ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: A PASSIONATE PERSPECTIVE
There are actually quite a lot of troubling issues around AI which really don’t seem to be discussed, or get discussed in the shallowest way.
The thing that everyone, and I mean everyone overlooks, is that AI is not a public resource. It is private property. It’s owned. And the owners are pouring money into it, with the intention of getting a profit out of it.
In pursuit of their profit, they are literally stealing everyone’s information. The works of artists, the works of writers of books and novels. We’ve seen language inserted everywhere to try and allow AI to take your zoom conversations, your phone calls, your social media posts, all taken without permission or compensation, for the ultimate purpose of the owners of AI and their investors to make a lot of money.
It was recently revealed that one of these AI companies early on considered paying for peoples work, they decided it was too expensive, and they’d just steal it instead. Wow. Well, that’s a completely ethical stance. Decide to steal, and then argue a self serving justification, and throw a bunch of lawyers at it, maybe buy a few judges.
I have to say, I find that viscerally offensive. Let me explain where I’m coming from.
WRITER’S YEAR, 2024 WRAP UP
Well, here’s my writer’s year in review. What have we got? Another year of nothing much, unfortunately. Another year of spinning the wheels. Six books in all, though I didn’t write one of them, and only partial for another. I’ve been doing this the last few year, trying to keep track of what I’ve been up to and how far along I’ve gotten. I went back and reviewed the last few roundups. It’s rather distressing – basically, plugging away hard, the same projects slowly advancing or not advancing year by year. Word counts piling up, but an uncertain sense of accomplishment. Anyway, let’s jump in.
STARLOST UNAUTHORIZED – Now Available
The giant Earthship Ark, drifting through deep space over eight hundred years into the far future, its passengers descendants of the last survivors of the dead planet earth, locked in separate worlds heading for destruction… The Starlost (1973)
Starlost, a Canadian television series, running sixteen episodes in 1973. The premise was interesting – Earth was long gone, the last survivors of humanity had fled in a giant generation ship composed of interlinked domes. But something had gone horribly wrong, an accident had taken out the bridge crew and locked the domes away from each other, and the ship had drifted out of control for four hundred years. Now it was heading on a collision course with a nearby star, and only Devon, Rachel and Garth, three exiles from a rural dome, understood the danger and faced the almost insurmountable task of trying to save what was left of humanity.
Originally, it got off to a great start with names like Harlan Ellison, Ben Bova, Doug Trumbull, Keir Dullea, Walter Koenig and Ursula K. LeGuin attached to it. But things went wrong – Harlan Ellison threw a tantrum, scripts weren’t ready, the revolutionary special effects system didn’t work. The big names departed, leaving the show in the hands of an inexperienced production crew who had no time, no money and no experience. The verdict was catastrophe, one of the worst series ever produced in the sci fi genre.
But was it? I just wrote a book saying different.
CONVENTIONS UPDATE
STARLOST UNAUTHORIZED, Update
1st Draft done. 2nd Draft done, Currently reorganizing up to 3rd and hopefully final draft.
Waiting to do a few interviews. Doing the cut off.
Season 14 Review – Doctor Who Stumbles Along
Well, the verdict is in, at least for this season.
So what have we got?
Disappointment I’m afraid.
So far the Gatwa era consists of an extended cameo in David Tenant’s “The Giggle,” the Christmas Special, “Church on Ruby Road,” and an eight episode season starting with Space Babies and Ending with Empire of Death.
Overall impressions? Deeply uneven. Mostly unsatisfying. Three brilliant episodes, two unfocused sub-par efforts that we’ll generously call mediocre, and an opening and closing set of dumpster fires.
The larger problems? Gatwa’s overacting masks an underlying lack of commitment or emotional depth. RTD has become a shallow parody of himself. And critically, the show is deeply stagnant and failing to evolve or change. We’re getting the same old same old, as we got fifteen years ago, just tired and worn out.
PERVERSIONS & INFIDELITIES, DEUX
Eve St. Albert returns with her second volume of Perversions and Infidelities, three more novellas of desire, transgression, sex and satisfaction. Perversions and Infidelities is a four book series being produced by Fossil Cove Publishing, with Dawne Dominque as the cover artist. The first three books each contain a series of novellas featuring erotic tales for a women’s readership. These are stories of empowerment, adventure and satisfaction. Of women breaking free of their normal lives, embarking on transgressive sexual journeys, exploring power, identity, fantasy and desire and ultimately, finding their true selves.
NASFIC, DAYS 3 & 4, July 20 & 21

[photo from File 770, the Doctor Who Panel]
NASFIC AND MARKETING
