The UpTime Gigs

In the near future, Arturo Barros works for UpTime Living Solutions as a Surrogate. He rents out his body by the hour. His distant customers see through his eyes, speak through his mouth, work through his hands. One evening, embodied by a student visiting home, Arturo suffers a medical emergency-- forcing him into a series of desperate choices and leading him into the circle of UpTime's embattled founder, Clara Fahrschein.

Fahrschein has plans for Arturo. She has plans for all of her Suros. Arrayed against her is the membership of UpTime's Board of Directors (including her own Surrogate), an up-and-coming rival robotics firm, a movement for the ethical embodiment of human beings, a nascent Suro terrorist organization, and several UpTime employees with their own agendas. All of them are ripe for embodiment. Each is ready to be turned against the other by Fahrschein-- and turned again by interests both familiar and shadowy.

Containing: near-constant bodily possession, face-hugging Japanese wreckerbots, sociopathic hospital admins, gender-swap sex, an AI deity, breakaway republics, Chinese Rooms, techno-shamanism, Marxist alienation, robotic super soldiers, homeless spies, Appalachian meatshields, a CEO in three parts, ego suppression, Loot Merchants, time-as-money, a cleaning woman turned vigilante, Hydrasexuality, England's Speenhamland laws remixed, a Giant Rubber Duckie-- and plenty of Chuckle-- 'The UpTime Gigs' offers it up.

A science fiction novel in three digestible parts, 'The UpTime Gigs' is a story about the possible futures of work-- and about getting what you pay for.