Robot Fiction

After a decade of silence the Battle Engines march once again... The ancient world has given way to chimneys billowing the smoke of industry into the sky of Tarn. With industry comes technology no one a hundred years prior could have dreamed of. And with those dreams came weapons more destructive than ever. The Engines were invented to benefit the people yet were instead used as massive engines of war. The cannons of the great battle engines have been silent for a decade, their marches only echoes from long ago. While the battles are long gone, the scars linger. Then unstable peace is ...

Hank's school is hosting its first-ever Build-a-Robot competition, and Hank is ready to win. There's just one problem: He completely forgot about the contest! While other kids have been working on their robots for a month, Hank has just two days to create an amazing robot that will wow the judges and win him the trophy. To make matters worse, there might be another problem, too. Hank has no idea how to build a robot! With help from Jaden, a robot expert at his school, Hank and his friends construct their robot, Stanley, just in time.

The savage ocean planet of Spatterjay draws visitors with very different agendas. Erlin is immortal and seeks a reason to keep living. Janer hosts a hive mind, which paid him to find this planet. And Keech is an agent of Earth who’s been dead for 700 years – but still hunts a notorious criminal. On Spatterjay’s vast waterscapes, only the Old Captains risk the native life forms and their voracious appetites. However, they are now barely human. And somewhere out there Keech’s target – the Skinner – runs wild.

Kell Kressia is a legend, a celebrity, a hero. Aged just 17, he set out on an epic quest with a band of wizened fighters to slay the Ice Lich and save the world, but only he returned victorious. The Lich was dead, the ice receded, and the Five Kingdoms were safe. Ten years have passed; Kell lives a quiet farmer's life, while stories about his heroism are told in every tavern across the length and breadth of the land. But now a new terror has arisen in the north. Beyond the frozen circle, north of the Frostrunner clans, something has taken up residence in the Lich's abandoned castle.

In the future, true love is something that can be created to a person's specifications. Meet Denise Merritt - the perfect woman. She is beautiful, caring, emotional, sensitive, smart, friendly, and has the best personality a person could possibly have. She is also not real. Denise is an android (model) and she was made for the man, Steven Adams (mate), who wants to spend the rest of his life with someone special. Once he finally meets her, he had hoped to live out the rest of his life with the only person in the world he truly loves, but he gets swept into an unwelcome adventure when he ...

He's a billionaire recluse known for the world's most valuable invention. She's a lonely assassin hired to steal his ideas and end his life. . . . When these two meet sparks of passion fly that neither expected nor wanted. -------------------- Simon Canton doesn't trust humans. Ever since his last girlfriend tried to assassinate him in his sleep he has surrounded himself only with his greatest invention -- his bots -- lifelike androids that take care of his every physical need. Draya Carter is a trained assassin hired to infiltrate Simon's world, steal his ideas, and end his life. She was ...

Livvy and Jayden are the stars of their school's robotics team. Livvy is especially enthusiastic because her own mother works in a robotics lab and experiments with artificial intelligence. To impress her mom, Livvy and Jayden build a robot. Livvy wants to name their robot "Francine", but Jayden thinks that's too silly for their creation. Desperate to win, Livvy and Jayden "borrow" an artificial intelligence module. They soon realize they've made a terrible mistake. Francine has too much brain power. She's alive! And using this newly gained brain power to dream up a deadly contest!

Can money buy you love? Aiden is about to find out. After years of not trusting a woman’s true intentions, Aiden has given up on them completely. He turns to Dream Droids, the premier company in creating an artificial companion, to build him the perfect woman. She’s smart—too smart. And tempting—too tempting. And Aiden can’t be tempted. An employee is stealing from his billion-dollar company, and the police feel his corporation is somehow behind a surge of a new drug on the street called Frenzy. When Aiden’s Dream Droid flaunts her intelligence and begins to connect the pieces, ...

Three hundred years ago, a liaison-robot-turned-warrior sided with humans in the Great A.I. War. He's one of few hi-level sentients allowed to live. But all this doesn't matter now because he's on the run. Armed with emotion-chip-fueled determination and his beloved weapons, the general flees to a nearby planet where he must unravel a tangled conspiracy to prove his innocence. But that's easier said than done.

Outthink. Outcraft. Kai and his wife are dying. Their only chance lies inside the Daisy Trials. This year, contestants must capture components, craft cards, and defeat their opponents in a merciless gauntlet where every decision matters. He’s trained for this moment his whole life—studying past Trials, memorizing every pattern. But so has everyone else, and they’re all just as motivated. Will Kai make it? Follow along in this dungeon crawling journey set in a post-apocalyptic world—perfect for fans of clever strategy, card games, and crafting.

McSweeney's is a literary journal based in San Francisco. In this piece by Ryan Boudinot, a hangdog robot searches for romance.

On May 22, 2018, every person on Earth sneezes. Simultaneously. Hours later, an alien spacecraft appears over New York City and broadcasts a dire message of impending doom. The future of the human race will depend on the whims of a solitary extraterrestrial who appears in the form of Walter Cronkite. Yes, that's right, Walter Cronkite, the deceased news anchor! Ex-FBI troubleshooter Jake Corby has faked his death and dropped out of sight, living like a hermit in a small town. But the president is convinced Corby's still alive. He wants Jake, with his unique problem-solving skills, added to ...

A richly funny and fantastical novel about the strangeness at the heart of even the most ordinary lives, from one of South Korea’s most acclaimed novelists.

A strange signal pulses through Deer Valley, threatening humans and robots. Wally has never questioned her life in Deer Valley, where humans and robots rebuilt after the AI Uprising. But when she hears animals' thoughts, and a trusted Peacekeeper suddenly turns violent, her world shatters. When Dr. Valerie Kaine arrives, her hidden agenda unleashes dangerous technology. Her true targets: Wally and ten other teenagers carrying neural implants from an abandoned experiment. As fear spreads, Block the CleanerBot faces exile from the community he helped build. He must stop Kaine before she ...

The Earth Day Fair is days away, but Nate's classroom project - a robot named Mr. Butler - has disappeared. Nate the Great and his dog, Sludge, take on the unusual case, and they are soon searching high and low in and around the school. Will Nate find the robot in time for the fair?

Thomas Usher has a terrible gift. Following a car crash in which his wife and daughter are killed, he can see the recently departed, and it's not usually a pretty sight. When he is called to investigate the violent death of the daughter of a prominent local gangster, Usher's world is torn apart once more. For the barriers between this world and the next are not as immutable as once he believed.

David Rayne brought positive change to the other side of things. The ombria were seriously weakened, the Dark Queen destroyed, and Tesora saved. A well-deserved sense of peace stretched across the land. But one problem remained. The young man that saved the world was still stuck in it. His bid to return home had proven unsuccessful. The fate of his parents weighed heavily on his mind. Filled with a renewed sense of purpose, David sets out again to find a way to reunite with his mother and father. But the way forward is no more clear than it was the first time around. It will take the help ...

Miriam is trying. Really, she is. But this whole "settling down thing" that Louis has going for her just isn't working out. She lives on Long Beach Island all year round. Her home is a run-down double-wide trailer. She works at a grocery store as a check-out girl. And her relationship with Louis - who's on the road half the time in his truck - is subject to the piss and vinegar Miriam brings to everything she does. Still, she's keeping her psychic ability - to see when and how someone is going to die just by touching them - in check. But even that feels wrong, somehow. Like she's keeping a tornado stoppered up in a tiny bottle.

NEWLY REVISED VERSION - 2020 So, I kill monsters, what do you do for a living? My name is John Adams, and I’m on the run. As a special force's trained combat wizard, I’ve been a loyal soldier for years, doing what needs to be done, killing what needs to be killed, but I’m not so sure I am on the right side anymore. Now, I have to find out why the government, I have dedicated my life to, is creating cybernetically engineered killing machines from the bodies of my fellow servicemen before minotaur assassins, elven hitmen and my own country’s Elimination Squad find me. All in a day’s...

Scranton, the strangest city on earth has an uneasy “live and let unlive” relationship with the supernatural. But when a vamp puts the bite on an unwilling victim, or some witch casts the wrong kind of spell, that’s when they call me. “My name’s Markowski, a Detective Sergeant on the Scranton PD’s Supernatural Crimes Investigation Unit. I carry a badge. Also, a crucifix, some wooden stakes, a big vial of holy water, and a 9mm Beretta loaded with silver bullets.”