Adrift On the Winds of Change
It's subtle, but like the proverbial frog in boiling water, are we simply not noticing the pace of change around us?
Stormy Weather
The Storm–Wind by William Barnes
When the swift-rolling brook, swollen deep,
Rushes on by the alders, full speed,
And the wild-blowing winds lowly sweep
O'er the quivering leaf and the weed,
And the willow tree writhes in each limb,
Over sedge-reeds that reel by the brim —
The man that is staggering by
Holds his hat to his head by the brim;
And the girl, as her hair-locks outfly,
Puts a foot out, to keep herself trim,
And the quivering wavelings o'erspread
The small pool where the bird dips his head.
But out at my house, in the lee
Of the nook, where the winds die away,
The light swimming airs, round the tree
And the low-swinging ivy stem, play
So soft that a mother that's nigh
Her still cradle may hear her babe sigh.
The metaphorical swift-rolling brook is rushing on by the alders, full speed. The man staggering by is holding his hat on by the brim, yes the winds of change are even blowing the girl’s hair-locks outfly. In November of 2020 I wrote a 50,000 word outline of False Ignition, iterating some technology I had written in The Sequence, and introducing an advanced version of artificial intelligence, back when no one was really talking about it. Now, four years later, AI, it seems is all anyone is talking about. And although without question LLM’s or large language models have rapidly become very good at some specific tasks, the holy grail, Artificial General Intelligence is arguably some ways away.
Remember though, it was only 4 years ago when you didn’t think anything of AI, or if you did, you didn’t understand it.
So I’m trying to wrap up this second novel before the pace of change catches up with me, such is the plight of the speculative-fiction writer. Book three is my attempt to reconcile the coming robotics revolution, and make no mistake, it is coming with furious speed. I had always intended to write a book four, the content of which remains confidential, but considering the pace of technological change I am now feeling the need to get it all into a slightly larger book three and stick with the traditional trilogy sized series. DM me your thoughts if you care to.
I read a post over on Suspension of This Belief recently and it reminded me of serial releases. I’ve got a bunch of prequel work largely in the can. The stories are of the characters of The Sequence and False Ignition and even the third book, Burn Condition, as they navigate the fall of the USA and flee what ultimately becomes The America under the leadership of (a fictional) President Cook, and his anti-editor regime. Releasing them as a paid serial series sounds like a great idea, and when I get close to finishing up False Ignition I’ll begin releasing the individual short stories one at a time. Watch for that over on The Short Version.
Just the Boyz
Declan and I had a day out, just the two of us in North Van. I took him to a collectibles shop, but he did NOT like the life-sized wig-wearing, E.T.
Beryl
In case you’re ever wondering what’s going through my head while I’m navigating, storms and hurricanes like Beryl over this past weekend, read on.
Beryl was a mighty storm her clouds all streaked with grey.
She cried and cried and cried some more, til the streaks all went away.
Now Beryl has no tears to shed she sighs and lingers here,
Sniffling, drifting, listlessly wishing for her tears to reappear.
“But I don’t need to be so sad,” Beryl shouted with a cry,
“I’ll just drink up all these tears again and have another cry!”
– Lucien Telford 2024
The trilogy idea seems like a very smart one. At the speed of progress of AI currently, who knows where it will be in the near future.
Loved all the short stories and contest submissions.