I am pleased to announce the Kindle ebook edition of Souls in Silicon, my second short fiction collection, containing all my stories about strong AI, plus excerpts from both The Cunning Blood and Ten Gentle Opportunities. It’s available for $2.99, or as part of your Kindle Unlimited subscription. No DRM.
The POD paperback edition has been available since 2008. I’ve updated the cover to a more legible font; the same font used in The Cunning Blood and Cold Hands and Other Stories. I’m evolving a line look here, and so far, I like it a lot. The original cover type font for Souls in Silicon was a little more atmospheric, but it didn’t read well on Amazon thumbnails. The cover art is the same 2008 drawing by Richard Bartrop, created specifically for the book.
The stories inside are all the stories I’ve written about strong AI that I’m pleased with:
- “The Steel Sonnets”
- “Guardian”
- “Silicon Psalm”
- “Marlowe”
- “Borovsky’s Hollow Woman” (with Nancy Kress)
- “Bathtub Mary”
- “STORMY vs the Tornadoes”
- “Sympathy on the Loss of One of Your Legs”
People who have followed my work closely since the beginning (there are a few) will notice that “Ariel” from Burchenal Green’s Tales of the Marvelous Machine isn’t here. It wasn’t in the POD paperback either. The reasons are complicated. “Ariel” centered on two characters from a failed novel that I was tinkering in 1980 and eventually abandoned as untenable. The theology, furthermore, is dicey. I know more now than I did then. A modern priest who grew up with computer technology would not have the reaction that Fr. Fiocca did to Ariel the AI.
So I’ve wondered here and there down the years if I should rewrite the story. If I did it would be a pretty radical rewrite. That decision will have to wait for another day; there’s too much to do in the meantime. I have one more significant story, a longish novella, that needs to be dealt with and posted on Kindle, but it has its own share of problems, which I’ll talk about in a future Contra entry.
In the meantime, Souls in Silicon is up there. Go get it. Don’t forget to drop a review on Amazon when you can.
Right now, I have stuff to write. Lots of stuff.
