All-Patron Reward, September: Stuff I'm NOT Doing 5: Terminators of Endearment

Terminators of Endearment OR Pride and Extreme Prejudice

Origin/Description

Some years back on Usenet, during a discussion involving Eric Flint, Eric mentioned that he and his wife had wildly divergent tastes in entertainment, with as far as he could tell only two points of overlap: they both very much enjoyed the Terminator movies, and they both loved Jane Austen's novels.

For some reason, that immediately seized my imagination, and I began writing a scene in a novel which would be a crossover of those two disparate universes – a novel written in the general style and setting of Jane Austen, but directly connected to the Terminator series. And thus was "Mister Terminus" born, speaking to a somewhat Elizabeth Bennett-like Austenian heroine, Patience, and warning her against the attentions of a certain Mister Connor:

"Indeed," said the man (whom Patience could not help but think of as made of clockwork, though he manifestly was something far stranger), "I speak of these things not merely because of the way that I am made, though indeed a machine should do that which it is made to do, but because I have found that I have developed, through our many conversations, a feeling of that which is proper, both within the bounds of your society and without; and being that I am, here, a gentleman, I find that I am also bound to behave as a gentleman would, and indeed, Lady Patience, I must warn you that this Mr. Connor is a man of less than sterling character."

My little exercise caught the attention of Brenda Clough, who then continued it for a few paragraphs, and I then followed, developing into a scene which would be in the middle of the putative book – between Brenda and myself, about four thousand words of that and a few fragments of other scenes.

The basic story completed its outline in my mind; I knew how it would begin, proceed to the point we'd already written, and generally how it would continue from there, naturally ending with a battle involving Mr. Terminus, Patience, Mr. Connor, and a T-1000 sent to destroy them all, and an aftermath showing the world resulting from this rather extremely non-historical event.

Why I'm Not Doing It (And What I'll Steal From It)

The major barrier to doing Terminators of Endearment is, well, trademark and copyright. Oh, certainly if I wanted to file the serial numbers off I might be able to do it, but that would severely weaken the story in terms of audience enjoyment and the widespread recognition of the name. I'd rather not have the Terminator's lawyers after me, and I presume Brenda wouldn't, either. 

More recently, the Bizarre Austen Stories sub-subgenre already WENT through its surge of popularity (Pride and Prejudice with Zombies et. al.), so the then-unusual nature of the story is rather weakened. 

So to complete and sell the novel would require getting permission from the Terminator rightsholders (not easy and usually expensive), and then finding a publisher willing to take the story, since neither Brenda nor I will likely be able to devote the time and energy to working on it unless we know someone wants to publish it.

The really general idea of the story might be salvageable, and I found that even in the section I was writing I was developing something of a fondness for Mr. Terminus. So it's possible that he, at least, may find a new incarnation somewhere.