Theresa made it almost to nineteen. Her last two years felt like a complete bonus, every day extra beyond what we’d expected. She ate so much tuna, stole so much pork from fried rice, and constantly begged us to leave the faucet running like a waterfall. Goodbye, Theresa. ❤️ Continue reading “The End of Theresa’s Reign”
“…he felt the upgrade chip click into place. And instantly, everything grew a million times more complicated.”
Engleine hesitated with the upgrade chip mere millimeters from the docking port in her beloved Hansel’s head. His mechanical ear flicked, and he said, “You stopped. Why?”
“Are you sure you’re ready for this upgrade?” Engleine asked. Her own conical ears — a biological mirror of his mechanical ones — had flattened behind her long head. She shuffled her hind hooves on the floor, and her keratinous hoof-fingers tightened on the upgrade chip that would push Hansel — her dance partner and best friend — from the seeming-sentience that had fooled her into believing he was fully his own person into an actual sentient robot. Continue reading “Clever Hansel 2020”
Originally published in Exploring New Places, July 2018
“Captain Jacques hoped these spires were the remnants of a long-ago civilization. He longed to search for signs of that civilization and learn about what kind of creatures could have once lived here.”
Captain Jacques sniffed the air on Planet 227. It was dry and sweet, very still in his whiskers, and chill on his bare pink skin. None of his science officers had mentioned being cold, but then Captain Jacques was the only Sphynx cat in his crew. Everyone else had fur under their Tri-Galactic Navy uniforms.
“It’s exhilarating!” Captain Jacques said, eliciting a polite but distracted nod from the nearest officer, a junior scientist tabby who was busy scanning the unusual red-brown rock clusters with a uni-meter. Continue reading “The Rocky Spires of Planet 227”
“S’lisha sang to the arachnids in the guttural, bellowing tones of her native language — a sound that the humans onboard had compared to a giant frog dying.”
S’lisha traced her scaly claw over the transparent metal surface of the incubator. It was the most complex cargo crate that she’d ever seen — heating and cooling coils all around the sides, a humidifier built into the base, and brackets inside to hold all of the eggs carefully in place. It had come with detailed instructions for all the settings — cool at first, but warmer and moister over time. Continue reading “Many Tiny Feet”
“Because even malicious AIs want to be liked. And people like cats.”
They Might Be Cats: A Lecture on the Prevalence of Simulated Cats in Media (Social and Otherwise!) by renowned feline expert and AI trainer, Professor Andrea Middon
(Closed captioning provided by Mew Mew Twinklepaws.)
Back during the summer when I first got access to some of the AI art programs, I spent hours and hours putting together illustrations for as many of the upcoming Zooscape stories as I could manage.
My spouse brought me a little cup of peanut M&Ms and black jelly beans, labelled with a post-it reading, “10 WORDS EACH,” because he knew I was struggling with getting started on my writing tonight.
As a writer, I know it’s tempting to read meaning into the length of time it takes a market to reject my story… and okay, sometimes there is. But as an editor, I know that the biggest factor is just which day I have free to work my way through a lot of stories and decisions.
Absolutely burst into laughter when a cover of “Crimson and Clover” started playing during a feast in the middle of a forest in the fantasy show Willow. (Yes, I’m several episodes behind.)
I’m so furious about my kids’ school policies about “attendance.”
Both of my kids are bright, have no trouble keeping up at school, and are doing distance learning. Yet, because we took them on a week-long trip where they didn’t log into their classes, the school’s in an uproar.