Hobbies for Androids (Fenn)
by Aurea Fenn (2023)
(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)
This book was from Free Ebooks on reddit. The image of the cat with the laser eye was confusing. Android cats didn't appear until halfway through and I don't care any having a laser eye. And if you think about it, it would've been popular with the kittens. Likewise, there aren't a lot of hobbies for these androids. They mostly have duties, even the one that paints. There was one that mused about having his own interests instead of performing anothers, but that turned into an android takeover story and not a particularly good one.
This is a collection of short stories, ranging from a few pages to over 30. The lead-off story was about a music promoter in debt so when he discoveres his star dead in bed, he has an associate ready an android to sing at the concert. They then conspire to hide the body for a while. It was a little disappointing for a lead story, but the second story continues the story line. This had me thinking that maybe it was going to be one story, which would've had me ligthen up a little on the first story. While the payoff for the second story was better, the two should've been combined into one. It wouldn't even have been the longest story had that been done.
My biggest complaint is that most of these stories are just scenes, or they have a primary scene that takes up the majority of the narrative. Once in that scene, it defaults to a lot of dialogue. Just a lot of talking, occasionally punctuated by an adverb or adjective to tell us what they're feeling instead of showing. I'm sure everything was clear in the author's head, but it doesn't always translate onto the page.
As for the self-publishing, minor errors that seep in that I hope I don't duplicate if I try to self-publish, but I probably will. That said, an editor might've found the grammatical mistakes (according to reddit, there was an editor), but they didn't suggest improvements to the stories. And they didn't catch all the mistakes. I nearly shut the book when a fellow was trying to get medical advice from a fortune teller machine (insert commentary about being unable to afford it). A worker tells the guy "you can't use that in a palace of medical care". I read that four times before it dawned on me that it should have said "you can't use that in place of medical care". A bit of a difference.
I stuck with it at 10%, 20% and 50%, points where I'd usually bail. After that,I found myself trying to power through it. It got frustrating when one story is about a gambler in a casino betting on horses using a combination of inside information and programming probabilities, and it's clear that the guy knows next to nothing about actual horse racing. This would be okay, but the waitress who serves him and works in the place seems to know just as little and can't figure out that he doesn't know what he's talking about despite the fact that he's winning and winning big, betting all his winnings on each subsequent race. Following the narrative, it becomes obvious that this is because the author knows very little about horseracing and imparts very little knowledge about it to the reader. What is shared suggests that the author assumes that the reader knows nothing as well.
One thing I do know: a bet for the horse to come in 1st, 2nd or 3rd is a bet to SHOW, not a bet to PLACE. A place bet is for 1st or 2nd only. And for all the races and all the bets, I think only one horse was every named, the rest are numbers, but numbers where? If someone was betting on a horse, they might mention the number 4 horse in the third race at Belmont, not just number 4. Nor would they mention about 30 horses running, because a) the betting form tells you the exact number of horses, and b) no race would have 30 horses in it. The Derby has 20 and that's a lot but it's the Kentucky freakin' Derby.
I didn't think I'd get this worked up over one story, but it was toward the end and the fact that it was so poorly written is so distracting. A good editor would've suggested some tweaks. (Sidenote: my editor asked me the name of a spaceship in one of my stories, and pointed out that I said it was the flagship of the line, so something that important should have a name. I spent as much time (or more) thinking about that as I did writing the first draft of the story.) Also, the ending is out of left field and not in a good way. Even after the part when the guy is forgetting about the woman calling and texting me and trying to run off with the waitress.
Anyway, some good ideas, but not very well executed.
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