Well, that took a sudden turn

Yup, I planned to be back here blogging a long time ago but life took some twists. Some good, some bad – that’s how life often is. Anyway, back to the books and other things.

Other things first. This upcoming weekend I will be on a panel at FanX Salt Lake City. Here’s the link – FanX.

The panel is “Androids, Cyborgs and Robots, oh AI!” I and the other panelists will be discussing the nature of artificial intelligence. I have some ideas I’d like to toss into the crowd. I’m curious to hear from the panelists and the fans how people define AI, exactly? How does one know if the intelligence is artificial or natural? What is the difference between the two? Is this one of those questions that Justice Potter would answer, “I know it when I see it.” to? Probably. That’s what makes it such a fun topic for discussion. I hope to see you there.

Next, back to Lorenzo Almanzo, dear L.A.ser Boy. I have been working steadfastly if not fast-ly on the Long Invasion series. I have three and one half regular books of material finished. Writing out the series has made me see it in a different light than when I started. As such, I need to make some changes. That’s what I’m working on right now. A couple weeks back I took the first edition of L.A.ser Boy down from Amazon. My plan now is to re-launch the series in early 2020 in a slightly different manner.

Writing superhero stories that are typically done in the comic book/graphic novel format has inspired me to release the material in as a serial. Thus, once I have the whole story written out (either four or five regular books in length) I will publish the material in a comic book-sized “issues” then release them at a rapid rate over the course of a couple of months. I haven’t decided whether to put them out once a week or once every other week. I can hold off on making that decision until 2020. I think of them as “non-graphic novels.” Ha!

That’s where L.A.ser Boy stands. Now on to Danger Island. In part to take a breather from the Long Invasion series and in part because the idea popped into my head one day and simply refused to shut up until I wrote it out, I recently published a novella – Danger Island. It has to do with psionically powered people in the near future. It’s a touch Alfred Bester, a touch Dashiell Hammett. Most importantly, it’s a fun, quick read. Oh, it also has killbots in it.

In fact, three of the books I’ve written or re-written in the past year have robot characters in them: Danger Island, Mat the Cat and The Far Shores of Saucerland. I did not plan that. But it happened anyway. Now I’m on a panel talking about Artificial Intelligence. Maybe…maybe a secret, all-powerful artificial intelligence has been manipulating me all along. Here, let my friend Philip and his friend V.A.L.I.S. explain this to you. Go ahead, prove me wrong!