Critters members

Chapter 29 of Vicesteed (and everything you need to know to critique it) is up for critique at Critters this week. If you're a member of Critters and looking for something to critique, check it out!

In a far-future recreation of the Victorian Age, homechuli are robots directed by artificial intelligences created in part by linking together the processing power of the minds of unfortunate people housed in workhouses. Rosemary is a young, gently bred woman who has been undergoing unpleasant sensorium treatments for "unfeminine inclinations": she wishes to be an inventor, a most unsuitable avocation for a female. She is a member of the anti-homechulus movement, whose leader, William, persuaded her to hide a device to cause disruption and proclaim their goals in the artwork of Owen Gregorson, an artificer of automata. She created another device instead of using the crude one that he gave her. She enjoyed meeting with Mr. Gregorson and seeing his workshop despite the reason that she was there. She was devastated when she saw her handiwork destroy his creation.

In this chapter, she learns that she was being used, and she goes to make amends to Mr. Gregorson, an encounter that ends up going much better than she expected.

Mentally Handicapped in SF/F?

So, there was some discussion in MinnSpec's last critique session of creating sympathetic characters and techniques to do so. Although I'm not going to remove my main character detective's mentally handicapped daughter from the story line, despite an arguable case* for it being a cheap trick to gain sympathy, it did make me realize something interesting. It's not a cliche. It's not at all common. I can't actually think of any mentally handicapped** supporting characters in SF/F (setting aside evil malformed minions that may or may not be mentally handicapped). And that I find pretty interesting. It's an underrepresented minority that I just hadn't seen before.

Wait. I thought of one. Fezzik. Who is made of awesome, but is still the only one I can think of.

Of course, now that I've said that, I'm sure y'all will come up with excellent counter-examples!

Edited to note: And so you did! Not tons and tons, but they are out there.


* More than one person has argued for it, but without her, he would be an entirely different character and I'm not sure what his motivation would be. Extensive rewrite would be required for a not necessarily better book.

** Mentally ill is entirely different. There's a whole lot of mentally ill characters.