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 Tom ‘DocTom’ Wolosz, 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, Tom ‘DocTom’ Wolosz, Tom ‘DocTom’ Wolosz, John Kaniecki, Kevin Lee Smith, Joseph Carrabis, Tom ‘DocTom’ Wolosz, 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, Tom ‘DocTom’ Wolosz’s Brenda:
THIS MORNING
Call ended, the screen went blank.
Jerome Upstat leaned back in his plush, brown leather executive office chair. The mellow, satisfied smile of a predator following the consumption of a particularly terrified meal illuminating his goateed face.
The bait had been swallowed, the deal set. The studio exec thought he was getting the book rights at a bargain price, but the fine print would allow Jerome to massively up the price for each of the follow-up stories.
Not bad. Not bad at all!
Standing to gaze out his office’s picture window, he smoothed his hand-tailored suit, thinking, It’s a good day.
“Brenda,” he called out.
“Yes, Jerome?” The silky AI voice replied.
“Great job on that contract.”
How the story came about:
The idea for Brenda came from discussions on the Writers Co-op site regarding the future of writing and publishing in light of the rise of AI. Possibly similar to the discussions of rapidly advancing medical science that interested Mary Shelley.
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Tom ‘DocTom’ Wolosz is a paleoecologist, hiker, writer and semi-pro photographer. Born in Brooklyn, New York, he learned to love the outdoors early in life, which might explain how he ended up as a Professor of Geology at Plattsburgh State College in upstate New York. Retired from the college, he now replaces grading student writing with editing other peoples’ stories, acting as an associate editor for The Rabbit Hole, vol. 0 and 3, and senior editor for The Rabbit Hole vol. 4 5 6 and 7, and, of course, this volume. DocTom’s first novel Agony of the Gods, Softly Falls the Snow was published in 2014 and is available on most online bookstores. His short stories have appeared in Second Taste Anthology, and The Rabbit Hole vols. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 6 and 7. You can visit Tom at TomWolosz.com |
See all The Rabbit Hole 8: AI and Other Weirdness stories here.
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