A LIFE WORTH LIVING

ORIGINAL SHORT STORY PROPOSAL – HIGHLIGHTS


WARNING: This page contains substantial SPOILERS for the short story ‘Sex Secrets of the Robot Replicants’ as eventually published in A Life Worth Living.


The original concept for A Life Worth Living was that the anthology would focus on the academic life of the heroine, Prof. Bernice Summerfield, and that of her institution, the Braxiatel Collection. While this would have been interesting, it doesn’t come through particularly strongly in the final volume – although most of the stories make mention of the fact that their central characters work in academia, there are only a handful in which this emerges as a major theme. However, his was the basis on which ‘Sex Secrets of the Robot Replicants’ was conceived.

The story as written follows the original proposal, as pitched by me to the volume’s editor, Simon Guerrier, remarkably closely, with a couple of key divergences: Firstly, the story’s title was originally the more lurid and hysterical ‘Sex Secrets of the Robot Replicants! (and Other Works)’. This was deliberate, of course – but even so, the toning-down was a sensible decision. Secondly, the proposal lacked the final section, in which Benny meets with the Proxymations at the café, and some of the story’s philosophical issues are resolved. The necessity for this scene only became apparent to me fairly late in the writing process, and fortunately Simon was able to accommodate the extra length.

The proposal also contained a handful of prose excerpts which were designed to pique Simon’s interest. None of these survived unchanged into the final story, and it is these which are presented below – for curiosity’s sake – as the proposal’s ‘highlights’. While Simon liked the concepts in my proposal, he was concerned that the prose was ‘too wordy’ – an opinion of my writing style which he’s certainly not alone in expressing, although it seemed appropriate in view of the suggested theme. I tried hard to make the final story more accessible, although we eventually came to a compromise whereby I was allowed to be pompous when referring to Jason Kane’s literary career.

SEX SECRETS OF THE ROBOT REPLICANTS! (AND OTHER WORKS)

Proposal Highlights


[An intellectual farce centring around Jason Kane’s attempts to dupe the academic world, gain literary prestige and incidentally sell more pornographic novels.]

‘Who,’ Bernice enquired of her husband, ‘the sodding hell is Dr Jonas Neak when he’s at home?’

Jason Kane flinched and froze at the door to their rooms, keycard still in hand.

It was a long time now since his features had become so comfortingly familiar to Bernice. The transition she had made in recent months – towards once again considering them the features, not simply of an irritating git, but of the irritating git she loved above all others – had felt like bringing out of retirement a favourite, if rather often-mended, pair of winter pyjamas.

The flash of guilty panic which those features had displayed after she had spoken was equally familiar, although considerably less comforting.

‘I’m sorry?’ Jason asked, precariously essaying insouciance. ‘Who?’

[Earlier that day, tipped off by the Braxiatel Collection's Assistant Librarian that Jason has overdue library books, Benny breaks into her ex’s room to try and find them. She finds a book by one Jonas Neak, which she discovers to her appalled astonishment contains literary criticism of Jason’s pornographic novels:]

A sudden swallowing noise came from behind her. In the context of what Bernice had just been reading, this aroused – no! no, bad word – evoked certain unwelcome associations. She turned, expecting to ask Jason what in Heaven’s name was going on. Instead (and idiotically, she glanced down at the book cover to check) Dr Neak himself was standing at the bedroom door, gazing appalled from somewhere inside his beard at the unhallowed slew of Jason’s underwear.

‘Er, sorry,’ he squeaked. His accent, surprisingly heavy for someone who worked in academia, was one Bernice could not immediately identify. ‘Wrong rooms.’ Again, he turned and fled, leaving Bernice staring after him in sudden realisation.

[Back to the original confrontation:]

‘So, anyway,’ Bernice continued, ‘I did some research. You remember, Jason, that thing we academics are always wasting our time with? I set a literature survey running, cross-referencing against Dr Neak’s name and yours, and guess what I found?

‘I discovered – and I can imagine how enormously this is about to astonish you – a fair few articles and papers on a similar topic. There seems to be quite an industry growing up around your... oeuvre. An industry,’ she went on, brandishing a printout, ‘entirely populated by academics with highly plausible names like Dr Jan Keason, Prof. Anne Sojak, Dr Ken J. Aason and – oh yes, someone was obviously feeling unusually creative last October – Prof. Arsenio W. Cockshaft.

‘Even more surprisingly,’ she concluded grimly, ‘these people – the men at least – look just like you, except for various unfashionable assemblages of facial hair. Prof. Sojak, I couldn’t help noticing, looks quite a lot like me, only with larger breasts.’

[Arising from this, Jason reveals that he has allowed himself to become multiply-booked for a conference:]

‘Not such a big problem as you might think,’ Jason confided. ‘I mean, obviously they can’t turn up in person. Trying to arrange that that would be mad.’

‘Mad,’ Bernice agreed. ‘As in, “The whole world’s gone”.’

‘I’d need to use time-travel or something,’ he carried on oblivious, ‘and you know how dodgy that can end up being. But I’ve commissioned Proxymations – you know, those short-term A.I. replicas?’

‘Proxymations?’ Bernice was mildly appalled.

He looked defensive. ‘They’re pretty standard for conferences these days, Benny.’

‘And of particularly dubious ethicality,’ added Bernice acerbically. ‘Oh, I do apologise. I forgot who I was talking to for a moment then.’

[Now read on...]

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A Life Worth Living cover © Adrian Salmon 2004.