uh, that’s why I put it on here, for suggestions.
Short Story / Dolls
Episode One: The Doll Maker
At some point they got tired of making an effort. Of course there were the few men, as there always had been, that still enjoyed the chase – that knew and craved what it was to fall in love. Those men remained the same, and never bought the dolls.I don’t know how long ago it happened, to tell you the truth I don’t know why I am writing about it. I adore the fact that dolls exist. Only recently, I have been wondering if perhaps the dolls are human after all.
I have worked at the doll factory for fifteen years as one of the genetics specialists – manipulating alleles and chromosomes to produce a variety of the most beautiful female specimens in the Milky Way. We always have at least four generations for sale, sometimes six. Our most expensive doll at the moment is the Amanda generation. She is the most difficult to make because we alter so many of her genes – carving the perfect woman. Dolls from the Amanda generation are all five thousand dollars. Our cheapest doll right now is the Karla generation. Two hundred and fifty dollars will get you a fairly attractive female, but she might go haywire.
The dolls are programmed through childhood to only speak when they are spoken to. When they start puberty they begin studying pornography in all of its various forms of genre and medium. When they are seventeen they learn that they will leave the doll house one day with a man. When they are eighteen, they are sold. Their only contact with non-dolls before their day of sale is with the employees who brought them to life. Once the dolls are sold, we never see them again.
I’m sure some of them are abused, but I try not to think about that. When the dolls get old they are discarded. Some of them become homeless – some go to the hospitals and are eventually lobotomized – maybe some make it on their own. There are convalescent facilities for expired dolls, but only some owners are kind enough to splurge. I often wonder what those old dolls talk about.
We know that the dolls aren’t human because all of them have a manipulated 245-gene, which is the gene that defines humanity. The gene was discovered over three hundred years ago, creating a slave race. Robots proved themselves costly, with a high malfunction rate – so these pseudo human representatives took their place. Cheaper bodies, basically. The dolls came shortly after, but at first they were only available to the upper- echelons. The dolls were experimental, and most of them hay-wired after their first year of service – some of them hay-wired after months.
Hay-wiring is when the dolls rebel against their owners. They do this in a variety of ways. In the early days they weren’t conditioned properly as children – so they were unfriendly towards their owners. They spat and kicked when they were approached sexually. Many of them ran away. This rarely happens now-a-days. Hay-wiring usually takes form in a shut down. Dolls will just stop talking, eating, sleeping etc. Dolls are discarded at no cost to the owner if the hay-wire within the first year. They rarely do. The kinks have been ironed out.
Or at least that is what I thought. Last Thursday, a ten year old from the Samantha generation drew a picture that she titled “life outside the dollhouse”. This puzzled me because such a notion is not supposed to exist in a ten year old dolls mind. Even more perplexing was the picture itself – a black mess of tangled tree looking things, splashes of red here and there. In the center was the Samantha. She drew herself with no hair, black eyes, erased lips. She drew herself ugly. All the Samanthas were buxom red-heads with signature moles above their lips.
She told me that her name was not Samantha. She followed me when I left to get my supervisor; I grabbed her by the wrist because suddenly I thought she would escape. Unconsciously I walked faster as the little girl started to squirm. She twisted out of my grasp and cleared my view in a way only a small child can. She was gone.
My supervisor didn’t believe the story. The drawing went missing, so did the inquisitive Samantha amongst three thousand other girls with the same D.N.A., the perfect place to hide. Or maybe she made it out of the dollhouse.
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artofstarving reviewed Version 1 -
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Rebeccah reviewed Version 1 -
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Wow. This was really intriguing and creepy. I definitely want to know what happens later with Samantha. To be honest, I don’t have anything in particular to criticize. I like that the first part was about the dolls in general then what they are trained to do then how they were perfected. Where the story really picks up with is with Samantha thinking of leaving the doll house and drawing herself ugly. I guess I will have to read the rest to know if I think it works in the end, but so far it’s really good. (I’m assuming in saying “more to come” that the story isn’t finished yet? If it doesn’t then my only criticism would be continue writing it.)
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squarehopper reviewed Version 1 -
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BrianA reviewed Version 1 -
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You write of a debauched society, but given all things I suppose it is possible. You do well reonforcing the state of affairs with DNA and the argument re robots, the cheaper models (making them seem a commodity). So overall I found it well executed, the logic progresses well throughout the story, and the narrative voice is appropriate – detatched, but in theme.I must admit I found it hard to take a society where these human `things’ are abused discarded etc as not humans, live as homeless etc. I could probably find it more palatable if they were traded in, but I’m not everyone. I can see with the emergence of the `one’ Samantha where the story might be headed. The difficulty will be maintaining first person perspective of narrator, unless you take up other povs (as this is called The Dollmaker, there is a hint that this is what will happen).
Enough re content. It was well written and your descriptions where to the point and interesting eg `buxom red-heads with signature moles above their lips.’ This selective detail is great.The second last paragraph brought the narrator out of talking-head mode and into active human well. I like the description of girl escaping `squirmed’ – good. Well done. Good luck with this.
RachelK reviewed Version 1 -
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Intriguing idea. Don’t really care for where your going with the plot. Nice developement of story though. Is it a metaphor for the overall lack of power in society that women have forfieted in order to play the more traditional role that eventually makes them, in an ultimate outcome, into playthings for men? Very interesting how becoming a slave for mankind also makes slaves out of the men.
Treatsa reviewed Version 1 -
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“but only some owners are kind enough ”
but very few…sounds better to me.
Interesting idea. I think some women will be offended of course.
KurtVonnegutsSon reviewed Version 1 -
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I like this idea very much. I think this sort of thing has been done before, but you’re presenting it in a new way, ie, “Samantha Generation” and so forth. I guess you’re continuing with the story, so I think in the future I’d like to see how these “dolls” are born. Are they brought up in test tubes, are they birthed by actual women, and if so, what do the women think. This is also a pretty good commentary on how the pornography industry exists right now.
onlywish reviewed Version 1 -
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This is very different, Is it meant to be tongue and cheek. It’ has a strange twist on old twilight zone sort of script. There seem to be contradiction in most of the story. It might be just me and not understating at this moment the reasoning behind this story. I think it could benefit from a good edit.
October 24, 2006
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sleeplate20 reviewed Version 1 -
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A good story – there is a sci-fi story similar to this called “Helen of Troy” by an author i forgot his name. Plus i think a Ray Bradbury story about modern women being androids(like stepford wives but without the fantastic sex). So although this genre is already taken, your biological dolls present an iteresting approach to this situation. Perhaps put even more charector or humanity into samantha so that we see that in spite of gene 245 they are human. Also adjust the price range on these dolls- they are slaves, and that should cost more than a hooker
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