by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
It’s rare that one of my predictions comes true. Well, it seems as though the whole premise of my scifi dramedy has been proven to have some validity to it with the advent of the Neo Robot.
It makes me wonder if, maybe, I’m…ahead of the curve? I’m sure every screenwriter with any ambition is writing a spec script which touches on many of the same themes and ideas as the scifi dramedy novel I’m working on at the moment.
The more I learn about the Neo Robot, the more I don’t know if I should be ecstatic or unsettled. The premise of my novel takes the concept of the Neo Robot and runs with it, takes it to its logical conclusion.
So, it’s sort of like if your Neo Robot looked like, and functioned much like, Pris from Blade Runner. That’s not an exact 1-to-1, but it gives you some sense of what I’m working with.
I have to steel myself for the inevitable — just as I’m about to query this novel in, say, April 2026, a movie will come out that totally blows me out of the water. So, I think I am — for one brief, shining moment — kind of in the pole position as to my general premise.
The reason I decided on this specific novel idea was I looked at all the android movies being made and not one of them addressed the specific question I wanted answered. Now, obviously, i should be reading scifi novels since this is a novel, but, lulz, again, I generally don’t read a lot of novels and I’m too old to start to write screenplays.
So a novel it is.
If I was going to comp this novel to another novel in vibe, if nothing else, it would be Andy Weir’s stuff. That’s my dream, to write a novel that was so accessible that you could literally sit down and read in an afternoon.
Anyway. Now I definitely have a reason to write as fast as possible. If I could have some sort of first mover advantage with this novel, that would be pretty cool. BUT, and this is a huge fucking BUT, I’m old(er), I’m a loudmouth crank, I live in the middle of nowhere and even if I stick the landing it could take a year or more to successfully query this novel.
Sigh.
