by Mary E. Lowd
The lion, coyote, and bear
Argue and fight
Who is best?
Who is right? Continue reading “Merriment Better than a Crown”
An e-zine about spaceships, aliens, science, memory, motherhood, magic, and cats.
by Mary E. Lowd
The lion, coyote, and bear
Argue and fight
Who is best?
Who is right? Continue reading “Merriment Better than a Crown”
by Mary E. Lowd
She tends her own tree
Unbothered by the chaos below
They have nothing she needs
Only chaos to sow Continue reading “The Luna Moth’s Moon Tree”
Going to sleep listening to the Wicked soundtrack and waking up just as Elphaba sings, “It’s too late to go back to sleep…” Continue reading “Learning to Sleep with a CPAP Machine”
Yellowjackets is a wish-fulfillment show.
The wish is that middle-aged women get to be complicated and broken, but still receive empathy and be seen; that they get to commit atrocities like men do all the time and still have us rooting for them, still get centered in the story. Continue reading “Yellowjackets, AI, The Residence”
by Mary E. Lowd
Originally published in Maradia’s Robot Emporium, March 2025
Rariel 77 had entire closets of different bodies zhe’d built for zirself, and zhe liked switching between them. Sometimes, you want a classic robot body — boxy, straight lines, gleaming metal. You know, that whole deal. But sometimes, an AI simply needs to be able to go incognito and blend in with all the biological sentients around. The most common species on Crossroads Station were the Heffen (a sort of canine alien, kind of like anthro red wolves) and after that humans. Rariel 77 had very nice android bodies in both of those flavors. Zhe also had some much more abstract choices for when zhe was feeling whimsical or wanted to go on a spacewalk or do some other more exotic activity. Continue reading “Dancing with Zirself”
by Mary E. Lowd
Originally published in Maradia’s Robot Emporium, March 2025
Cobalt Starstrong charged right in, grabbed a stool at the bar, and then looked back to see Delvin balking in the doorway. There was a strange look on the younger man’s face. Cobalt gestured to the empty barstool beside him; it was a plain, simple stool, suitable to all kinds of physiologies. That was important. For they were in the All Alien Cafe.
Reluctantly, Delvin darted into the bar and took the empty seat beside Cobalt. “Why did you bring me here?” he asked. Continue reading “Goin’ Turtle”
by Mary E. Lowd
Originally published in Maradia’s Robot Emporium, March 2025
KL-2 was designed to paint murals. That was all. The clunky little robot rolled through the corridors of Crossroads Station on treads that could have been more efficient, scanning walls with sensors that could have been more precise, looking for blank wall spaces that could use embellishment, and then it filled them with artistic scenes, designed to appeal to the multitudinous alien species who lived on the station. KL-2 was an expert at knowing what kinds of colors and designs would look most pleasing to various species’ eyes. Continue reading “Eschewing the Upgrade Path”
by Mary E. Lowd
Originally published in Maradia’s Robot Emporium, March 2025
This is the tragic story of the smartest, fastest, most beautiful AI that Maradia ever programmed.
Maradia had programmed many successful AIs before, and her robotic children populated the halls of Crossroads Space Station, living alongside the human and alien inhabitants, forming subcultures of their own.
Tailoring the seed code from previous successful AIs into new personalities designed to animate particular robots was generally easy. However, Maradia had recently constructed a compression algorithm that would allow the next AI she designed to think much, much faster than any of the AIs she’d programmed before. Continue reading “Echoes of an Accelerated Life”
by Mary E. Lowd
Originally published in Maradia’s Robot Emporium, March 2025
Rariel 77 surveyed the digital catalogue of zir bodies. Zhe had built dozens of them, ranging from tiny insect-like drones to fully humanoid figures. Zir creator, Maradia, insisted that none of the other AIs she’d programmed had ever developed a fascination for building, collecting, and swapping bodies like they were clothes before. Most of them chose one body they liked best and settled into it, melding AI brain to mechanical body, becoming a single being. (Though, apparently, a couple of them went through a dinosaur-obsession phase first, much like human children.) Continue reading “A Robot Joins Robotics Club”
by Mary E. Lowd
Originally published in Maradia’s Robot Emporium, March 2025
Addie stood in Maradia’s Robot Emporium, staring at the wall of mechanical parts and trying to look like she was shopping. She wasn’t. The Seabreeze Sinewave didn’t need any repairs — at least, not the kind you could fix with spare parts.
“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?” Maradia asked, “Or just pretend to be fascinated by servo-motors all afternoon?”
Addie turned to find the roboticist watching her. Maradia had looked so absorbed in her work when Addie came in, she hadn’t realized the roboticist had noticed her at all. Continue reading “Shipshape Relationship”