Category Archives: “His Robot Girlfriend”

New Revision of His Robot Girlfriend

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A new revision of His Robot Girlfriend is now available.  As I write this, it is up at Smashwords and Feedbooks, and by the time you read this, it should be available at Kobo, Diesel, iBooks, Barnes and Noble, and Sony.

I was sorely tempted to rewrite the whole thing, but I didn’t.  I just smoothed it out, fixed one or two errors, and did some content editing.

One thing I did change was the controversially low price of the Daffodil Robots.  I increased it roughly by tenfold.  It’s probably still rediculously cheap.

Please feel free to download the new version, it is still free of course, and replace your old version.  If you haven’t read it yet, download it and give it a try.  You have my thanks.

The Politics of Global Warming

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I’ve been re-editing His Robot Girlfriend, making quite a few changes.  The changes are all relatively minor.  Though I’m tempted to rewrite the whole thing, I’m not doing it.

Over the years I’ve seen several reviews that renounce my politics because of what I’ve written in His Robot Girlfriend.  I was never sure what politics they were talking about, but I sort of thought it might be about gay marriage– because there is a sort of analog of gay marriage in the human/robot marriage of Mike and Patience.

Only recently did I realizet that what most were talking about was the issue of Global Warming.  When I wrote the book, I didn’t realize that it was even a political issue.  Global warming just seemed to be a fact that scientists generally agreed upon.  I knew that some people believe scientists are involved in some sort of global conspiracy, but then I knew some people don’t believe we landed on the moon and some think the world is flat.  But since I was writing a science fiction book, I took global warmin far beyond what I thought at the time ever might come to pass, just to make a better story.

In the years since I wrote the book, I’ve come to believe that I may have underestimated the effects of climate change.  If I were to write it today, I might have them living beneath tinted domes.

 

Motivations: His Robot Wife

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His Robot Wife was written for entirely different reasons than any other book I’ve written.  All the other books (with maybe the exception of His Robot Girlfriend) were written because I thought I had a great story to tell and I wanted to tell it.  You could say that I wrote His Robot Wife for money, though that’s not entirely accurate.  I priced it an 99 cents even though I could have made more by pricing it higher.  I wrote it because I knew it would sell.

I publish His Robot Girlfriend in 2008, and it has been downloaded hundreds of thousands of times.  Many people wrote and asked for a sequel.  This was a big deal for me.  But I didn’t have a story.  As far as I was concerned, the story of Mike and Patience was over.  Still, people kept asking.  It took me three years to come up with a story for them, and I think it’s probably my weakest plot (but HRG wasn’t popular for its plot, but rather its characters anyway).  So in 2011 I wrote His Robot Wife.  It is short, at 28,000 words, but it went easily enough, and as it turned out, it has sold more copies than all my other books put together.

People still wanted another book in the series, but I really struggled to come up with an idea.  Then one night, it just popped into my head.  If I took the point of view away from Mike and gave it to Patience, a whole series of story ideas presented themselves.  I sat down and plotted out five books.

I spent some time writing the new book last night.  It’s not as easy to write as some other books in my workshop, but I’m having a bit of fun.  Now for those of you who bothered to read to the end… here is a little hint about something in the next book.

Patience acts as a mentor to another Daffodil, teaching her how to seem more human.  Talk about the blind leading the blind.

 

His Robot Girlfriend Available at Manybooks

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Just a reminder that along with the many thousands of great classic books that you can find at Manybooks.net, you can download His Robot Girlfriend free.

Manybooks is one of the best sites of new ereader, iPad, or Kindle owners.  You can create a library to rival Alexandria in almost no time at all.  Check it out.

Motivations: His Robot Girlfriend

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It was 2008, and I had just finished writing the first draft of a massive fantasy novel that I was calling The Steel Dragon.  This would eventually become The Voyage of the Minotaur, The Drache Girl, and The Two Dragons.  I printed up 10 copies and handed them out to friends to read and edit over the summer.  Each one was a 4″ thick notebook.  I had also just self-published Princess of Amathar.

While I was waiting for the editing to be completed, I thought I needed something to post to Feedbooks and Manybooks to get my name out there.  I had written some sci-fi flash fiction a few years earlier and thought I could piece them together to make a novel.  This became the first half of His Robot Girlfriend and I wrote the other half over the summer (while teaching summer school).  I published it online and was astounded at the interest.  At one time, it was the third most downloaded book on Feedbooks (It’s since dropped to number 7).

His Robot Girlfriend succeeded in getting my name out there.  It’s been downloaded almost 500,000 times, has been reviewed numerous times, and I get many emails and notes from people that enjoy it.  That being said, I think it’s the worst thing I’ve ever done.  Someday… soon, I plan to make a serious revision to the book.  There are some errors, but mostly, I think I can write much better than I did.  It has to keep the same plot and same major elements, but I’d like to smooth it out, fix the ending (which is weak), and maybe add a bit to it.  We’ll see.

One comment that detractors frequently make about His Robot Girlfriend (feedback is overwhelmingly positive) is that Patience has no will of her own.  She is a robot, duh!  But this gave me an idea for the new book– His Robot Wife: Patience is a Virtue.  It will show a bit more from her point of view and we will find out that not everything is as Mike thinks it is.

His Robot Girlfriend: 1500 Reviews on iBooks

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His Robot Girlfriend has now been rated by 1500 people on iBooks (actually 1522 as of today) with an average rating of 3 1/2 stars.  In case you were wondering, there were 458 five star reviews, 442 four stars, 335 three stars, 162 two stars, and 125 one star reviews.  Can’t please everybody, right?

As many times as His Robot Girlfriend is criticized as an adolescent male fantasy or for being sexist, a surprising number of women give it high ratings.  I sometimes get comments about the political leanings of the book as well (of which I didn’t know it had any).  I think a lot of both of those are down to what people bring with them into the story.  That’s not to say there isn’t a fair bit of male fantasy in there.  ‘Cause there is.

You can pick up His Robot Girlfriend free on iBooks.  And thanks to everyone who took the time to rate it.

His Robot Wife: Patience is a Virtue

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Here it is– the title and cover for the next Robot Wife novella.  His Robot Wife: Patience is a Virtue.
I get a great many emails requesting another Patience book, and considering His Robot Wife has sold more copies than all of my other books put together, it just seems stupid not to get another one done as soon as possible.

I sat down and tried to think of a new approach that would give me more story opportunities and still be true to the characters.  When it came to me, I immediately had ideas for about five more books.  So you can expect Mike & Patience to make frequent appearances over the next few years.  I definitely plan to have this book done sometime in 2012.  Watch this space for more information.

Free Distribution

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The other day I posted my total book sales.  Moe the Cat, friend of this blog, wondered how many free books had been distributed, so I thought I would look that up and post it.  Here we go:

His Robot Girlfriend                                              377,035 downloads
Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Elven Princess            93,959 downloads
Eaglethorpe Buston and the Sorceress                     78,799 downloads

There have been a handful of paperbacks sold of each of these books, and there have been a few giveaways of other books, but that is pretty much it.  Sometimes I really wish I had 30 cents for each copy of His Robot Girlfriend, but I know it wouldn’t have been downloaded so many times if I charged for it, and it has done its job of bringing me new readers.  I have plans for a couple of other free books, one of which should be available this year.

His Robot Girlfriend — Politics

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People accuse me of having all kinds of hidden agendas in the robot books, both political and otherwise.  Some have suggested that I’m a radical environmentalist because of the prominance of the Green Party in the story.  I do care about the environment, but the reason that the Green Party plays a part is that I thought it would be more fun to have three parties vying for the presidency than two. 

Others have said the story is a thinly veiled treatis on same-sex marriage.  There is a reference to the fact that same-sex marriage is more common in the future of the story.  That is not an endorsement by me.  I don’t have really strong feelings about it one way or the other.  I do think the institution of marriage is being damaged less by same sex couples than by people (either gay or straight) who practice serial monogamy– getting married and divorced over and over again.  I’ve been married to the same woman for 26 years. 

One area that few people get is the parallel of Apple Computers.  I tried to parody and reference Apple in a number of ways.  I find Apple and Apple fandom both interesting and humorous.  On the other hand, though I wasn’t part of it when I wrote the books, I wouldn’t give up either my iPad or my iPhone 4S for anything now.

Harriet Smith

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Harriet Smith is a character in His Robot Girlfriend and His Robot Wife.  She is the daughter of the main character– Mike Smith.  Harriet is very loosely based on my own daughter, but as my daughter has happily pointed out, she would never put up with such a jerk of a husband as Harriet has, and quite honestly, unlike Mike, if my daughter did, I’d put him in the ground myself.

There are a few little inside stories that are taken from my own life with my daughter, such as her ability to talk a subject to death until my eyes glaze over, and the remembrance that they have of the time that Mike threatened to kill a kid who was bullying Harriet and almost lost his job because of it.

On the other hand, Harriet is a dental hygienist, and is fascinated with teeth, something my daughter has never shown any interest in.