Sometimes, there's a story behind the story. That's certainly the case with I, Caroline, my latest release….
A few months ago I reviewed an anthology of short stories called The Telepath Chronicles. A little research told me that this was part of a series of invited anthologies called The Future Chronicles, run by Samuel Peralta. The next project in line was The Alien Chronicles, but that was already in production.
I wrote an entire series about telepathic aliens! How did I not know about this?
My mission: wrangle an invite from Mr. Peralta.
The next anthology was The A.I. Chronicles, so I emailed Sam. (We’re on a first name basis now).
No, he replied, AI Chronicles is full. But sometimes, when you’re working with a dozen authors, life happens, and there’s a last minute opening… Maybe, if you had a story ready to go, you might get a shot. (That's what Sam actually said. All I heard at the time was: you have a shot.)
I’m a writer. Writers write. Careers have built on less!
And that’s how I, Caroline was born.
When the Ranger, a deep-space exploration vessel, crash-lands on an uninhabited planet, only four beings survive: three humans and an accidentally self-aware robot named Caroline.
Their new environment sustains the stranded colonists, but human lives—unlike robots—have an end. Now Caroline is alone with all the emotions of a human trapped in an indestructible body.
And then Caroline realizes she has a choice…
Castaway meets I, Robot in this heart-breaking short story of love, loss, and irrevocable choices.
All the AI authors met their deadline—as they should—so I didn’t get the nod. Instead something better happened. My wife doesn’t care for sci-fi, but she dutifully reads everything I write. I gave her a draft of I, Caroline…and she loved it.
That’s when I knew I was on to something.
By the way, I reviewed The A.I. Chronicles when it came out a few weeks ago and it was fabulous.
P.S. I did get an invite to a future anthology, so all's well that ends well.
David Bruns is the creator of the sci-fi series The Dream Guild Chronicles, and one half of the Two Navy Guys and a Novel blog series about co-writing the military thriller, Weapons of Mass Deception, coming in May 2015.
