Book Two, half a first draft, but stalled

I have always had an enduring interest in Robotics, from poring over science fiction comic books as a schoolboy to studying machine vision and pattern recognition for my PhD. I remember a Eureka moment when a particular reference work cemented my undeveloped notions of the unlikely existence of a soul to explain atheism. Oh, the undiluted intellectual fizz of a tableful of drunk, twenty-year-old science undergraduates.

AI is now all the rage

Everyone’s heard of it, and some of us think we know what it is. Robots are regularly seen displaying improbable proficiency on TV or online. Boston Dynamics; WOW! You don’t hear much about artificial consciousness, however. That’s a very different thing. That’s what Book Two is about. Nobody has a clue about it, which is good from an author’s point of view because it’s hard to belittle outrageous ideas.

I’ve set the story in the Crow’s Nymet of nearly thirty years hence (2049), and what fun I’m having inventing scenes.

Let’s face it, anything could have happened

What will the internet have turned into? Will villagers be frazzled by out-of-control global warming? The countryside rewilded? Can you still get a drink at the pub? Rest assured, Book Two will weave an intriguing story with twists and turns. I’ve thought of a title, but it sounds a tad pretentious so I’m not telling you yet. I’ll have to see if it mellows on me.

I’m about half-way through a first, handwritten draft and I have a timeline and a plot to the end. But it’s Springtime. The garden is calling, and progress has stalled. I’d rather be outside in the wonderful Devon countryside than in my study writing. I’ll resume again in late summer when the evenings start drawing in. I always think of September as the start of a new academic year. It feels right.

technology marches on

Meanwhile, I do worry that technology marches on with some gathering inertia, and I fear that some of my best ideas will become reality before the novel is published (it’s already happened, actually). That should keep me motivated, at least.