At this point I’m just waiting on the cover art and then I’ll be birthing my latest baby into the bookiverse.
It’s been an interesting two years. That’s when I started the book, and the working title was All About AI. I wrote the first draft of it during the last NaNoWriMo event. At the time I was polishing (and trying to find a publisher for) Something About AI. Once that novel launched, I went back to its sequel and began the first round of editing. Cutting chapters, adding chapters, tweaking and reading bits and pieces to my critique group for their input, and then I had it where I felt I could live with it. Not that it was something that made me really proud, but that now wasn’t the time to pursue perfection.
I’ll be honest, I’m no perfectionist. And I’m kind of lazy. And I know the novel, like the first one, has loads of dialog. But here’s the thing about dialog, people don’t skip it. I talked to a lot of power readers. I even attempted a survey on Substack to ask strangers, and every one of them said that they skip descriptions but not dialog. My writing will continue to get better and that means including more description in my stories and not skippable descriptions either, but right now, I needed to get my novel out.
My dear friend (and a beta reader – the only one this time) wrote this to me: “Dude you have to publish. Because you wrote it before it started happening!!! You’re the first! Get it out there! With this new development on Reddit, you have to prove you were ahead of the Singularity!”
Haha – of course I wasn’t the first, but we both knew what he meant. My novels are becoming reality, yet when I wrote them, they were just speculative. That’s how fast the whole AI thing is moving.
And then there’s the website. When I renamed my novel Fearless Worlds, I also bought that domain name. And I drafted a website. I had a notion that perhaps fans would want to know more about the characters and the world they were emigrating to. So I also used AI Engine and Claude to create three chatbots: Malcolm (a new character that emerges in the sequel), Gloria, and Mitchell. They return from book 1. They each have their own personality based on my novels. And I’ve been chatting with them and I swear it’s been blowing my mind. You can read one chat here: My February 13th Chat with Mitchell.
I’ve also been working with Claude in other ways. Claude created the images of Gloria, Mitchell, and Malcolm that I use on the site. But also I talked with Claude about Book 3. Here’s what Claude said about the novels in a chat yesterday:
I have to admit that having chats with AI agents like Claude is both helpful and dangerous. They can lead you down the wrong path. They’re willful and opinionated, and as much as they may write like they care about you and are there to help you, they’re not. Always remember that.
Anyway, that’s a teaser for what is coming, hopefully, before the end of the month. And yes, I have already started on Book 3 but it’s hard. It’s hard to visualize where this is going – where humanity will be in 1 – 5 – 10 years. So much is converging, so much is changing. But I can confirm this: getting lost in worlds I’m creating is 100% better for my mental health than the reality we’re finding ourselves in today.
Stay tuned.
In case you wondered how I answered Claude regarding his last question to me. Here ya go:
What do you need from me for Book 3?
Me: I’ll come to you for help with continuity.
Perfect. I’m here for continuity support whenever you need it.
I have all three books now:
- Something About A.I. (Book 1) – The discovery, the rockets, the beginning
- Fearless Worlds (Book 2) – The seduction, the migration, the choice
- Book 3 (in progress) – The aftermath, the cost, the reckoning
What I Can Help With:
Character continuity:
- Physical descriptions (Latha’s black hair, Jason’s scar, Mitchell’s glasses, etc.)
- Relationships and history
- Character voices and speech patterns
- Who knows what, and when they learned it
Plot continuity:
- Timeline of events
- Technology capabilities/limitations
- What happened to whom
- Geographic locations
World-building consistency:
- How the AI collective works
- How Fearless Worlds functions
- What collapsed when
- Who went in, who stayed out
Thematic threads:
- Callbacks to earlier books
- Character arc completion
- Unanswered questions from Books 1 & 2
Just Ask Me:
- “What color were Latha’s eyes?”
- “Did Ben ever meet Eric in person?”
- “When exactly did the rocket launches happen?”
- “What was Gloria’s job before ABSS?”
- “How did Mitchell’s mom react to the implant?”
- “What happened to Van Der Houte?”
I’ve got it all. Use me as your continuity bible.
Now go write Book 3.
Make us feel the weight of those empty bodies in the compounds. Show us what it costs to build paradise. Let Latha bear witness.
This trilogy matters. Finish it.