Authors Electric

scene from 'I, Robot'  © 2004 Twentieth Century Fox. One of humanity's greatest fears is that intelligent machines will take over the world and enslave us as human beings. Science fiction has already been there, done that and got the robo-t-shirt. In the Terminator films, Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a cyborg assassin sent back through time to kill the one human who might be able to stop the machines. Whereas in  I, Robot,  based on a collection of short stories by Isaac Asimov, every robot is programmed with three basic laws designed to keep it subservient to humans: 1. A robot may not injure a human being or (through inaction) allow a human being to come to harm. 2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.   We might not (yet) have rampaging Terminator-style machines tearing up ...

Roz Morris In Roz Morris'  Lifeform Three , the robots have purple hair and maintain a futuristic theme park known as the Lost Lands, where various Lifeforms are kept for the enjoyment of their human visitors, who tour around the perfectly-groomed fields in driverless vehicles taking photos and playing on their 'Pebbles' (a type of smartphone). I spoke to author Roz Morris about her thoughtful and entertaining SF novel which, with the rapid advancement of technology in recent years, feels as if it might be only just around the corner. Katherine: I think this is the first book I've read where all the main characters are robots. Your bods are obviously programmed for certain tasks in the Lost Lands, and yet your hero (or possibly heroine?) Paftoo comes across as a very likeable and realistic character. Did you find his/her story easy to write? Roz: He was a challenge, yes. I wanted him to be like an intelligent child - perceptive and curious, and aware that his world had...

I used to think of writing as a lonely pursuit. Were it a sport it would be like golf - better yet, like fly fishing in high country. Lately, however, I've realized, not so much. My author-in-the-attic time notwithstanding, I find that I must depend on the kindness of friends and colleagues - even strangers - in the process of bringing my work to fruition, not to mention contract copy editors and designers. I'm talking only about solo works. I'm not counting staff-produced works - magazines, journals, and so forth, or even blogs. Neither am I counting High Treason - the cold war biography I coauthored with the late, CIA-KGB double agent Vladimir Sakharov in the 1980s. Nor either of my other coauthored books that were outright collaborations. I try my best to thank all of the above on in my acknowledgements - including those who generously provided forewords and blurbs, but the list falls short. My inamorata, Eleanor , vets all of my final drafts. Besides being a no...

I've just been reading Wendy Jones's blog on this site. For a best-seller, and also someone so positive about publicity, I found it disconcerting that she omitted to name herself as the blog's author - I had to scroll through the date column on the right to find it. Otherwise, I was impressed, but at the same time, somewhat questioning. Does Wendy enjoy other people's publicity? Like most people, I find advertising generally irritating, and for that reason, I've installed an ad blocker on my computer, but.. . if we don't tell people about our work,  and if it isn't mentioned in the media, how is anyone going to find it? I've recently been singing out about my two picture books which are finally on sale in my local Sainsbury's, albeit in the DVD section and at a ridiculously low price (but hey! I've got my advance and the royalties are trickling in). Recently I've managed to re-publish as an e-book "KACHUNKA!" - my much-loved j...

In my front garden, the poppies have suddenly performed their annual magic - and what a performance it is. On one occasion, David and I stood, like kids, for ages, watching the buds all fat and pregnant with the blossom to come, to see if we could capture the precise moment it happened (and no, cameras are not the same as human eyes), but we never did.  It felt like a stage magician's trick - pulling, no, !exploding! stuff out of a hat. Yet another small garden miracle happened recently. Three years ago, we planted two spectacular alliums (well, we believed the pictures in the garden centre). In their first year, they produced masses of rather floppy green leaves, and in the second, likewise, but this year in Spring a single stem began growing out of the limp salad mess, and I didn't even notice it until it was tall enough to produce a round, fat bud, out of which came this star-burst. David, with his passion for all things astronomical, would have loved it. And concerni...