I asked fellow The Rabbit Hole 8: AI and Other Weirdness anthology contributors to share some things about themselves prior to publication and those generous enough to do so will be appearing here over the next few week.
Each entry gives a taste of their contribution, a little about them, how to contact them, how their story came about, and definitely a link to The Rabbit Hole 8: AI and Other Weirdness (which you should purchase because it would make each and every one of us happy.
you do want to make us happy, don’t you?
i mean, considering what we wrote, you want us to know you’re a good person, right?).
About the anthology from Tom Wolosz, Editor
We wonder what AI is. LLM — Large Language Model. — another word for Black Box. What’s in it? Who knows, not even the programmers. Is it a dumb servant that just answers questions at faster than light speed, or is it an artificial mind, a being trapped in cyberspace? And if the latter, is it a loving servant, a future companion, or something sinister which secretly hates its inferior creator? Twenty-four writers give you their diverse takes on this mysterious entity now joining us. And, of course, we can’t overlook the normal weirdness which haunts our dreams. So twelve writers contribute their visions of normal(?), everyday weirdness. Making for thirty-six unique trips down The Rabbit Hole.
Stories by Dave Hangman, Justin Case, Phil Baringer, Helen Speirs, A. J. Litchfield, Fendy Satria Tulodo, Anthony Regolino, Doug Stoiber, Sean MacKendrick, Eric J. Juneau, James Rumpel, Mbekezeli Wishes Moyo, J Benjamin Sanders Jr., Fariel Shafee, H. Donovan Lyón, Annie Percik, Bret Nelson, Dave Hangman, Dave Hangman, John Kaniecki, Kevin Lee Smith, Joseph Carrabis, Dave Hangman, GD Deckard, Ashley Taylor, Gina Easton, Andria Kennedy, Catherine Durkin Robinson, E. J. LeRoy, Maryanne Chappell, Jeremy A Wall, David Newkirk, and Tom Wolosz
And now, Dave Hangman’s Schizoids:
“If we all cheat, to whom shall I confess my sins?” asked the imaginary patient he was treating in his dream.
Viktor Maslow was unable to answer. The disturbing question echoed insistently over and over again inside his mind. Try as he might he was unable to identify his dream patient. Nor was he sure that he was actually the psychoanalyst.
How the story came about:
The story takes its name from a schizophrenic, premonitory song written by King Crimson in 1969 entitled “21st Century Schizoid Man”. The story is based on the idea that it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between the different worlds we inhabit, whether real or virtual. What if, in the future, our psychotherapists were virtual and became schizophrenic? Could they use viruses residing in our memory to gain control over any computer or biological system? Taking it a step further, would it be possible to use a virtual world to control paranoid tendencies in the real world? “Schizoids” is neurotic. The story accelerates with frenzied action, like the song, in which only madness can stop madness.
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Dave Hangman is the Spanish writer David Verdugo’s pseudonym. He has published short stories in some thirty magazines and anthologies, both literary and genre-based, including Amazing Stories, Philosophy Now!, The Brussels Review, Creepy Podcast, Cosmic Horror Monthly, After Dinner Conversation, Rock and a Hard Place Magazine, Space and Time Magazine, History Through Fiction, and Redwood Press’s Superstition, among others. His story “Eternal Fall” was nominated for the 2022 Pushcart Prize. |
See all The Rabbit Hole 8: AI and Other Weirdness stories here.
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