Martin L. Shoemaker is a writer and programmer. As a kid, he told stories to imaginary friends. He couldn’t imagine any career but writing fiction until his algebra teacher said, “This is a program. You should write one of these.” Fast-forward through thirty years of programming, writing, and teaching. He wrote, but he never submitted anything until his brother-in-law read a chapter and said, “That’s not a chapter. That’s a story. Send it in.” It was a runner-up for the Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Award and earned him a lunch with Buzz Aldrin. Programming never did that! Shoemaker hasn’t stopped writing since. His novella Murder on the Aldrin Express was reprinted in The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Thirty-First Annual Collection and in The Year’s Top Short SF Novels 4. He received the Washington Science Fiction Association’s Small Press Award for his Clarkesworld story “Today I Am Paul.” That story continues in his debut novel Today I Am Carey.
Today I Am Carey by Martin L. Shoemaker
Carey is a robot whose job is to provide health care and companionship for humans, especially for elderly people with dementia. Carey is equipped with an “empathy net” which allows him to understand the feelings of the people he cares for, and an “emulation net” which lets him change his appearance, voice, and mannerisms so he can pretend to be someone else. The purpose is to help ease the anxieties of patients with dementia.
When we first meet Carey, he is the caretaker for an elderly woman named Mildred.
Read More
I'm relieved that I wasn't the only one who wanted to throw the book across the room early on. The…
Interested in Alyx now simply because "I Thought She Was Afeared Until She Stroked My Beard,” is definitely one of…
Although usually filed under SF, Double Star is the best novel ever written about the theater and acting. Period. Full…
Thanks for this excellent overview! Alyx has been on my radar for a while and I recently picked up an…
It sounds like you've given it a BIT of thought! :)