Whether striving to protect the family they've chosen, searching for meaning amid the chaos of the world, or questioning what it is that makes one alive, robotic ambition can mean many different things. Robotic Ambitions: Tales of Mechanical Sentience explores the nuance of sentience manufactured and evolved within mechanical beings. It peels back the metal exterior and takes a hard look at what is inside.

Within these pages you will discover stories of robots defying their coding for a chance at love, resisting societal norms so that they may experience art and pleasure, and searching for their place in a world that was not made for them, but rather was made to use them. These are stories about striking out on your own, building something new amid destruction, and doing whatever it takes to make sure you survive. Robots and AI are more than tools for humanity. They have their own goals, dreams, and aspirations.

This anthology includes stories by Lavie Tidhar, Premee Mohamed, Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, Jason Sanford, and many more.

Includes an introduction by Martha Wells.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

It-Who-Dreams-Under-Grey-Clouds in The-Town-Within-The-City by Marie Croke

She Builds Quick Machines by Lyndsie Manusos

Out There With Them by N.V. Haskell

Prospecting by Lavie Tidhar

The Caregivers by Marie Vibbert

The Town Full of Broken Tin Men by Danny Cherry Jr.

Ark by Liam Hogan

A Still Life by Elliott Wink

The City in the Forest by Premee Mohamed

An Incomplete Record of Database Deletions, in Alphabetical Order by Mar Vincent

Built to Cheat by Derrick Boden

The Big Book of Grandmamas by Sheree Renee Thomas

Everything else is advertising by J Wallace

Alice & Lucy by Edward Daschle

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made by Izzy Wasserstein

A Lifeline of Silk by Renan Bernardo

Little Fathers of Darkness by Jason Sanford

Solor Sonata for Four Hands by Jennifer R. Donohue

Tenets of Asendance by Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki and Somto Ihezue

Intersecting Datafields by Myna Change

A Fragility, a Shadow by Leah Ning

Insatiable Life by Kathleen Schaefer

Ribbit by Mona West

How to Get to Be a Three-Thousand-Year-Old Mining Ai by Nick Hartland

An Android in the Desert by Rachel Gutin