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Because you asked ... I felt I might respond.
I have thirty years in as a writer. Been published in hard cover, paper, & trade in New York, Paris and Latin America. Been reviewed by Time magazine. Had a made-for-tv movie, even.
I teach college and one of my students (now publishing her own works) heard me say that (in a coffee shop) and challenged me to use it in a story. "Creepier ..." was written in a fever, as I said above.
It is a powerful and dark science fiction that will take your breath away.
Let me share some of my short story with you …
“My name is Nathan Bone. I am a private tracker and hunter for the realtors and property managers in the city of Seattle. My job is to defang the runaways and the homeless so their lairs can be rented out to humans with money again. I play hard and I play rough. Most nights I have no trouble sleeping. When I do dream, gunmetal blue monkeys are chasing me with gleaming sliver razors. And then I ambush them, make them dead.
“I find them in squats, rocking back and forth, hissing and grunting, all jacked on the Feed, fascinated, mesmerized, paralyzed. They don’t know they’re not alone. So they think they’re smarter and better off without us humans?
“I unjack them. They go peaceably. Almost all of them.
(space)
“I jimmied the door and went in hungry like the homeless. The first robot I saw – a simple black and white unit with lime green and blue shoulder stripes -- was squatting on the floor in the corner, watching the Feed, jacked in and caught up in some porno of fawns of liquid silver gamboling. Go figure.
“It saw me come in, my gun in my hand. But dreamy, detached from reality and not listening, paralyzed, it did nothing but giggle at the Feed coming inside its skull.
“Robots giggle like a hyena. A robot’s giggle is canned like Polish ham. It was creepier than a whorehouse kiss. Their giggles scared animals.
“I felt eerie but good pulling out its plugs from its butt …
**
Well, folks, that’s what is creepier than a whorehouse kiss.
If you thought it was exotica or erotica, gross or “creepier,” oops, sorry, folks.
“Creepier …” was accepted by a publication within 24 hours after I sent it. My Hollywood agent (yes, I have one) loved it and started sending it around. The studios loved it .... but the story itself was too dark. Okay, these things happen.
I began turning the story into a full-length novel with a much less challenging title. I am half-done with it, but I set it aside to work on a more commercially acceptable novel that I really really enjoy pouring over. I will return to that "creepier" novel next. In the meantime, it's on Kindle (etc.) When the novel is completed, the short story will come down.
Yes, the story is challenging. Yes, I'm marketing it like a used shoe. Oddly enough in fact, by publishing it on Kindle (etc.) ... I am protecting its copyright. Which includes my movie rights. (Always know your rights.)
But let's look at the e-book marketplace.
Without unsolicited reviews, the story just sits there like a frog on a log.
Does it sell? If you will notice, I went about eight months before I resumed talking about this story on this forum.
Does its weak sales bother me? Hey, I wrote a lovely, sweet Young Adult (YA) story called "The Bicycles were Gravestones." It sells poorly, too ... or about the same as “Creepier.”
Life is many days, as somebody famous once said, and a career has many ups and downs. What sells today ... may not sell tomorrow.
I accept the venture of my choice, as a famous French aviator & novelist once said.
But thank you for asking.
Wishing you the best ...
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