Writing Robots
Writing genre fiction, you're bound by certain conventions. For Love and Robotics I acquainted myself with numerous robotic tropes. Existential questions, women as sex objects, robots as straight Caucasian males (authors seem to think any further difference will alienate readers). Robots as either subservient or hostile.
I planned to subvert most - if not all - of these.
For example, many stories posit a universal acceptance of robots, with the odd lunatic fringe in opposition - or, alternatively, the lone sceptic who crows when he turns out to be right. I found this highly unlikely and thought it should be divided along cultural lines. So you have cultures like Huiji, where girls receive a robot boyfriend as a rite of passage, and you have ones like Farva, the Faith's heartland, where robots are routinely rounded up and destroyed. Lila, home to Alfred and Josh, is uncomfortably in the middle. Robots may have filled most of the 'unskilled' industries but there's outspoken resistance. The reasoning behind this varies: the Prime Minister claims to put her human electorate first; Alfred's former stance is entirely subjective/emotional.
With such ambivalence, is it any surprise that romance with one is so controversial? Reactions range from "Burn the witch!" to "Yes, please!" Lila's status as a former theocracy makes it especially complicated. Robots are regarded by some as the ultimate erotic fantasy - the execrable Our Robotic Romance saga, read by several of the characters, exploits this trend. To others it's an abomination, enjoyed only by the sick and amoral.
On the surface, you might wonder why Claire and Josh's relationship escapes condemnation. It's presented to the public as an ideal: they're the perfect young, straight and beautiful couple. The knee jerk responses to other pairings are in reality about other, older prejudices: Alfred and Josh because they're a gay couple with a visible age gap, Dee and Hector because they're an interracial couple. One character, Mandy, is only attracted to robots - 'robosexual', you might say.
Several sci fi authors have used the robot metaphor to examine the differences between men and women - and, unintentionally or not, created works of breathtaking misogyny. A common conceit is to make robots female by default, implying that men are the norm, women the exotic, manufactured "other."(Shades of the spare rib?) Fed up with these stories, I came up with two contrasts: Trini the pleasurecom, whose short and tragic life is wasted indulging her scuzzy master's whims; and Cora.
Like Trini, she's designed to be her creator's dream woman. Unlike her counterpart, she has a mind of her own; she's determined to make it as a singer. Freed of his poisonous influence, her life takes some extraordinary twists and turns. Her storyline came out of nowhere and surprised me throughout. If Love and Robotics has a heroine, it's arguably Cora.
Above all, I was bored with the unimaginative, repetitive depictions of robots in popular media. Even Star Trek's Data, a richer character than most, has an annoying inability to use contractions. You'd think that scientists capable of replicating realistic skin and mannerisms would want the end result to sound like a human being. Josh receives regular classes in human behaviour and concepts; any quirks are due to his personality, not to him being an 'artie'. It's explicit that any lapses in his knowledge are deliberate omissions on CER's part - homosexuality is socially unacceptable, so they don't teach him about it.
Rather than have all my robots be polymaths or calculating machines, I gave them wildly differing intelligence and abilities. Talent and street smarts aside, Cora is a very ordinary girl; the "Daves", or security bots, go into meltdown when asked to consider a life outside their remit. Josh may be able to conjure art works from scratch, but he loves to relax with a trashy book. My intention was, clockwork aside, my robots should all be human, believable personalities. I hope I succeeded.
I planned to subvert most - if not all - of these.
For example, many stories posit a universal acceptance of robots, with the odd lunatic fringe in opposition - or, alternatively, the lone sceptic who crows when he turns out to be right. I found this highly unlikely and thought it should be divided along cultural lines. So you have cultures like Huiji, where girls receive a robot boyfriend as a rite of passage, and you have ones like Farva, the Faith's heartland, where robots are routinely rounded up and destroyed. Lila, home to Alfred and Josh, is uncomfortably in the middle. Robots may have filled most of the 'unskilled' industries but there's outspoken resistance. The reasoning behind this varies: the Prime Minister claims to put her human electorate first; Alfred's former stance is entirely subjective/emotional.
With such ambivalence, is it any surprise that romance with one is so controversial? Reactions range from "Burn the witch!" to "Yes, please!" Lila's status as a former theocracy makes it especially complicated. Robots are regarded by some as the ultimate erotic fantasy - the execrable Our Robotic Romance saga, read by several of the characters, exploits this trend. To others it's an abomination, enjoyed only by the sick and amoral.
On the surface, you might wonder why Claire and Josh's relationship escapes condemnation. It's presented to the public as an ideal: they're the perfect young, straight and beautiful couple. The knee jerk responses to other pairings are in reality about other, older prejudices: Alfred and Josh because they're a gay couple with a visible age gap, Dee and Hector because they're an interracial couple. One character, Mandy, is only attracted to robots - 'robosexual', you might say.
Several sci fi authors have used the robot metaphor to examine the differences between men and women - and, unintentionally or not, created works of breathtaking misogyny. A common conceit is to make robots female by default, implying that men are the norm, women the exotic, manufactured "other."(Shades of the spare rib?) Fed up with these stories, I came up with two contrasts: Trini the pleasurecom, whose short and tragic life is wasted indulging her scuzzy master's whims; and Cora.
Like Trini, she's designed to be her creator's dream woman. Unlike her counterpart, she has a mind of her own; she's determined to make it as a singer. Freed of his poisonous influence, her life takes some extraordinary twists and turns. Her storyline came out of nowhere and surprised me throughout. If Love and Robotics has a heroine, it's arguably Cora.
Above all, I was bored with the unimaginative, repetitive depictions of robots in popular media. Even Star Trek's Data, a richer character than most, has an annoying inability to use contractions. You'd think that scientists capable of replicating realistic skin and mannerisms would want the end result to sound like a human being. Josh receives regular classes in human behaviour and concepts; any quirks are due to his personality, not to him being an 'artie'. It's explicit that any lapses in his knowledge are deliberate omissions on CER's part - homosexuality is socially unacceptable, so they don't teach him about it.
Rather than have all my robots be polymaths or calculating machines, I gave them wildly differing intelligence and abilities. Talent and street smarts aside, Cora is a very ordinary girl; the "Daves", or security bots, go into meltdown when asked to consider a life outside their remit. Josh may be able to conjure art works from scratch, but he loves to relax with a trashy book. My intention was, clockwork aside, my robots should all be human, believable personalities. I hope I succeeded.
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