Extraordinary Sunshine Weaver

I’m excited and delighted to announce that my satirical and irreverent speculative collection of poems and stories about humanoid AI robots caught up in the fraught human condition of our modern times will launch on Amazon in paperback form on February 13, 2025! Stay tuned for the link!

I am grateful to Red at Alien Buddha Press for helping me bring this book into your hands and to the reviewers, who wrote positive blurbs.

PRAISE FOR THE LOST BOOK OF ZEROTH

“Barbara Harris Leonhard’s latest poetry book, The Lost Book of Zeroth, is speculative yes, but so much more. Zeroth denotes a level of importance higher than the first, an importance so basic, yet so beyond. As she explores the relationships between AI, robotics, and humans, she is also exploring relationships within us, between us, our political landscapes, and each other. Cleverly arranged, poignantly expressive, forward looking, Leonhard not only addresses how our future will be entwined with AI and robotic helpers, but attaches emotions and personalities to these robots, speculating on their imaginary internal lives, jealousies, hopes. In the final chapter, “I, Human”, Leonhard’s poetry turns to the now while speculating on where we as humans are taking our world with such poems as “Unwombed Mary” and her thoughts on the current wars in Ukraine and Gaza. In her final poem, “It’s All About Death, Really”, Leonhard is “ready to shed the old clothes”. She states “My soul is no longer broken. It’s outgrown its fears. Cleansed & ready. Ready. For what’s next.” This is a book for NOW and for the FUTURE.”
Sharon SingingMoon, author of Random Seed and The Weight of One Hummingbird Feather

“In The Lost Book of Zeroth, Barbara Harris Leonhard uses humorous speculative poetry and fiction to imagine the world through the eyes of AI robots. While these robots claim they can protect us, teach us, and heal us, they do so based on their programming. Their moral and ethical choices, and what they can learn from those choices, are at the whim of their developers. As the pieces in this book point out, AI robots have a dark and threatening side. Although they can take on human jobs and give us time to indulge in our hobbies, they leave us with no way to make money and support ourselves and our families.We create AI robots. They reflect us, with all our good and bad qualities. If disaster strikes though these robots, we are the ones at fault. The pieces in this book are about us. You’ll find yourself thinking about the future as you read this amazing book.”
Nolcha Fox, Cancer Isn’t Just a Constellation, Words into Elephants, and many other poetry collections.

“It is the mark of a good writer to make us feel things; it is the mark of an excellent writer to reach, with empathy, across lines and pages into our heart. In The Lost Book of Zeroth, Barbara Leonhard shares that place of vulnerability, reaching out to us and letting us know we are still alive. We experience so much busyness that some have forgotten how to be human, as many of the poems and stories the first three chapters in The Lost Book of Zeroth explore. With her sharp wit, humor, and poetic reflection, Leonhard takes us on a journey through the advancement and absurdity of our world to a place where we go back to our roots to being, not human again, but soul. She tells us that she understands the dark places, and that even in them, there is light. It is a profound journey of the highest order for those of us who appreciate excellence in writing and in heart.
Melissa Lemay, Mom with a Blog; Editor for Collaborature

“Barbara Harris Leonhard’s The Lost Book of Zeroth is about people and robots, hearts and batteries; the past, present and future; the possibility of a digital world; and the wonder of the natural world. It’s about January 6th, Tesla, Disneyworld, the war in Ukraine, Roe vs. Wade, and other social and political topics. Both sad and funny, this book is strikingly imaginative, with observations, laments, and comments on the world we share. Leonhard’s perfect robots reveal what we imperfect humans, for better or worse, have in common. The Lost Book of Zeroth, compassionate and bitingly satirical, views our world and points beyond through a feminist lens. There is no other book like it. Through personas such as Sophia, Eliza, and Little Spark, the poet does not extol the natural world over the virtual, but rather suggests the greatest mysteries are not in galaxies, but in the human mind and body, the human heart.”
Peter Mladinic, author of House Sitting and The Homesick Mortician

THE CAST OF ROBOTS IN THE LOST BOOK OF ZEROTH

The dramatis personae in this book are humanoid AI robots designed by various companies.

1. Hanson Robotics: Sophia, Little Sophia, Nurse Grace
2. Tesla: Optimus
3. Engineered Arts: Ameca
4. Jie Lai: Astribot
5. Goat Robotics: GOAT
6. Boston Dynamics: Robodog Spot
   I created AI Robots Barbie, Disney, and Tesla, and minor characters, such as Cyborg Guy. My nickname for Little Sophia is “Little Spark”

WHO OR WHAT IS ZEROTH?

First, “zeroth” means (0th, zeroeth) . It is also the term for the law of thermodynamics. However, the word “Zeroth” was first used in science fiction by Isaac Asimov to summarize the Laws of Robotics, introduced in a short story, “I, Robot”.

ASIMOV’S THREE LAWS OF ROBOTICS AND THE ZEROTH LAW

1: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm;

2: A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law;

3: A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law;

The Zeroth Law: A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.
~ Isaac Asimov, I, Robot

Other science fiction authors have debated these laws and developed their own perspectives on them. I spun my own tale about Zeroth, whom I refer to in the feminine. In The Lost Book of Zeroth, I envision Zeroth as a robot Goddess who spells out her codes (laws) and dispatches her angels, Siri, Alexa, and Meta, to aid (spy on) humanity.

THE ORGANIZATION OF THE LOST BOOK OF ZEROTH

This book has four parts. The first three parts are about the lives of the cast of humanoid AI robots. The last part brings in the human voice, the hymns of I, Human.

“Little Spark”

This chapter features AI robots Sophia, Little Sophia (or Little Spark), and Barbie. Cyborg Guy is a cyborg, part machine and part human. The main topics include motherhood, education, competition, jealousy, self-doubts, loyalty, endangerment, deception, vulnerability, narcissism, wealth and privilege, creativity, and conspiracy theories. The Little Sophia Tot Bots discover The Book of Zeroth hidden away in the dark corridors of the Vatican.

“Chaos”

This chapter begins with an introduction to the robot Goddess Zeroth and her Three Codes. The poems and stories feature the foibles of AI Robots Optimus, Ameca, and Astribot: their love connections and infidelities, crazy inventions, character flaws, loss, grief, scams, and dangerous missions. Zeroth disapproves of the chaos and, like any good mother, gives her Last Word.

“Good Deeds”

This chapter features the works of AI Robot Nurse Grace, who teaches Tai Chi, has a crisis hotline for robots and cyborgs, cures Lady Liberty of Mutism and Mars of incontinence, and offers humans immortality with her new app. The broader themes are mental health, aging, death, grief, misogyny, parenting, immigration, liberty, and immortality. This section ends with Zeroth dispatching the Three Fates (Siri, Alexa, and Meta) to repair our connections to Zeroth.

“I, Human”

This chapter contains social and political commentary poems I wrote in response to the tyranny of fear and ignorance, the pandemic, current wars, police brutality, the Capitol Insurrection, the overturning of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court, misogyny, our loss of civility, and the fear, anger, grief and hopelessness I feel about our current times. The poems comprise the “soul” of the book, the prayers of a mere mortal trying to make sense of her world.

This book has a rich emotional landscape. It will make you laugh and cry. I hope it will make you consider what it is like to be human.

The Lost Book of Zeroth will launch on Amazon in paperback form on February 13, 2025! Here’s the purchase link!

Coming Soon: Examples of Poems and Stories!!