I worked in a semiconductor plant a few years ago.
For those of you who don't know, I was employed by Zee Germanss in a factory that made computer RAM. Odds are pretty good that the RAM in the machine you're using now, if it's a couple of years old, came through the factory I was working in- we made about a quarter of the world's RAM. Pretty cool, huh? There's a good chance that the RAM in your computer may have passed through my hands at some point.

My job there was to be a Process Sustainer. My duties were mainly to be there in case something odd went on during the processing of the wafers. If a machine stopped processing a load of wafers part of the way through, my job was to get the wafers out of there, clean them up, measure the thickness of the top layer of film on them and compute a new process time for them- after all, they had partly processed, and the new time would be a lot shorter.

So if you think about it, my job was to wait around until things went bad, then fix them. This meant that, if everything went well, I sat on my ass in a cleanroom for twelve hours with nothing to do. I had no internet access, and couldn't bring anything in with me- after all, it was a cleanroom.

I got mightily bored, I assure you.

Then one night it occurred to me that I was in an ideal place to write stories. I had a computer with MS Office on it- why not put it to use?

I've posted some of the resulting stories in the OT board in the past. Go look for them if you're of a mind to.

During that time I wrote ten fantasy/sci-fi stories, all interrelated in that they were all set in the same world- a distant time in the future when people have forgotten technology and use magic in their daily lives, only what they're actually doing is using ancient technology and thinking it's magic. Some are set in such a way that it's told from the view of someone who knows it's technology, while others are presented as fantasy with demons and whatnot.

If I ever get it published, I'm going to dedicate it to my old floor supervisor with the comment "yes, Darryl, I was in fact writing a goddam book."
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Thu 8 Jan 2009, 15:02, 3 replies)

Would
Your real name be Robin Jarvis?

This has a very similar premise.
( MatJ LOOK, Thu 8 Jan 2009, 21:49, closed)

Interesting...
...but no, not me and not really quite what I had in mind.

I was inspired initially by Jack Vance's Dying Earth stories, and by another obscure novella he did. My concept is far more subtle than the one you linked.

Help me get it published and you can read 'em all. *grin*
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Fri 9 Jan 2009, 0:28, closed)

Clicks for the last line

( mistaspakkaman and the inedible shifting caterpillars, Mon 12 Jan 2009, 23:59, closed)