His Robot Girlfriend – Review by quillaja

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This review by quillaja was recently posted on Feedbooks.com.

This book was ok. I really was looking only for something short and moderately entertaining (though something more would also have been welcome), and “His Robot Girlfriend” delivered that for free.
One of my criticisms are that after the robot girlfriend arrives, most of the story revolves around buying her clothes and having sex. I can’t understand why this robot needs so many dresses and shoes. Apparently robots are programmed to be insatiable consumers.
My second criticism is that there are some typos, grammatical errors, and things that seem like incorrect technical wording. The typos and grammatical mistakes might just be in the feedbooks version, but the technical mistakes are probably not. For example, the robot implies that her experiential memory can’t be damaged or erased because it’s “write only.” If it’s write only, how does she access it? Also, though I never heard of “write only” memory, because it can be written to, one could still erase or damage it by writing bad or null data to it.
Thirdly, I know the girlfriend is a robot, but does she really have to act like the perfect female slave that waits on her man hand-and-foot, takes care of him, and satisfies his every sexual desire? She really doesn’t have much personality of her own; she simply behaves exactly as Mike wants her to (except when it comes to exercise, I guess). The fact that she babies Mike so much makes me dislike him for being such a helpless man. Someone reading this from the feminist perspective would have a great time ripping the story to shreds.
Anyway, it’s a decent quick read if you’re looking for some mild entertainment.

First of all, thanks for taking the time to read my book. A few answers to some of your comments.

One of my criticisms are that after the robot girlfriend arrives, most of the story revolves around buying her clothes and having sex. I can’t understand why this robot needs so many dresses and shoes. Apparently robots are programmed to be insatiable consumers.

Yes, I can see how that might bother some people. My idea was that having a robot would ultimately be something like having a really big Barbie doll. Check out the Barbie aisle in the toy store– lots of clothes and shoes. The story was originally very sexually explicit and I rewrote it to be less so, but there is still just as much sex as before, just less graphic.

My second criticism is that there are some typos, grammatical errors, and things that seem like incorrect technical wording.

I’m very embarrassed about the typos! Believe me, I have spent many hours editing and have had several others editing for me as well. This is a problem that most self-published authors, without the benefit of professional editors, face. It’s hard to edit your own writing, since you tend to skip over words without even realizing it, since you know what is there. I am going to go back again though, and when I find those typos or errors, I will fix them and update the file here.

As for the technical aspect you mentioned– write-only memory. Yup, that was just a mistake. It should have been read-only. I may go back and fix that, or I might just leave it to confuse the techies.

Thirdly, I know the girlfriend is a robot, but does she really have to act like the perfect female slave that waits on her man hand-and-foot, takes care of him, and satisfies his every sexual desire?

Well, the story is essentially a male fantasy play.

She really doesn’t have much personality of her own; she simply behaves exactly as Mike wants her to (except when it comes to exercise, I guess).

She is a robot.

The fact that she babies Mike so much makes me dislike him for being such a helpless man.

I can see that. Still, speaking as a man, that is probably the most realistic part of the story.

Someone reading this from the feminist perspective would have a great time ripping the story to shreds.

While I tried to make a few social comments in the story, I would be the first to say that it’s not that thematically deep. I doubt there is much femenist criticism to be done beyond what you have said about Mike above. Still, if someone writes a college paper on my book, send me a copy of it, and I will send you an autographed paperback.

Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Elven Princess – Chapter 14

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Chapter Fourteen: Wherein we spend the evening and night in the inn.
Ellwood had just returned when the husky innkeeper appeared in the common room and made an announcement. His announcement wasn’t loud and it needn’t have been. The room wasn’t that large and there weren’t that many people in it. I counted sixteen, ourselves included. There were the three of us, the innkeeper and serving wench, six men and two women who were obviously locals—farmers no doubt, a traveling tinker; a sell-sword, which is to say a mercenary, who from the looks of things had not been doing too well; and a darkly cloaked figure in the corner. Now one might expect a darkly-cloaked figure in the corner to be the cause of potential mischief, but the truth is that I have hardly ever been in an inn or a pub or a taproom or a tavern or a bar or a saloon that didn’t have a darkly-cloaked figure in the corner. Most of the time, they do nothing more than mind their own business. It’s only those few who end up in stories causing trouble, that the name of darkly-cloaked corner lurkers everywhere becomes tarnished.
“We are privileged to have in our presence today,” said the innkeeper, “the world famous story-teller Eaglethorn Beltbuckle.”
Ellwood snorted into his recently filled cup. Was it his twelfth or thirteenth refill? I stood up.
“Eaglethorpe Buxton at your service.” I casually moved around the room to find the best spot for story-telling, eventually settling on a stool near the fireplace. “And this is the story of the Queen of Aerithraine.”
“Oh God! Not her again!” shouted Ellwood. “Don’t you have any new material?”
The sellsword at the bar began to get up, whether in defense of the Queen or of my story-telling or just to make for the outhouse I don’ t know, but a single steely look from Ellwood put him in his seat again. Apparently neither of them had any doubt who was top dog.
“I shall recount the tale of how I sold my sword to get a poor but beautiful farm girl out of prison and then slew a werewolf using only this fork!” I triumphantly pulled the fork from my fork pocket.
Suddenly the darkly-cloaked figure in the corner jumped to his feet. He swept aside his cloak to reveal black armor and a dozen long thin knifes on a bandolier across his chest. He began plucking the knives and launching them directly at Ellwood Cyrene, so quickly that seven were in flight at one time before the first met its destination. That destination was not, as had been intended, the torso of my friend, for Ellwood had jumped up at almost the same instant. With a quick flick of his wrist, he deflected the first two knives toward the wooden bar, where they stuck with loud thunks. He ducked to the side of the third and fourth knife, then grabbed the fifth, sixth, and seventh right out of the air and sent them back at the cloaked figure. By this time the assailant had thrown two more knives, but Ellwood easily dodged them. One of them hit the wall just near my head. The other went into the fireplace causing a cloud of embers to float up into the air like fireflies. And then it was all over, for the three knives that my friend had returned to the would-be assassin had all found their marks– one in the man’s right hand, one in his chest, and one in his throat.
Everything was quiet for one moment, then chaos erupted as the townsfolk and the traveling tinker rushed this way and that to get out of the way of a battle which was already over. In thirty seconds, the three of us and the darkly-cloaked dead body were the only ones left in the room. Even the sellsword had fled.
“That’s better,” said Ellwood. “Everyone likes a werewolf story.”
I recounted my story of the farm girl and the werewolf, at least so far as I had revised it up to that time, to my friend and my half-orphan companion. I’m not going to tell it now, because I want to make some final editing before it sees print. You should always get a true story just right before you print it.
Afterwards we made our way up to our rooms and I have to say that they were quite nice. I would have half a mind to write up a review for a travel company and give that particular inn three stars if only I could remember what the name of the little town was. In any case the rooms were very nice, all the more so since they were free to me. I made sure that my little elf princess was settled in and had the door locked before preparing for bed myself and was just about to lie down when there was a knock at my door.
I pulled the portal open a crack to find Ellwood Cyrene. He leaned in very close to me. I could smell the ale on his breath.
“I have something to tell you,” he said.
“Yes?” I leaned closer only to better hear him.
“I’ll be gone when you wake Eaglethorpe,” said he. “Don’t continue on the East Road. There will be a battle fifteen miles east of here tomorrow. You will have to make a detour.”
“Alright.”
“And Eaglethorpe?”
“Yes?”
“Be careful, won’t you?” He reached up his hand and brushed aside a strand of hair from my forehead. Then he turned and walked down the hallway to his room.

Amathar – No phones, letters.

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I had Amathar in my head for many years before I started writing it. In many ways, it is the perfect world that I pictured when I was a teenager. It still reflects quite a few of my own personal feelings about the technological world. I have always hated talking on the telephone. I don’t know why, I just do. My cell minutes are usually in the single digits for any given month. I suppose that it’s no surprise then that there are no phones in Amathar. The Amatharians don’t like to hear voices that don’t have a face with them. They don’t have radios or any long-distance communication. This has the added storytelling benefit of leaving our hero alone without any way to contact help. On the other hand, I like to write. The Amatharians all love to write. Hardly any Amatharian reaches adulthood without having written at least one book, and they communicate extensively by letter. The letters are sent through vacuum tubes to each house, like we have at the bank. I have always been fascinated by those tubes. When I was in the hospital a few weeks ago, I saw that they used them to send records from one floor to the other.

One Year Anniversary!

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One Year Anniversary!

Here it is– the one year anniversary of the City of Amathar Blog. 365 days of posting.

It’s been a good year. Three novels published in print and ebook editions.

More than 1000 people have downloaded “Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Elven Princess.”
More than 5000 people have downloaded “His Robot Girlfriend.”
Five people have purchased “Princess of Amather.” 😛 ::ack::

Here is an Anniversary special for you. For the rest of August 2009, you can get the “Princess of Amathar ebook” in your choice of formats (including pdf, if you want to read it on your computer, or even print it out) ABSOLUTELY FREE.

Follow this link, but be sure to enter the coupon code RE32Y.

Anniversary Contest!

And here are the winners of our contest. Email me and let me know your address and which of the three books you would like an autographed copy of– “Princess of Amathar,” “His Robot Girlfriend,” or “Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Elven Princess.” (Jason, you can let me know when you see me at school).

Winners:

Kepler
Jason G.
Sheila N.

Princess of Amathar – Chapter 25 Excerpt

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Once we had eaten, the head avian stood up, and again motioned for us to follow him. He led us to the edge of the building and hopped off. Looking after him, I saw him fly up and enter the side of the building through an open window.
“I hope he doesn’t expect us to do the same,” I said, but a moment later he reappeared from the opening and flew back up to our position, this time carrying a rope stretching out from the window. When he reached our elevation, he took the end of the rope which he carried, and tied it around the base of one of the potted trees. He then pointed over the edge with his wing.
“Shall we climb down?” asked Noriandara Remontar.
“I don’t know how much more my arm can take,” I said, attempting to reminder her both that I had a broken arm, and that it had been broken in service to her.
“You are treating it like a mother’s mother’s elder sister,” she replied, which was an Amatharian expression something along the line of “babying it”– literally, treating it as you would treat a frail old great aunt.
I sighed, resigned to the knowledge that I would get no sympathy on the subject. It seemed that the Princess was, in general, an unsympathetic person. She quite reminded me of her aunt in that respect. Grasping the rope firmly, I stepped over the edge of the building top, and repelled down the side, twenty feet or so, until I reached the open window and entered. Noriandara Remontar was close behind me.
I don’t know what I expected– perhaps a feather-lined nest, but I was pleasantly surprised by what turned out to be our accommodations during our stay with the flyers. The room was about fourteen feet wide, and about twenty-five feet long. It was clean, and it was empty with the exception of two large sleeping mats made of heaps of soft grasses covered with smooth white cloth. Before I had a chance to examine anything else, our friendly avian arrived, pointed to the beds with his wing, and then left. I didn’t need to be told twice. I dropped down in the first of the beds and as usual had no trouble in dropping right off to sleep.
I suspect that I slept a long while, though as usual, I had no way to tell– it was still noon when I woke. It was a very restful sleep though, and I felt much better. The Princess sat on her bed and cleaned her weapons.
“You sleep too much,” she said.
“I have been told that,” I replied. “I don’t recall being a particularly heavy sleeper on my home world, but since I have been here in Ecos, I seem to require more sleep than anyone else around me.”
“Mm,” she replied.
“Do you suppose that my arm has healed yet?” I wondered. It was impossible to recall if it had been splinted for a week or six weeks.
“Probably.” Noriandara Remontar rose and crossed the room. She removed the remaining bits of cloth holding the splint to my ulna, and tossed the makeshift splints aside.
“Can you move it?”
“I haven’t stopped moving it since it was broken.”
“It must not be that bad then,” she replied unsympathetically.
I shrugged and started to clean my own weapons. The cleaning of one’s swords, or if one is not a warrior, one’s equipment in general, was a common Amatharian pass-time. It was a minor disgrace to have damaged or soiled equipment. It seemed that few Amatharians ever reached that state of disgrace, for Amatharian weapons needed little maintenance. Still the cleaning and maintaining of one’s equipment was just what one did during periods of relaxation.
While we were still sitting upon our beds, a flapping noise alerted us to the arrival of the old flyer, who stepped into our room. He now had a sack, tied with string, slung over his neck. After peering at each of us intently, which I took as an avian form of greeting, he removed his burden and opened it up. Inside, he had a collection of fruit much like that which had been given to us on our arrival. We each selected one of the offerings for our breakfast, and the flyer watched us as we ate. When we had finished, he indicated that he should climb up the rope to the top of the building.
Once atop the skyscraper, Noriandara Remontar and I found ourselves in the company of a large group of flyers. It seemed the entire community had turned out to welcome, or at least to examine us. The flyers were divided up into two groups– those who were brightly plumed and those who had relatively plain feathers. I still assumed that the brightly feathered ones were the males of the species. Several of these brightly colored individuals stepped forward and peered at us with what seemed to be a typical avian stare. One of these had a nasty cut across his chest. It had been stitched together with white thread.
“These must be the fellows who were fighting with the Kartags when we came along,” I suggested.
“I was just thinking the same thing,” replied my Amatharian companion.
The elder came forward again. He pointed at the two of us with his two extremities, and then made a sweeping motion toward his fellows.
“He is either welcoming us, or inviting us to join the tribe,” I said.
“I don’t suppose that there is much distinction,” replied Noriandara Remontar, “I doubt that they have many casual visitors up here on this floating little world of theirs.”

A New Look for City of Amathar

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As you can see, I’m getting an early start on The City of Amathar blog’s new look. This to celebrate the beginning of the blog’s second year. Watch for more changes in the coming weeks, as well as an announcement about my new series “Senta and the Steel Dragon.”

Senta and the Steel Dragon – Illustration

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One day, when the first fall breeze blew across the bay to the shores of the colony, he told her his name—“Bessemer”.
Images Copyright 2009 by Clipart.com

Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Elven Princess – Chapter 13

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Chapter Thirteen: Wherein I run into an old friend unexpectedly.
Princess Jholeira and I, and of course Hysteria, made our way east, following the road which is called the East Road, which is only appropriate, as it goes east… and it is a road. I had pretty much accepted that the girl thought she was a princess. She was convincing enough as she told me of life growing up among the royalty of the elven wood. I listened to her descriptions, because you can never have too much local color to throw into a story, but I didn’t commit much to memory as far as the events of her life were concerned. There just wasn’t much of a plot there. But to return to the point, generally speaking, if someone thinks they are a princess, I have found that it doesn’t much matter whether anyone else thinks they are or not.
At tea time we stopped and I made a fire, brewing some coffee and whipping up a pan full of biscuits. These were not like biscuits in Aerithraine. There biscuits are crunchy little sweet things—what my poor old father called “cookies” though you bake them instead of cooking them. These were what they call biscuits in Lyria—something in the sort of a soft scone made with flour, salt, and animal lard. If we had only had a bit of honey they would have been quite good, but alas I had no honey. They filled us up though and both Jholeira and I were glad for them. Hysteria didn’t think very much of them though and she was mopey again for the rest of the day.
We traveled until dark was starting to settle. I had just decided that it was time to look for a campsite when my little orphan princess spotted the lights of houses some distance away. We continued and arrived at a thorpe, which is to say a hamlet or a small village. It was very small too, having only a single inn and half a dozen farm houses. The inside of the inn was warm and inviting. We were greeted at a large counter just inside by a husky innkeeper with arms like tree trunks and hands like hams. He had thick whiskers on either side of his face and when he smiled he revealed that both front teeth were gone.
“What can I do for you?” he asked.
“We would like a room.”
“Two rooms,” said the girl. “And stabling for our horse.”
“Ixnay on the ootay oomsray,” said I. “I don’t have the money to pay for the one. I was hoping I might pay for it with my storytelling…”
“Is that the good-for-nothing no-count Eaglethorpe Buxton I see?” called a voice from the doorway beyond.
While the proprietor squinted at me as if to see if it truly were the good-for-nothing no-count Eaglethorpe Buxton in front of him and not a good-for-something mathematically fluent version, I turned to see my accuser. There in the doorway was my oldest and dearest friend– Ellwood Cyrene. He had a mug of ale in his hand and a smile on his face. He looked quite at home having left his armor and swords off as he relaxed, though I could see the two daggers he kept in his belt, the one he kept up his right sleeve, and the one inside his back collar, as well as his knife in his right boot and the throwing stars in his left.
“That cannot be Ellwood Cyrene,” said I. “walking around defenseless and drunk.”
He stepped forward and we embraced. It was a manly embrace. He held onto me a bit too long, but what of that? He was a bit tipsy no doubt. No one could ever doubt the manliness of Ellwood Cyrene.
“This is for two rooms and stabling,” said Ellwood, tossing the innkeeper a big gold coin. “No doubt Eaglethorpe will want to pay for his supper with story-telling.”
The proprietor’s face lit up. “It has been a long while since we’ve had a storyteller.”
“And it will continue to be a long while,” said Ellwood, punching me in a very manly way on the shoulder. “I said Eaglethorpe wanted to pay for his supper with story-telling. I didn’t say that he could. Come my friend, let me buy you a mug of the muddy liquid that passes for ale in these parts.”
And throwing his arm around my shoulder, in a very manly way, he led me into the common room of the inn. The orphan princess followed. We sat at a rough-hewn table and Ellwood waved for the serving wench. She was attractive, though not as plump as I like, and she didn’t have any of the buttons on her blouse undone, and it didn’t matter anyway because she had eyes only for Ellwood, who gave her a wink in return.
“Ale for my good friend,” he said. “And… when did you get a pet boy?”
“She’s a girl and an elf,” I whispered to him. “But I want to keep it quiet. You know how much trouble women can cause.”
He nodded sagely, and then smiled at the wench. “A glass of milk for this poor pathetic ragamuffin.”
Jholeira playfully stuck out her tongue at him and the serving wench let loose with a peel of musical laughter as she went to get our order. Ellwood bought round after round as we sat talking of our service in the Great Goblin War and about our many adventures together. At some point, when neither of us was paying attention, the wench brought us a loaf of bread and a joint of beef and we ate like kings.
We had almost finished our supper, when Ellwood left to answer nature’s call. I had gotten up several times by that point, but Ellwood is renowned for his large bladder. As he walked away, my little elf girl leaned over to me.
“Have you ever noticed what a pretty man your friend Ellwood is?”
“Yes. I mean no,” I answered. “Absolutely not. How, why, how would I notice something like that?”

Get OpenOffice!

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Okay. Microsoft Office 95 wasn’t my favorite, but it was usable. I quite liked Office 97. I never used Office 2000, I skipped right over it and went to Office XP. I liked Office XP. I used it for years. I got Office 2003 at work and I don’t like it as much as Office XP, but I can still use it. But Office 2007 is freaking unbelievably bad. It both sucks and blows at the same time. I refuse to use it.

Since I just got a new computer and I needed an office suite, what do I do? Do I look for somebody selling an old Office? No! I’m breaking the chain. OpenOffice.org has the OpenOffice suite. It does everything that I will ever want to do in word, has a PowerPoint-like presentation program, spreadsheet program, drawing program, is Office compatible, was created by Sun Microsystems and it is FREE! Yes. FREE!

Download it from here and try it.

Amathar – Vena Remontar

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Vena Remontar is Noriandara’s cousin. As a character, she had to be everything that Noriandara wasn’t. In a word– nice. I also had to make her stand out a bit from the other Amatharian knights. Therefore her shorter hair and lighter skin.