Join me in creating this sci-fi book about anomalous robots who philosophize, develop feelings, discover love, and bond. Enjoy light romance, discussions of humanity vs. the soul, light LGBTQ+ elements, and more as we follow two unlikely bots through the eyes of a “simple” laborbot as they elope together.

As a long-time sci-fi lover in all its forms (especially when robots are involved), The Warm Machine is my love letter to the sci-fi community as a whole. If you love sci-fi and tech as much as I do, you’ll enjoy trawling the book and picking out all of the references… and maybe even learn some new ones along the way! I am so excited to introduce these characters and this story to you during Booktopia. I hope you’ll love them and all of their curious, cranky, and frustrating parts as much as I do.

Follow along as I develop additional character artworks, unlock extra goodies, and together we BUILD A ROBOT! Plus more. ;) Come see!

When a robot built for construction work first sees an angular, sleek prototype military robot slink onto the base he’s working outside of, he immediately falls in love. The problem is, only anomalous bots understand the concept of love, and the lowly laborbot has not deviated from his default programming once. So he thinks, anyway. When the laborbot is scheduled for decommission, the military bot cannot possibly live without him, and the two bots set out on a path to find the fabled anomalous robot utopia Root.

The Warm Machine was initially started in summer of 2021 when I asked myself: if I love sci-fi and robots so much, why don’t I ever draw or write about them? I wrote eight chapters where I let myself focus on the robots and their interactions, not putting pressure on myself to come up with “unique sci-fi concepts” – there are countless authors out there who have written sci-fi better than me with fresh ideas. Instead, I focused on writing what two vastly different bots would talk about, and how they would form the basis of their relationship around these ideas. I threw many of my favorite sci-fi and robot ideas into the mix, all of which commingled to create a futuristic sci-fi universe. After I shared it with a couple of friends, and those friends kept asking “is there more?”, I picked it up again in spring of 2022, then finally finished it during winter of 2023, to which I began the revision and editing process… And now, I’m presenting it to you.

Paperback. Approximately 46,000 words, 180 pages with supplemental bonus illustrations and bonus short story.

Strong, durable, and curious, Sterling asks many questions even if he is not always guaranteed an answer. Loyal to a fault and quick to trust, he’ll follow Zev to the ends of the Earth.

Tricky, cool, and calculating, Zev always says what he means but never shows exactly what he’s thinking. With a soul too big for his robotic body, he reaches out to Sterling to teach him about all of the things he could be experiencing.

Cheery and bubbly, Inix has a way with words – along with a peculiar way of getting information. Inix delivers a dimensionality to the other two androids that only an emotionally-complex bot can – or at least one that’s programmed to fake it well.

Receive a PDF copy of The Warm Machine only. This tier is not eligible for cross-collaboration rewards.

Receive a physical paperback copy of The Warm Machine and a digital copy via PDF. Approximately 180 pages, 5.5”x8.5” paperback size, cream colored black-and-white interior with full color covers. Enjoy supplemental illustrations printed inside the book, and short story “Troubleshooting Your NX Personal Android”

Receive a physical paperback copy of The Warm Machine and a digital copy via PDF. Approximately 180 pages, 5.5”x8.5” paperback size, cream colored black-and-white interior with full color covers. Enjoy supplemental illustrations printed inside the book, and short story “Troubleshooting Your NX Personal Android”. Comes with specialty Sterling metal bookmarker!

Receive a physical hardcover copy of The Warm Machine and a digital copy via PDF. Approximately 180 pages, 5.5”x8.5” paperback size, cream colored black-and-white interior with full color covers. Enjoy supplemental illustrations printed inside the book, and short story “Troubleshooting Your NX Personal Android”. Comes with specialty Sterling metal bookmarker!

Receive two physical paperback copies of The Warm Machine and a digital copy via PDF. Approximately 180 pages, 5.5”x8.5” paperback size, cream colored black-and-white interior with full color covers. Enjoy supplemental illustrations printed inside the book, and short story “Troubleshooting Your NX Personal Android”. Comes with two specialty Sterling metal bookmarkers!

Receive two physical hardcover copies of The Warm Machine, a digital copy via PDF, and two bookmarkers. Approximately 180 pages, 5.5”x8.5” paperback size, cream colored black-and-white interior with full color covers. Enjoy supplemental illustrations printed inside the book, and short story “Troubleshooting Your NX Personal Android”. Comes with two specialty Sterling metal bookmarkers!

Receive a physical hardcover copy of The Warm Machine, digital copy via PDF, and specialty metal Sterling bookmarker. Approximately 180 pages, 5.5”x8.5” paperback size, cream colored black-and-white interior with full color covers. Enjoy supplemental illustrations printed inside the book, and short story “Troubleshooting Your NX Personal Android”. This tier also allows you to commission a custom robot artwork of your choice, hand drawn on bristol in graphite, and colorized digitally. Only one of these will be available so act fast!

Want another tier? Need something else? Reach out to me and I’ll be happy to add it!

We went so quickly smashing all of my goals that I'm having a hard time keeping up, but don't worry, I have plenty of ideas for you to make this campaign even juicier. Here's our currently stretch goal:

If we reach $2,500, all physical tiers will automatically get a robo-booty 4x6 print! This excludes oracle cards for creators tier.

More to come, I promise!

Welcome to Booktopia — a celebration of creativity and collaboration from a vibrant collective of writers, authors and artists collectively running crowdfunding projects from September 5th - September 26th.

Limited Cross-Collaboration Freebies — All 50+ Booktopia creators have paired up with a fellow participant to create two unique and limited freebies together. If BOTH projects successfully fund, backers who support BOTH at physical tiers will get the TWO [2] cross-collab freebies listed on their campaign page (a total of 6 oracle cards, 3 from each project), one will ship from each creator. The more pairs of Booktopia creators you support, the more freebies you will earn.

As part of Booktopia, I’m partnering with William C. Tracy for special collaboration oracle cards. If you love gay robots, you’ll love space lesbians too… Check out Lesbians in Space and consider backing!

If you support both campaigns at any physical rewards tier level, and both campaigns meet 100% of goal, you will not only receive the awesome books you supported during the campaign, but you’ll also receive 6 free cards – three from each campaign!

So, what are you waiting for? Go check out Lesbians in Space and back it so you can get those sweet, sweet free collab cards!

Back more and get more... Even better! You'll unlock 1 FREE Limited Edition Booktopia 2024 reward if you back FIVE [5] or more projects, and exclusive reward for Booktopia from BackerKit - Black Metal Bookmark (design coming)

Don't forget to check out all of the other campaigns that are producing oracle cards for this unique Booktopia 2024 oracle card deck! Back all campaigns to complete your oracle deck with 56 cards and a custom Booktopia 2024 box!

Participating projects: The Warm Machine | Lesbians in Space | Dire Contact | The Fractured Balance | Nuclear Strudel | Mermaid Song | Gamer | The Bright Spot | Like Warm Plastic | Weave of a Thousand Lies | The Eyes of Mandoral | Sombulus | Violet's Pretty Purple Playground | Shuttered Stanzas | First Life Duet | Blood Ties | Ruthless Wolves | Silver Series of Grown Up Wisdom | My Body Beeps | Reimagined: The Relic Saga

BackerKit is a buy now, pay later system unlike many crowdfunding platforms out there. BackerKit is unique in that shipping is charged after the project is completed, and separately from your pledged amount. Since shipping rates can fluctuate, shipping will be determined at the time of fulfillment based on the total weight of your package and the destination country. I will do my best to ensure fair rates. International rates will likely be high, however.

As for timing, The Warm Machine is complete, and out with editing at the time of writing this with expectation for completion by the end of the campaign. Aside from the edits, the cover, and specifics that will be determined during the campaign, I am ready to order the physical materials ASAP. I expect the metal backers and oracle cards will take the longest due to the manufacturing process overseas, but everything else should go pretty quickly. Digital rewards can be fulfilled as soon as the final digital file is put together.

As a writer, it’s becoming more and more difficult to share your writing with interested people. These brave creators are taking part of Booktopia to do their best to get their writing out to the world. By backing these projects, you’re helping an indie writer do a happy little dance when they reach goal… and who knows, you might find your new favorite book too!

Here I’m highlighting a selection of Booktopia projects that I know are quality, or have same-vein crossover. Please take a look and consider backing these projects too!

The kinds of stories that don’t end well – those are the types of stories that captivate Aimee Cozza as an illustrator most of all. Aimee is driven to visually depicting these moments of tenseness, anxiety, and dejection in a way that is palpable to the viewer. Her most common subjects are sci-fi and fantasy depictions: space, angels, creatures, and what lurks in the dark.

Inexplicably, she is drawn to the romance of the dark-beautiful. This theme unifies characters and worlds of her pieces, usually through stylistic choice, color, and other frequently used themes of duality — light versus dark, sharp versus soft, loud versus quiet, protagonist versus antagonist. It is in these contrasts that she finds the best stories lie and can be told. Frequently, she explores worldly concepts of femininity and masculinity, anarchy and structure, and of being hurt, either physically or mentally. She also explores mental health issues such as anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and trichotillomania. In exploring these themes she hopes to help society question what they know as good or bad, and understand there is more than one side to any story.

Aimee Cozza is a 2012 New England College (formerly New Hampshire Institute of Art) graduate with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in illustration. She works digitally, traditionally, and within a mix of the two across a variety of physical mediums, but never with the help of AI. Aimee is also an aspiring novelist, with an urban sci-fi/fantasy book in the works with co-author Tory Keith.

Visit my portfolio, or follow me on Bluesky, Tumblr, Mastodon, Instagram, or Facebook!

This is my fifth crowdfunding campaign, and my second time on the BackerKit platform during a Topia project. I’m excited to work through all of the different tools to provide you the very best crowdfunding experience I can.

As with any campaign, dealing with the manufacturing process can be problematic at times. Manufacturers can be slow to respond or ship items in a timely manner. I have worked through these issues before and am adept at navigating around them to provide you with your rewards as soon as possible.