This short story is set in the Legends of the Known Arc universe. If you enjoy it, please share! Also, drop me a note and let me know what you thought.
When eight-year-old Gertrood Littlefeather is left waiting outside a tense courtroom, she doesn’t expect to meet a real Ghast — one of humanity’s oldest enemies.
Here’s a question: as a writer, as an American, as an Earthling, should I be excited by AI, or afraid of it?
The answer is: Yes.
I’ll admit I am an enthusiastic user of AI systems. Their capabilities are astonishingly useful to a self-published author who takes his book business seriously. Any business owner in any domain, whether an author or artist or plumber or architect or arborist would be a fool not to use every ethical and moral tool available to them to promote and grow their business. AI is no exception.
Wait. I said “ethical” and “moral,” didn’t I?
How should we feel about artificial intelligence? It’s like asking how we should feel about fire. Warmth, light, destruction, it all depends on who strikes the match.
Welcome readers! This post, which I keep pinned to the top of my blog, contains a running series of quick updates about works-in-progress and other aspects of the writing (and publishing) life. So, if you’re looking for the latest updates or just wondering what’s goes through a sci-fi author’s head as they plan, write, and market their books, read this post. Otherwise, if you want essays, travel blogs, stories and miscellaneous ramblings, scroll through the blog for more posts.
Let’s face it, I’m not the most photogenic person on the planet, and I’ve been needing a decent author pic for some time. The need came to a head (pun intended) when I was asked to participate on a panel for a writer’s conference and the organizers insisted on a recent photo. So, at long last, after many goofy candidates got ridiculed and rejected by my wife, here’s the official Patrick Cumby author photo:
Now, for those of you who’ve read this far, here’s the REAL scoop on this photo:
It’s not a photo at all...
I’m a nervous optimist. Life here in meatspace is changing fast. Global insecurity is skyrocketing, fueled by the spread of misinformation and our eroding trust in public institutions. The narratives…
Playwrights and screenwriters write for a medium where the enjoyment of their work is shared by a mass audience, the folks in the theater, who eat popcorn and experience the magic of the production together as a group.
An author writing a book is a different matter. A book is not like a theatrical production or a movie. A book has the smallest audience possible: an audience of one.
The reader.
Here’s a fun computational tool I created to help visualize the implications of the Timestream Discontinuity between the real world (Meatspace) and the malfunctioning virtual world (Havencosm) as depicted in…
As you journey through the Known Arc within the pages of LONGSTAR, be sure to keep a keen eye, because there are a few little surprises especially for those readers…
Jan January, bound in servitude to the Olid Ring Guild, finds himself aboard a freighter shuttling obscure cargos to remote worlds. His mundane existence is upended by the arrival of Tash Velotta, a secretive teen clutching a mysteriously squirming bundle. Tash is being sought by the most powerful factions of the Known Arc, who will do anything–anything at all–to possess the secret she carries.
