AI

My Jack Mack novels focused on AI and its use from the start (2021), and how my characters' lives fitted around the ubiquitous machine intelligences and robots. It's frightening to watch 'real life' catching up with and maybe surpassing what I was able to imagine.

I think the questions raised are as valid now as in my fictional future universe. Most importantly, can the line between man and machine ever be erased? As incredibly capable as the AIs in my books may be, they remain something other than human.

As for the combining of man and machine, that is a subject I have (wisely, I think) avoided, except for the sort of neural linkage that is required to pilot a jump ship. And that is not permanent. I just might introduce some mention of a pretty much universal condemnation of the concept (as did Herbert in 'Dune'). That, of course, would allow someone to break the rule and open up new plot directions.

Mission Delayed

I generated a simple (via LibreOffice) EPUB of the Jack Mack sci-fi novelette Mission Delayed. The plan is to someday include it in a longer book but for now feel free to download or read. This is a more domesticated Jack, a few years after the events in the novels.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DuRCa0vqSTaCWykXOXhf_br3ynQKgWbG/view?usp=drive_link

A Dim Distant Disclaimer

SPOILERS HERE — if you haven’t read DIM DISTANT STARS (and intend to), you might not want to read this post!

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A confession: when I began writing Dim Distant Stars, I had no idea which of his many female friends Jack McFee might end up with. Nor did I intend him to have made any decisions by the end. Vili — Princess Vilma Lempsen — remained the strongest contender. I did know Policewoman Veronika ‘Niki’ O’Toole would be taken out of the running.

The first thought there was that she would fall for Jack’s college friend, Father John Barbosa, and join him as a colonist. That felt clunky by the time I reached that point in the story. It would have added irrelevant narrative. So I simply said she had already emigrated, creating a sort of foreshadowing, and decided Anna Gallen would be the one to marry John and go off to a ‘new world.’ This way of removing her from contention seemed good until I was almost to the end of the book.

When a radical shift of direction presented itself — and I went with it. John is killed*, Jack proposes to Anna, she accepts. All tied up, no more doubt and indecision from our hero. About time! I’d always truly wanted the two to end up together but I just couldn’t see a clear route to it. This presented the perfect one.

He would never have been quite right for Vili anyway, would he? Jack would have been restless. Anna is the one woman with whom he can truly share his life.

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*A shocker for many readers, I’m sure. It even shocked me that I could treat such a sympathetic character so badly.

At the Store

Dim Distant Stars may now be purchased in print at our online store or go to arachispress.com for both print and free ebooks.

https://www.lulu.com/shop/stephen-brooke/dim-distant-stars/paperback/product-5762kkg.html