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Section 1: Written! (Critiques are appreciated)
And that means I've finished the first chapter of my novel! It took me four days of trying to find time, but I did it.
I'm calling the book "Upgrade" unless and until I think of something better. It's a soft science-fiction novel, in the darkly humorous subgenre, about a tech journalist who inadvertently starts a war when he tries to pay off a blackmailer.
This is chapter one, as ready as it'll ever be for an initial critique. Thanks in advance!
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The robot could not even bring him a beer. Adam made a note of it in the space below the still-not-perfect headline he had written the day before. Straight whiskey in a frosty mug. Adam retched at an odor that reminded him of spray paint and gave the Docet Wight-150 a look of disappointment, as if the machine could be guilted into trying harder next time. As expected, the unmoving robot showed no remorse. Adam laughed.
“Are you trying to kill me with alcohol poisoning?” he asked. Adam inhaled the whiskey’s stinging vapors again. Maybe it was a legitimate question. In an old review, he hailed the last Docet model, the Wight-100, as the most precise cook in the industry, an asset to anyone with a full kitchen. If supervised, that is. It knew the ingredients in mom’s potato salad better than mom herself, but refused to boil the water without an authorized adult watching. Hell, the old Marcellus robots were worse. Even with hundreds of preprogrammed recipes to follow, those clunkers baked a cake without sugar if the sugar was anywhere but sitting out in plain sight, and neither brand would cook anything with wine if it knew someone under the legal drinking age was going to eat it; you had to lie to it. But Adam was thirty years old, and robots had been rolling, shuffling, and sauntering into his living room with a beer in hand for years.
“Do you accept nicknames? I want to call you Boozer.” Adam sank into his cushy recliner and swiveled away from the monitor to face the robot. Even with Adam slouching, the robot stood eye-level with him, though, supposedly, the new models were extendable to just over six feet tall.
“Sir, was the question, ‘Are you trying to kill me with alcohol poisoning?’ directed to me?” the robot asked evenly.
“Zara sure as hell didn’t tell you to waste her whiskey.”
The robot stayed silent.
“Or maybe Brenna woke up at”--Adam checked his watch--“one in the morning to play a prank on daddy.”
Silence.
Docet machines had never been able to understand human behavior enough to do any real interaction, a fact mercilessly exploited by recent Marcellus commercials. He turned back to his open document and noted that there seemed to be little or no improvement in the new model. Then Adam looked directly into the robot’s face and said, “Yes, the question was for you.”
Seconds later, the Wight-150’s eyes--which, of course, were merely two indicator lights arranged as eyes for the sake of familiarity--transitioned from solid green to a pulsating, soft red. The robot seemed to be in deep thought for about three seconds, and its eyes went green again.
“Sir, at Docet Corporation, safety of all our customers is a top priority. Like all robots manufactured by Docet Corporation, I am equipped with direct access to all emergency lines, and my secure programming restricts me from rendering any service, tangible or otherwise, that compromises the well-being of our valued customers or their family and friends. For more than twenty years, Docet Corporation has been committed to providing cutting edge solutions in computing, entertainment, artificial intelligence--“
“Stop.” Without a doubt, no improvement in the new model. Adam sighed, and the robot shut up and retracted its arms.
“Would you like to hear the rest of the answer to your question later?” it asked.
“No, that’s all I need. Go recharge yourself.”
Another red blink, then, “Sir, was the question, ‘Do you accept nicknames?’ directed to me?”
Adam already knew the robot accepted nicknames. None of the old Docets had, and that was another issue Adam pointed out in his last review, which, subsequently, was “highly respected and personally addressed by our developers,” according to professional bull-shitter Ronald Kulbin, who may as well been a robot himself.
“Yeah,” Adam said. “I wanted to call you Boozer.” He massaged his eyelids and considered stomaching a few gulps of the whiskey before bed. It was pointless to stay up all night and work on a review that he had a whole week to do. He still needed to start on a four-hundred-word blurb about the new Aluminum Buddies toys, and it was due in less than a day. Adam already promised Brenna he’d be done with it by the afternoon so she could officially take ownership of Buddy 6 and toss the old one.
“Sir, Docet Corporation encourages customers to assign unique names to their home intelligence products. This prevents confusion in households containing mult--“
“But now I’m calling you Lemon.”
“I will remember my name is Lemon.”
“Recharge yourself.”
“The nearest available outlet is in this room. May I recharge in this room?”
“Yes. Goodnight.” Adam hurried into the kitchen, poured the alcohol down the drain, and opened bottom drawer in the fridge to grab a beer. It was empty. It had been empty for three days, he remembered. On Monday a long-awaited e-mail had arrived, marking the first time Adam saw his book formatted, protected, and ready for release, perhaps even in print, and Cedric came over to celebrate with him. Indeed, the lack of beer wasn’t Lemon’s fault, and Adam had a good idea why it brought whiskey instead of nothing at all. Rather than listen to Lemon talk again tonight, however, Adam would confirm his theory tomorrow.
In the living room, Adam saved his document and shut down the Media Station. With the diligence he’d come to expect, a system of motors behind the wall went to work. Adam’s mahogany shelf of wonderful audio and video conveniences coasted away from his chair on two receding steel rods, the screen rolled itself into a tidy narrow pipe, and it was all tucked away behind an array of useless knickknacks collecting dust on a massive entertainment cabinet. Built with expensive lumber, sure, but certainly not built for cheap trinkets and uninspiring art. What a travesty to hide all that equipment.
Lemon had become only a head and a torso, its arms retracted and legs folded to conserve space while it rested by the stairs under an antique roll-top desk. A short cord led from Lemon’s neck to the outlet under the desk, and four blue system lights illuminated the water flowing through Lemon’s torso. The water pump was only a marketing ploy, added to the new model--along with pretty lights and clear urethane and resin pockets that showed off the water in motion--to make consumers believe the Wight-150 was some sort of hybrid robot that partially ran on water and used less electricity. A fucking joke with that arrogant company, and Adam planned to prove it.
He stretched out on the oversized leather sectional that framed the antiquity of the seemingly useless living room. Adam decided he would put away the keyboard and remotes later. Neither his body nor mind exhausted, he gazed at the gaudy abstract painting that served only to hide the screen and its series of wires and support rods. A cold beer or a glass of red wine would’ve been nice. To make either drink required precision and patience. A robot could craft the perfect beer, Adam thought.
About ten seconds after he turned over on his stomach and shut his eyes, the phone let out an especially irritating chirp three times, which meant a message had just arrived.
“Damn it.”
After a few seconds, it beeped three more times, and Adam leapt off the sectional and ran to the end table to shut off the stupid thing before it could beep again. Who would try to call this late? Maybe it was his parents, though they knew the password to make the phone ring after hours. He just pressed play without checking the number.
There was no video with the message, only audio. Booming through all the speakers surrounding the living room, the message started, “Adam, this is Karly. I know you said don’t call you--“
He mashed the stop button, knocking the whole phone system off the table. He inhaled his own saliva, triggering a fit of uncontrollable coughing. It had been almost a year since Adam last saw that woman. Karly had no reason to call him. Not at his house, not now, not in the middle of the goddamn night. That was what “don’t call me” meant. Yet it was her voice in that message, left only a few seconds ago and probably under rotten circumstances. Adam caught his breath and restarted the message--quietly, on the system’s small internal speakers.
“Adam, this is Karly. I know you said don’t call you. I know you have a wife, a family, so that’s why I waited ‘til late at night. This is important, need to talk to you about that night, so call me a-sap. Seriously.” She seemed to fumble with the phone for a few seconds before hanging up. Adam sat motionless for some time.
Excessive worrying was his knee-jerk reaction to anything disconcerting, and he hoped it was unwarranted. After all, what could Karly want that Adam would be unable to handle with a simple phone call? His instinct was to assume he got her pregnant, but that call would’ve happened many months ago. Could it be that her husband, if she even had a husband, found out and wanted to have a little talk? As bad as that might have been for Karly, it was not Adam’s problem to solve. He considered the possibility, and actually, yes, it was his problem. Karly knew his number, and that meant the hubby could find out where Adam lived, pay an unexpected visit, and Zara would find out everything.
In any case, Karly wanted something, and Adam had no choice but to find out what it was. His right index finger hovered over the call-back button, but he stopped. It was late, and he wanted time to compose himself and rejuvenate his mind and conversational skills, the same skills he had stupidly misused to get her in bed. Adam groaned like a punished child and decided to lie down again, and though it had been a comforting sanctuary after countless late nights, the sofa felt like a bed of nails now.
I'm calling the book "Upgrade" unless and until I think of something better. It's a soft science-fiction novel, in the darkly humorous subgenre, about a tech journalist who inadvertently starts a war when he tries to pay off a blackmailer.
This is chapter one, as ready as it'll ever be for an initial critique. Thanks in advance!
-------------
The robot could not even bring him a beer. Adam made a note of it in the space below the still-not-perfect headline he had written the day before. Straight whiskey in a frosty mug. Adam retched at an odor that reminded him of spray paint and gave the Docet Wight-150 a look of disappointment, as if the machine could be guilted into trying harder next time. As expected, the unmoving robot showed no remorse. Adam laughed.
“Are you trying to kill me with alcohol poisoning?” he asked. Adam inhaled the whiskey’s stinging vapors again. Maybe it was a legitimate question. In an old review, he hailed the last Docet model, the Wight-100, as the most precise cook in the industry, an asset to anyone with a full kitchen. If supervised, that is. It knew the ingredients in mom’s potato salad better than mom herself, but refused to boil the water without an authorized adult watching. Hell, the old Marcellus robots were worse. Even with hundreds of preprogrammed recipes to follow, those clunkers baked a cake without sugar if the sugar was anywhere but sitting out in plain sight, and neither brand would cook anything with wine if it knew someone under the legal drinking age was going to eat it; you had to lie to it. But Adam was thirty years old, and robots had been rolling, shuffling, and sauntering into his living room with a beer in hand for years.
“Do you accept nicknames? I want to call you Boozer.” Adam sank into his cushy recliner and swiveled away from the monitor to face the robot. Even with Adam slouching, the robot stood eye-level with him, though, supposedly, the new models were extendable to just over six feet tall.
“Sir, was the question, ‘Are you trying to kill me with alcohol poisoning?’ directed to me?” the robot asked evenly.
“Zara sure as hell didn’t tell you to waste her whiskey.”
The robot stayed silent.
“Or maybe Brenna woke up at”--Adam checked his watch--“one in the morning to play a prank on daddy.”
Silence.
Docet machines had never been able to understand human behavior enough to do any real interaction, a fact mercilessly exploited by recent Marcellus commercials. He turned back to his open document and noted that there seemed to be little or no improvement in the new model. Then Adam looked directly into the robot’s face and said, “Yes, the question was for you.”
Seconds later, the Wight-150’s eyes--which, of course, were merely two indicator lights arranged as eyes for the sake of familiarity--transitioned from solid green to a pulsating, soft red. The robot seemed to be in deep thought for about three seconds, and its eyes went green again.
“Sir, at Docet Corporation, safety of all our customers is a top priority. Like all robots manufactured by Docet Corporation, I am equipped with direct access to all emergency lines, and my secure programming restricts me from rendering any service, tangible or otherwise, that compromises the well-being of our valued customers or their family and friends. For more than twenty years, Docet Corporation has been committed to providing cutting edge solutions in computing, entertainment, artificial intelligence--“
“Stop.” Without a doubt, no improvement in the new model. Adam sighed, and the robot shut up and retracted its arms.
“Would you like to hear the rest of the answer to your question later?” it asked.
“No, that’s all I need. Go recharge yourself.”
Another red blink, then, “Sir, was the question, ‘Do you accept nicknames?’ directed to me?”
Adam already knew the robot accepted nicknames. None of the old Docets had, and that was another issue Adam pointed out in his last review, which, subsequently, was “highly respected and personally addressed by our developers,” according to professional bull-shitter Ronald Kulbin, who may as well been a robot himself.
“Yeah,” Adam said. “I wanted to call you Boozer.” He massaged his eyelids and considered stomaching a few gulps of the whiskey before bed. It was pointless to stay up all night and work on a review that he had a whole week to do. He still needed to start on a four-hundred-word blurb about the new Aluminum Buddies toys, and it was due in less than a day. Adam already promised Brenna he’d be done with it by the afternoon so she could officially take ownership of Buddy 6 and toss the old one.
“Sir, Docet Corporation encourages customers to assign unique names to their home intelligence products. This prevents confusion in households containing mult--“
“But now I’m calling you Lemon.”
“I will remember my name is Lemon.”
“Recharge yourself.”
“The nearest available outlet is in this room. May I recharge in this room?”
“Yes. Goodnight.” Adam hurried into the kitchen, poured the alcohol down the drain, and opened bottom drawer in the fridge to grab a beer. It was empty. It had been empty for three days, he remembered. On Monday a long-awaited e-mail had arrived, marking the first time Adam saw his book formatted, protected, and ready for release, perhaps even in print, and Cedric came over to celebrate with him. Indeed, the lack of beer wasn’t Lemon’s fault, and Adam had a good idea why it brought whiskey instead of nothing at all. Rather than listen to Lemon talk again tonight, however, Adam would confirm his theory tomorrow.
In the living room, Adam saved his document and shut down the Media Station. With the diligence he’d come to expect, a system of motors behind the wall went to work. Adam’s mahogany shelf of wonderful audio and video conveniences coasted away from his chair on two receding steel rods, the screen rolled itself into a tidy narrow pipe, and it was all tucked away behind an array of useless knickknacks collecting dust on a massive entertainment cabinet. Built with expensive lumber, sure, but certainly not built for cheap trinkets and uninspiring art. What a travesty to hide all that equipment.
Lemon had become only a head and a torso, its arms retracted and legs folded to conserve space while it rested by the stairs under an antique roll-top desk. A short cord led from Lemon’s neck to the outlet under the desk, and four blue system lights illuminated the water flowing through Lemon’s torso. The water pump was only a marketing ploy, added to the new model--along with pretty lights and clear urethane and resin pockets that showed off the water in motion--to make consumers believe the Wight-150 was some sort of hybrid robot that partially ran on water and used less electricity. A fucking joke with that arrogant company, and Adam planned to prove it.
He stretched out on the oversized leather sectional that framed the antiquity of the seemingly useless living room. Adam decided he would put away the keyboard and remotes later. Neither his body nor mind exhausted, he gazed at the gaudy abstract painting that served only to hide the screen and its series of wires and support rods. A cold beer or a glass of red wine would’ve been nice. To make either drink required precision and patience. A robot could craft the perfect beer, Adam thought.
About ten seconds after he turned over on his stomach and shut his eyes, the phone let out an especially irritating chirp three times, which meant a message had just arrived.
“Damn it.”
After a few seconds, it beeped three more times, and Adam leapt off the sectional and ran to the end table to shut off the stupid thing before it could beep again. Who would try to call this late? Maybe it was his parents, though they knew the password to make the phone ring after hours. He just pressed play without checking the number.
There was no video with the message, only audio. Booming through all the speakers surrounding the living room, the message started, “Adam, this is Karly. I know you said don’t call you--“
He mashed the stop button, knocking the whole phone system off the table. He inhaled his own saliva, triggering a fit of uncontrollable coughing. It had been almost a year since Adam last saw that woman. Karly had no reason to call him. Not at his house, not now, not in the middle of the goddamn night. That was what “don’t call me” meant. Yet it was her voice in that message, left only a few seconds ago and probably under rotten circumstances. Adam caught his breath and restarted the message--quietly, on the system’s small internal speakers.
“Adam, this is Karly. I know you said don’t call you. I know you have a wife, a family, so that’s why I waited ‘til late at night. This is important, need to talk to you about that night, so call me a-sap. Seriously.” She seemed to fumble with the phone for a few seconds before hanging up. Adam sat motionless for some time.
Excessive worrying was his knee-jerk reaction to anything disconcerting, and he hoped it was unwarranted. After all, what could Karly want that Adam would be unable to handle with a simple phone call? His instinct was to assume he got her pregnant, but that call would’ve happened many months ago. Could it be that her husband, if she even had a husband, found out and wanted to have a little talk? As bad as that might have been for Karly, it was not Adam’s problem to solve. He considered the possibility, and actually, yes, it was his problem. Karly knew his number, and that meant the hubby could find out where Adam lived, pay an unexpected visit, and Zara would find out everything.
In any case, Karly wanted something, and Adam had no choice but to find out what it was. His right index finger hovered over the call-back button, but he stopped. It was late, and he wanted time to compose himself and rejuvenate his mind and conversational skills, the same skills he had stupidly misused to get her in bed. Adam groaned like a punished child and decided to lie down again, and though it had been a comforting sanctuary after countless late nights, the sofa felt like a bed of nails now.
Comment
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Comment by Stephen C. Phillips on April 30, 2009 at 12:06pm - I like that idea, and that can add to the fact that he doesn't want to be away from his daughter either. It's less selfish than what I had in mind, where Adam's father-in-law is the publisher of the magazine he writes for, and he stays in the marriage to keep his job and the small amount of fame. Though, maybe I can still use that to raise the stakes for Adam if he can't prevent Karly from going public about the affair.
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Comment by Evan Marshall on April 30, 2009 at 11:56am - You can always come back and revise as necessary, right? I think there's a way of making Adam sympathetic even though he has cheated on his wife. If I were doing it, I think I would have it that the love has gone from their marriage but Adam hasn't left because he knows it would shatter her. Not completely logical, but very human.
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Comment by Stephen C. Phillips on April 30, 2009 at 11:34am
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I appreciate the kind words, Evan. Since posting this section, I've completed sections 2 and 3 as well. I'm especially relieved that you called it "fast-moving," because I was worried I had added too much background in this section and the next. And with Sci-Fi, I struggle with how much of the technology to convey. I'm more of a digital media fanatic, so part of this "future" I'm writing about is based on my idea of all home entertainment on one device, though that is not as important as the robots in the story.
But I worry about oversights that might conflict with the story when a war breaks about later in the novel. Do cars fly? How powerful is the military? What kinds of weapons will civilians have access to? How will Adam evade a futuristic police force when he's on the run for a crime he didn't commit?
Another concern I have is whether readers will be okay with Adam as a lead character. It might be difficult to like a character who cheated on his wife, and if I try to justify his actions, I run the risk of turning the wife into a two-dimensional witch.
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Comment by Evan Marshall on April 29, 2009 at 7:10am
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Wow, this really grabbed me, Stephen. What does Karly want to tell him?! Well written, fresh, and fast-moving. And the crisis comes quickly, which is always good. Excellent.
Best,
Evan
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