Month: October 2024

Hey there! AI news and new services are inescapable these days.  Scary stuff like deep fakes attempting to sow disinformation.  Anxiety with the implications of fast generated art and writing.  And uncanny interesting things. I’ll be talking about the last one. Google recently launched a new service called Notebook LM.  Authors or other users can upload stuff from Google docs or PDFs into a local/private instance.  You can do it with anything like emails or even bank statements.  I, of course, loaded up the PDFs of my three novels and three bonus content novellas. You can then ask it questions about the aggregated content.  And it will come back with something that’s kinda right some of the time.  It’s experimental and it shows.  Here’s an excerpt example when I asked it to give me a list of named characters from the series: “Svithe: A mysterious peddler who deals in rare and valuable items. He is shrouded in secrecy, his true face concealed by bandages. He possesses extensive knowledge of Trojis’s history and political landscape, and often uses his knowledge to manipulate events to his advantage. As revealed in our conversation, Svithe is a guise of Corsis, a powerful, god-like being who orchestrates events for his own amusement.” Not bad.  It doesn’t mention Sufrinzon.  But it’s decent. “Avril: A skilled warrior and the daughter of Iuar and Zirva. She is introduced alongside Svithe at the docks. She is fiercely independent and possesses a strong moral compass.” Misspellings abound, and Avril is introduced well before she meets Svithe. “Gnorok: A red-skinned Merfenar (a race in Trojis) who is initially partnered with Rasphir and Runanker. He is interested in acquiring the “Ruul Kand,” a powerful artifact hidden by Uraulings.” The misspellings completely screw this one up along with confabulations like Merfenar instead of Murdrake. Yes, definitely not ready for prime time.  Very fascinating, even at this nascent stage.  However, there’s something that’s even more interesting. A podcast summary hosted by two incredibly realistic-sounding AI hosts. If you want to give it a listen, the link is below.  It lasts about 10 minutes.  PLEASE NOTE: You’ll need to log into a Google account to listen to it.  Also, I might be having it try another iteration by October 18, 2024, so the link might be broken if you listen after that.

Check Out the AI Podcast if you have a Google account

I have a fact check commentary in the post below. But here are my big picture thoughts.  You know that scene in Billy Madison where he completely BS’s his way through an oral test asking about the Industrial Revolution? “The industry, my friends.  That was the revolution.” And the moderator’s response: “I award you no points.  And may God have mercy on your soul.” I kinda feel like that.  It deemed the heroes of the second book as the villains.  Epic fail.  And much of the praise was generic “what does it mean to be human” stuff that you could say about just about any story. But I can’t award it no points.  The quality of the back-and-forth with the hosts, and some of the stuff it got right like the kliosts. This is something that might be able to help out a lot of people writing large projects.  Not yet.  But it might.  I’ll be most interested to see where it is in a year or two.

Players of the Game Works in Progress

I’ve got a good flow going with Secret Fronts.  I’m up to page 112 with 31,600 words.  So that’s 41 pages with 12,000 words this month.  I had a few off weeks this past month, but I’m still happy with the progress of the first draft. Players of the Game Out of Context Quote of the Month: “I should have listened to him.” The Master of the Game slapped his hand on his chair’s leather arm. “I’ll rectify that mistake. And a few others while I’m at it.”

Recommendation Corner

Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 2 This is the softest of recommendations. Yes, this show is overblown.  Some of the plot lines are borderline or beyond borderline pointless.  I’m still not sure I’m sold on feisty warrior Galadriel. But by golly.  This show did something I didn’t think was possible.  (Minor spoiler ahead.) It got me to enjoy a story line with Tom Bombadil.  His interaction with the Stranger was cool.  As was the test that ultimately yielded him the name I wanted him to say.  And the song they sang on the season finale.  I just liked it. I thought Sauron’s manipulation of the elf blacksmith and later coercion in crafting the dwarf and human rings was decent, but a little plodding. But dang, that Battle of Eregion was pretty cool.  I took a look at the LOTR Appendices, and I’ll be most interested to see how they finish out the Numenor plot line and the founding of Gondor beyond it. This show is aggressively mediocre.  But I’ll watch the next season. Unicorn Overlord Oh, my.  I love this game. An anime-style Ogre Battle homage.  Shut up and take my money. It has squad based real-time movements with battles that occur based on the squad formation.  Promoting units.  Expanding the squads.  Liberating a continent town-by-town.  It is sublime. It’s not completely perfect.  The writing is a little generic and the lack of an unhinged howl for the werewolf characters is a gargantuan missed opportunity.  But these are minor quibbles. This is one of my favorite games of the 21st century.  It’s right up there with Symphony of War from a few years ago. So fun!

Check Out the Players of the Game Series on eBook and Paperback

That’s all for this time. Stay smart.  Stay safe. Jim

Click here to view the original format.

Hi, all.

This is a rare website-only post on October 6, 2024. I’m mentioning the date, because there’s a decent chance the link below will be broken after a few weeks. I’ll likely update the podcast again sometime later this month, and I doubt the link will work following that. Or it might be talking about different things if the link keeps working as I iterate the podcast. Either way, it might be nothing or it might differ from my commentary.

In this brief window, I’m sharing an AI podcast from Goggle’s Notebook LM that talks about parts of my six books (three main, three bonus content) that are publicly available, which you can see on the sidebar. A bunch of fact checks on the confabulations of the two synthetic hosts does not make for compelling reading on a newsletter, and perhaps not in a straight blog post. But this experimental AI service is incredibly interesting to me. And I’m betting others may find it interesting too.

PLEASE NOTE: You must login to a Google account to listen to this recording.

Click or tap here to listen to the AI podcast.

And here’s my commentary on the artificial discussion. I’ll also have another newsletter entry above where I discuss it further in a day or two, which will summarize my thoughts and the general uncanny vibe, even if the link no longer works if you’re looking at this later in the future.

Minute 0:

False: The POTG series has no prophecies.

False: No summoning the dead with pyromancy. That’s necromancy with Durduun’s cultists and the struggle to possess the Mosul Flute, not Ashe.

Minute1:

False: Ashe doesn’t bend time. Tempes does that.

SO FALSE: The Brigands are not villains. They’re initially distrustful of each other, but they are Ashe’s allies.

Interesting: The AI hosts will insert laughter and insert verbal ticks. It’s very realistic.

Minute 2:

False: Nirva and Svithe are not part of the Brigands.

True- ish: Frulgrath is the only antagonist who was a former member of the Brigands. He’s not really a force of nature. More like a poisonous weed that keeps popping back again and again.

False: Ashe doesn’t serve Corsis

False: “No one knows all the rules.” There are multiple conversations in all three books about the Game’s rules.

Minute 3:

True ish: The kliosts emerge as a big threat in Book 2.5. Ashe and the other Brigands don’t deal much with the kliosts, though ViRauni does. This podcast version doesn’t talk at all about Ed, Harry, and the other Book 3 characters, though previous iterations of the podcast did.

Interesting: The female AI’s mumbled “exactly”. Again, that is very realistic.

True ish: Unseen force of kliosts. Sort of. It’s either airborne or imbibed. Their effects aren’t exactly visible, but they aren’t unknowable.

Interesting: Million dollar question. People do speak in cliched sayings like that.

False: The question of who’s wielding this thing in reference to the kliosts. It’s plainly Hekati, as shown extensively in Book 3.

Minute 4:

False ish: The specifics of the Game are mysterious. It’s not immediately apparent why Corsis is playing the Game. But it’s no mystery that he’s the one in control and the Rules are told in each of the main three books.

False: Another mention of Ashe using time bending. That’s Tempes.

Minute 5:

False: There are ZERO mentions of destiny in my novels. I hate that “chosen one” stuff. My characters earn their greatness.

True: I like their discussion of the Battle of the Two Cities, though they keep it vague to defending a city.

Minute 6:

True: Talk of mancy’s versatility is accurate.

False: Ashe never looks into the future. He cannot see future possibilities. Avril looks at the past and jumps through the time hole. Nirva looks in her painting to see possible futures, which might be the source of the confabulation.

False ish: Nirva is utterly lost by her obsession with her painting, which makes Avril sad. But Nirva is consumed with bringing Avril to heal. Her love for her daughter, if it exists, is utterly twisted by madness, fear, and hate.

Minute 7:

Interesting: The AI hosts mention layers. I really doubt they actually detect narrative nuances. I think that’s just verbal slop they put together through ingesting thousands of hours of people doing reviews.

Minute 8:

Interesting: The mention of “It’s still our choices that matter.” Very generic. You could literally say that about any story.

Minute 9:

Interesting: “Oh, man. That’s tough.” Again, very realistic dialogue.

Interesting: “In a world where the lines between wonder and horror are blurred… what does it even mean to be human?” Again, a generic statement you could say about any sci-fi or fantasy novel where the characters have powers.

I’ll have more thoughts above, but all-in-all, while Notebook LM clearly has some miles to go, I’ll be interested to see where those miles tread.