Hello friends!

Hello sentients,

I'm going to keep this short: we did it. 

You did it.

The Life Engineered, my little book about sentient robots in the future and their impending civil war came in fourth place in the Sword & Laser Collection contest. That is amazing.

I'm ashamed to admit that I make a very poor writer as I can't find the words to explain the amount of overwhelming gratitude I feel for you guys. Friends, family and even complete strangers came together and because I said : "I have this crazy dream of winning this contest." they turned that fancy into a reality.

The Life Engineered is getting a legitimate publishing run. I even have a publishing schedule. It is fancy.

Right now, on my smart phone device thing, there is a list, backed up to the Cloud, with all of your names, email address and contribution level (Standard Construct or Advanced A.I.). This list will stay with me until the day the machines take over or that they put me away. This list is your permission slip to come over to me at a con, a book signing, whatever and shake my hand. No matter what, from this point on, you are my friend and I will always find a moment to recognize what you have done for me.

Also, signed prints of robots. Because I promised. 

I'm going to finish my model and raffle it off. Expect update photos on that progress.

As my vision blurs with tears of gratitude, I'll leave you with the only thing I can come up with no matter how inadequate it feels: Thank you.

JF

What can I say?

In the past few weeks I've written so many variations on 'thank you' that I'm running out of ideas. Yet, it's today that it seems to be the most important time to express my gratitude. Today or tomorrow. I'm not sure. Either way, today's important. Today is the last day of the Sword & Laser Collection contest on Inkshares. To most of you all I can say is thank you again, as inadequate and insufficient as it may feel. You've all contributed to some degree or other, either by pre-ordering books or by helping me spread the word. It doesn't matter what you did; I owe you.

To those last few of you who are following the progress of this book, I want to also thank you. For your interest and curiosity but also for taking the time to read my newsletters. I also want to thank you for pre-ordering The Life Engineered as I'm sure you will within the next few hours, before the contest ends.

I leave you with a reminder that I'm working on a model of Koalemos, a favourite character from The Life Engineered. There will be 8 copies of this model. I'm putting a lot of effort into making these and I want one of you guys to have a copy. I'll be raffling off one of the models when they are done and if you think I'm kidding, look below for a shot of the work in progress. It's going along pretty well.

JF

(Here is again a drawing of the finished robot)

Hello Standard Constructs, Advanced A.I.s and potential recruits!

I come to you bearing tidings of things to come. As I sit here, typing these words, there are a little more then 41 hours left to the Sword & Laser Collection contest. We are now in sixth place as the competition has gotten more aggressive. However, I see the future clearly and my vision is clear; you guys are going to help me back into the top five and we are going to celebrate come Monday morning. 

Here's how:

• You've pre-ordered the book already but are so caught up in wanting to see it published that you pre-order a second copy. In fact, if you haven't done so already, I foresee you'll upgrade your contribution from Standard Construct to Advanced A.I. (1 copy to 3 copies) just to see your name in print on the 'thank you' page. Because that's awesome.

• You've pre-ordered the book but don't want to commit to it financially any further. I get that. Money doesn't grow on trees. It's barely printed anymore. It's all digital these days. That's fine. You'll alleviate the the vague sense of guilt by talking one of your friends into pre-ordering a book. It's okay. They'll love it.

• You haven't pre-ordered the book because you're on the fence about it. I have good news. In my prophetic vision of the future, I see that when the inevitable robot uprising occurs in 2018, those of us with copies of The Life Engineered will be spared. Trust me. You'll be safe.

All kidding aside (except for that robot uprising thing. That's legit.), this is a very important opportunity for me. I thank you for bringing me this far and I feel bad for asking more of you, but I need that last little bit of help. If you think that your one book order won't matter in the end or that it can wait until Monday, I'm afraid you are incorrect. Every pre-order matters and they matter more before Sunday, midnight PST.

You guys have been amazing. Only two more days of being amazing left, then we can all go back to being just cool.

JF