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Did you read the Mars robot story in an anthology magazine like Asimov's or Fantasy and Science Fcition ? Or in a book of stories?
There is a series of novels about people terraform8ng Mars to be a colony for humans: Red Mars, Blue Mars, and Green Mars. They're novels, but often authors will send a portion of their book to a magazine to be published in an issue. Just a guess.
"You want weapons?! We're in a Library! BOOKS! The best weapons in the universe!" — The DoctorI don't think it's Asimov.
The story was actually an "analyze this story" question in an ELA test I took, but it was so absurdly unlike any story I've ever seen used for a test that it set my plagiarism senses tingling. It was very blatantly a hard sci-fi short story that had almost all of the "big science words" edited out. I find it unlikely that they'd steal such a well-known book.
In style it seemed very similar to the short fiction of Stephen Baxter, but it doesn't fit in with either the Xeelee Sequence or Manifold universes. It also isn't in Traces, which as far as I can tell is his one collection of short stories that aren't set in any preexisting universe.
Edited by sRAMrelevratTo clarify, I meant the science-fiction *magazine* called "Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine", not a *book* by Isaac Asimov. Never mind, it probably doesn't matter, anyway.
"You want weapons?! We're in a Library! BOOKS! The best weapons in the universe!" — The Doctor
1. A hard sci-fi short story involving humans on Mars. The main character is waiting for robots to finish building her a little one-woman research station so she can study... something. I forget what. The robots are actually explained in detail: A swarm of coordinated mini-rovers that can convert Martian dirt into a building material. They're smart enough to overcome most obstacles, and can do things like using a big rock as part of a wall. So, the main character goes off to the building site to investigate what's taking the building rovers so long, and finds that they've run into a big alien artifact (think like the Monolith from 2001). And that's it. Random detail: There was also mention of a "crane-printer", which I imagine is a crane that acts like a giant 3D printer to build stuff.
2.(SOLVED: What A Blast: The Explosive Escapades Of Ethan Flask and Professor von Offel) A book (part of a series) that I read in elementary school. The protagonist is a "kid inventor"-type character who comes from a long line of geniuses, and the villain is from a long line of people who stole the ideas of people from the main kid's family. He's also a teacher at the kid's school. So, the villain is recovering from the effects of something that happened in the previous book. He got... disintegrated or something, he managed to mostly pull himself back together but he doesn't have a shadow and if I recall correctly he also doesn't weigh very much. The "no shadow" thing gets pointed out when his pet parrot (I think Polly Wants a Microphone was in effect) perches on his shoulder, and someone notices that they can see the parrot's shadow but not his. (But then shouldn't they have also been able to see that shadow of his clothes? Or is he still wearing the outfit he was wearing when he got disintegrated?) The only other thing I remember is that the book opens with a diagram of either the protagonist's or the villain's family tree (maybe both, side by side so we can see who stole what idea).
3. (SOLVED: The Tie-In Novel to The Secret World of Alex Mack) A book about a girl who develops superpowers. I don't remember much, but one of her powers was turning into a liquid form. I think her liquid form might've been silvery (think like mercury), and maybe she could only stay in it for a limited time? Also, maybe one of her other powers was super strength?
Edited by sRAMrelevrat