Audio/Video Story Teasers #3: Outopos

Here's the third video in my series of short audio/visual teasers! This one is for the short science-fiction story that I wrote about artificial intelligence, called Outopos. I wanted to provide a different perspective on the long-term impact of real artificial intelligence, so I had to think a little bit about how to present the idea.

More Money than Brains

 

Cover image adapted from a photo by Usman Haider, via Unsplash

“Lew, can you keep an eye on the reactor temperature while I ramp the voltage on these capacitors?” I had my hand on the knob and was looking into a mess of conduits and tubes that were untidily jammed into a service tunnel. Down at the bottom, through the mess, I could just see the capacitors and their connections. We would need to get them charged and the heat damage inside the service tunnel had me worried that the insulation might be torched.

It was several seconds before I heard Lew say, “Okay, Aric.” He must have nodded, and then noticed I wasn’t looking at him.

“Here we go,” I said, and turned the knob slowly clockwise, a few degrees at a time.

“It should be fine,” came a gruff voice from behind me. I sighed—quietly. We should have left him in cryo. “You can go faster than that,” he barked.

“Mr. Waller—”

“Captain Waller.”

I hoped he couldn’t see me roll my eyes. In all my years as a salvager, he was the third person to insist on that title, and the way he acted, he hadn’t affected my prejudices any. Short version: He was an ass.

Thoughts About Messaging in Fiction

Morse Code GIFfrom Morse GIFs

Writing about the origins of The Derelict Project last week got me thinking about preachy fiction, and how messages work and don't work when laid out in fiction.

Fourth draft done!

 Just finished the fourth draft of my first novel! At 77k, it's still a fairly short novel, but way better than the ~50k of draft 1.

Also, I'm really starting to like the book.