

In the meantime, we are in the review process of the April themed stories, The Robot’s Point of View. Thank you to everyone who participated. We can announce the following:

• One is definite if she’ll consider changing the title to “Hardwired Imperative.”
• We are reviewing some titles for only two 7:59 Stories timeslots on April 11 and April 18.
• The fourth piece of the month, penned by our editor, is titled “Nanite of the Starship Tumbleweed” and will appear on April 25, 2008 at 7:59am.

Also, we are gearing up for May’s round of weekly short robot fiction. We are interested in hearing from people who enjoy the notions of a robot and who enjoy crisp, edgy, cute, but well-written science fiction about robots. Please consider this a call for submissions. We are still considering the theme for the month. Anyone want to toss a theme idea into the hat? Please comment.

This is a piece of robot fiction from 1962. It is stored at the Project Gutenberg website. The story starts after all the Project Gutenberg licensing information. Please see their website for more information about this fascinating project and for more stories in the public domain.

Its a fun story that combines a spaceship with a robot. What could be better? And it is illustrated by a person named Douglas. “The basic trouble with McGuire was that, though “he” was a robot spaceship, nevertheless “he” had a definite weakness that a man might understand….” Read more

Robot in the Woods is proud to publish a small collection of robot poetry by Greg Beatty. Another of Greg’s poems, “Making Robot Poets Great“, can be found on the Strange Horizons Poetry website. Greg Beatty lives with his wife in Bellingham, Washington, where he tries, unsuccessfully to stay dry. He writes everything from children’s books to essays about his cooking debacles. He has a particular fondness for speculative poetry—he won the 2005 Rhysling Award—and flash fiction.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Robot Read more

Tom Kerr is a writer based in Asheville, NC, USA. His children’s stories have been published in the USA and abroad and he may be contacted via GURU.com, a professional Web site for freelancers. Please click on headline for this fun-filled juvenile-market robot story.

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Craig Heck, a science fiction and fantasy writer. His fantasy novel, The Indigo Knight can be found here on Amazon. In “How Brad Learned Math,” Mr. Heck presents us with a story for the juvenile market about an encounter with a robot, unsurprisingly, in the woods. Robot in the Woods Publishing has asked that Mr. Heck develop an outline for a longer treatment of the story. In the meantime, please enjoy this delightful tale of a boy who hates math. Read more

Robot in the Woods is proud to debut its first short fiction piece by Science Fiction author Michael Ugulini. Mr. Ugulini is a freelance writer located in Toronto, Canada. Three of his short scripts have recently won awards, including First Place in the American Gem Short Screenplay Competition (2006) for his screenplay PARCHED. For more information about Mr. Ugulini, please visit his website.

DAYS ON THE WIND FARM, by Michael Ugulini

She watched me from the crest of the hill, which overlooked the water. I had beached my canoe to rest from a long morning’s paddling along the coast, and I was ready to eat some lunch. She was maybe forty-five, with shoulder length blond hair, and wore a blue summer dress, which caught the breeze like the giant wind turbines that towered over her fifteen yards behind.

These, in fact, had caught my eye as I traversed the coast. There were at least a dozen of them spread along a wide expanse of farmland, impressive to see as their white blades cut the air. Others had told me about them, how they had changed the landscape, and were providing electricity to a town down in the valley. Farms in other parts of the country were leasing out space for these as well, as sources of income. People said it was common now to see fields of robot-workers moving their metal arms along rows of crops in synchronicity with the spinning blades above them. Read more

I’ve been thinking about the various styles Robot in the Woods can be rendered in. Below are some of my thoughts:

• Aztec
• Abstract
• Asian
• African
• Latin America
• Soviet Propaganda
• Children’s Book
• Anime & Manga
• Photo-realistic
• Nature Illustration
• Wizardry
• Cave Art