Stupid Drone Wars

STUPID DRONE WARS, 83,000 words, YA speculative, with the satire of Lord of the Fly Fest by Goldy Moldavsky and humor of Kill the Lax Bro by Charlotte Lillie Balogh.

Eighteen-year-old Nikola is a brilliant physicist with autism. His supervisor is an eleven-foot-tall robot who constantly nags him to work faster. In the year 2125 all aspects of life are dominated by money. Whichever way Nik turns, his overly delicate senses are assaulted by commercials, on the sides of buildings, on his apartment walls, even on cats and dogs. Two mega-corporations control everything and the public suffers the consequences: shortages of spoons and underwear, commercials blasted at deafening volumes, and traffic lights that purposely cause accidents.

When the boss raises the work quota and lowers the pay, Nik is too timid to fight back, but his friend, bold but sloppy Valuptua, fearlessly sneaks onto the CEO’s private island to exact revenge. But her anger control issues get her caught and sent away for re-education. Nikola’s plan is to use his inventive mind and OCD laser focus to earn a promotion. His big chance comes when he makes a stunning discovery,  a new subatomic particle with bizarre properties－the karma particle. But his boss says science without profit is worthless and orders him to make weapons. Nik complies by making a drone that gives wedgies.

The competition between the two mega-corps escalates into World War 4. The planet is swarmed by millions of killer drones of every crazy kind battling each other, from flying circular sawblades that slice off robot heads to a gargantuan ox-bot that crushes whole city blocks with a single stomp of its hoof. In order to survive, Nik is going to have to find the courage to disobey, and Val is going to have to learn control the fire inside her.