Work / Monkey. Human. Robot.
08 · Writing
Monkey. Human. Robot.
Complete novel · Free to read online · Author, illustrator & developer · monkeyhumanrobot.com ↗
A speculative-fiction novel about what happens when three kinds of mind meet. An industrial robot comes off the production line with a single fault - a window where every other mind has a wall - escapes its subterranean factory, and walks into a tribe of humans who have never seen anything like it.
"One chip came off the line with a fault - a single over-held frame, a window where every other mind had a wall."
Scenes from the novel's illustrated locations.
The story
Veer is a factory robot with a manufacturing defect that gives it something no other unit has: curiosity. The novel follows what that one flaw sets in motion - an escape from the machine world below, first contact with a primitive human tribe above, and the questions both sides are forced to ask about work, purpose, and what a mind is for.
It's a parable about consciousness and conformity - individuality against the collective, and three forms of intelligence (evolved, human, and made) trying to understand each other. Written for people who like their science fiction quiet, strange, and a little too close to home.
The reading experience
Not a PDF. A built thing.
Rather than publishing a manuscript, I built the book its own home: an interactive reading experience with chapter-by-chapter navigation, AI-rendered illustrations for every location and character, and narrated audio on the way. The same end-to-end instinct as the product work on this site - write the thing, then build the thing that delivers it.
The novel is complete and free to read at monkeyhumanrobot.com.