Small. Silent. Deadly. The perfect assassin or security system for the budget conscious. Send a few after your enemy. Have a few lurking about in security areas. Make your enemies afraid. Why drop a bundle on a bug, when you can have a Tarantula?

-Adrek Robotics Mini-Cyberform Model A-2 “Tarantula” sales blurb, Chromebook Volume 3.

The idea of remote controlled (or autonomous) mechanical assassins is an old one in science fiction. The first time I read about such a device was in Frank Herbert’s Dune: he came up with the idea for a lethal, remote-operated drone known as a hunter seeker. This nasty machine would be guided to a target and kill her with a poison needle. This idea stuck with me and, when I was making Ramen noodle money writing game material, I came up with (and sold) the idea for three remote…

Wind
That it shudders through
and presages an untimely end,

that it transforms the night’s
body and leaves us

breathless and wanting,
petals strewn about,

messenger and message in one,
corporeal hosts entwined,

that it moves, that it blends,
that it withdraws and returns without

remorse, without forethought, that it
increases, expands, subtracts,

renders, imposes and releases
in one quick breath, saying

I cannot feel but I touch,
I cannot feel.

Nocturne with a Line from Porchia

Everything is nothing, but afterwards.
I rise and the moon disturbs the darkness,
revealing symbols, a few stolen words

on the bureau. Tomorrow I’ll express
my gratefulness by disappearing be-
fore I’m found, which is to say goodbye

before hello, a paradigm for the
prepossessed. Compton tells us to imply
what’s missing, like Van Gogh or Bill Monroe,
but why listen to the dead before they’ve

stopped speaking? Unfortunately we throw
out the…

Indie authors get to publish anything at all. Traditional authors have their work edited – things get taken out. Probably things that could cause offense, as well as typos and grammar gremlins. Should you self-censor your writing because of the possibility of offending someone with a word or deed, and thereby open yourself to a couple of raging negative reviews? No – you never should. I must admit to a lot of hesitation inserting offensive things back when I first started out, but not anymore. I’ll write what I feel is right for the story whether it could offend or not. It’s fiction after all. There are things in all my books that could offend a wide range of readers if they chose to be offended, but I have more than enough respect for most lovers of the written word to realise that they’re generally intelligent and open minded, and…

Is there anything more unusual, or indeed as unlikely as an internet friendship? I prefer to think of the phenomena as being a classic Claytons situation. If you are wondering what I’m wittering on about, bear with me.

Years ago, in the nineteen-seventies, a southern hemisphere company whose name totally escapes me now, marketed a non-alcoholic beverage resembling bottled whisky in Australia and New Zealand, advertising it as the drink you have when you’re not having a drink, under the brand name Claytons.

The word soon entered the Australian and New Zealand vernacular. No matter whether you are an Aussie, or a kiwi like myself, we use it to describe all kinds of things that are obviously not what they seem. For example, a common-law couple might be described as having a Claytons marriage.

So, now you know. To me, an internet friendship is the kind you participate in when…