Get a free copy of my pets in space, scifi romance Time Trap!
Make sure you're always in the know about my new releases and other exclusive content!
Make sure you're always in the know about my new releases and other exclusive content!
I can still remember my first sight of the unrelenting, seemingly unstoppable Borg. Talk about creepy villains. It wasn’t just their lack of emotion that made them such deliciously awful opposition, but the very real threat of being assimilated, of losing free will. You don’t just get defeated by the bad guys, you become one of them. You go from fighting them to helping them assimilate the people you care about.
Are automatons the forerunners to the Borg? Can they, do they, tap into the same fears and chills? Is it an either or equation, or just two different ways to look at the same thing? Is it their lack of humanity that chills? That they can’t be reasoned with? Can’t feel our pain?
The books I’ve read seem to focus the most on the unrelenting, rigorously obedient aspects of the automaton, though What Ho Automaton, a steampunk pair of novellas by Chris Dolley goes for the intelligent automaton called Reeves (a pastiche on PG Wodehouse that is a cute, fun read).
And there are romantic possibilities when automatons become sentient. .
I will admit to taking a stroll through automaton land in my steampunk/science fiction romance mashups (Steamrolled, Steam Time, Kicking Ashe), but I definitely revisited that trope when I rebooted my Project Enterprise series.
My cyborgs first appear in Lost Valyr as the robotic crew of the Najer. They seem to be enemies, but you know the old saying, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” They enter into an alliance with my Project Enterpise people to face a huge enemy and then continue the alliance when they all don’t die. (I do write happy endings, after all.)
To help with the alliance, some of them take on human form, either completely or partially (thus becoming cyborgs.) They created some fun opportunities for me going forward. And I’m excited I still have a few of their stories to tell.
Pauline