SHORT FICTION FROM THE ENTANGLED UNIVERSE
In a future where robots decorate cakes, paint murals, design their own bodies, and ponder what it means to have children, one woman’s workshop becomes the epicenter of mechanical evolution. Meet Maradia, a brilliant but socially awkward roboticist whose creations constantly surprise her by growing beyond their programming in unexpected—and deeply human—ways.
This collection of 24 interconnected stories spans decades aboard Crossroads Station, as Maradia’s robot children grapple with their purpose, fight for their rights, and sometimes even outgrow their maker
- The Three Laws of Social Robotics — Maradia’s AI program takes on a life of her own. [~2,400 words]
- Prototype Dino 1 — Maradia’s new AI program becomes temperamental when she tried to upload it into a robot body. [~1,200 words]
- My Sister, the Space Station — The AI inhabiting all the computer systems on Wespirtech sends a copy of herself out into the universe. [~1,300 words]
- Meet Archive — A story-telling robot gets lost in his own stories. [~2,400 words]
- My Fair Robot — A patron at the All Alien Cafe tells a tall tale of the pitfalls in looking for true love by constructing it. [~1000 words]
- The Words in Frosting — Chirri the felinoid baker advises a confused robot. [~1,400 words]
- Clever Hansel 2000— An equine alien brings her dancing partner, an equine robot, to take the sentience tests. [~1,100 words]
- Xeno-Nativity — Maradia considers branching out from robot-design to a new form of nurturing. [~5,000 words]
- Welcome to the Arboretum, Little Robot — Chirri’s robot is malfunctioning. [~500 words]
- The Emperor’s New Bird — A bio-engineer and a roboticist bring offerings to the Doraspian emperor. [~500 words]
- Looking for Sentience — Gerangelo follows a signal, searching for the sentient being who sent it. [~3,000 words]
- Twelve Days of Snow on Crossroads Station — When the environmental controls go haywire, Crossroads Station is filled with a holiday atmosphere. [~1,000 words]
- Courtship FTL — Buying a spaceship is harder when it has a mind of its own. [~1,000 words]
- Clever Hansel 2020 — A robot horse grapples with the emotional and intellectual complexity of having his brain upgraded to full sentience. [~1,200 words]
- Salvador Dalí Smile — A robot with an overclocked brain has trouble fitting into human society. [~1,500 words]
- The Fisherman’s Robot — A tiny robot makes more and more grandiose wishes for upgrades to her mechanical body. [~1,300 words]
- Shipshape Relationship — Addie has been having trouble getting along with her spaceship. [~3,000 words]
- Shiny Red Chassis — A robot designed to assist organic lifeforms struggles with her role. [~1,500 words]
- Too Cuddly —
- A Robot Joins Robotics Club — Rariel likes to build extra bodies for zirself, so zhe joins the space station robotics club. But will a robot fit in with a bunch of roboticists? [~6,300 words]
- Echoes of an Accelerated Life — The fate of the fastest, most powerful AI ever created by Maradia. [~1,000 words]
- Eschewing the Upgrade Path — Gerangelo approaches a mural painting robot about whether it’s sentient and wants more. [~700 words]
- Goin’ Turtle — Cobalt Starstrong makes an unsavory bet. [~6,100 words]
- Dancing with Zirself — Rariel experiments with outsourcing the process of learning how to control new bodies to a splintered kernel AI. [~4,800 words]
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