Authors Electric

    Of Buttercups and Rhizomes *   No, you can't have your ball back Buttercups and Rhizomes: a metaphor for our internet age   This is a picture which I posted on Twitter recently and which got a number of likes – eighteen in all - which believe me isn’t that many. Some people get hundreds. The touch of heavy humour in the picture is my attempt to catch the eye of you, the reader. I must apologise, however, that this story is not about lions or even football, but an account of a thesis and a number of books that I have received from those with whom I have made a Twitter connection.     My story begins with reference to a doctoral thesis by one of those contacts about reimagining the educational curriculum, a subject close to my heart. This is a lengthy study called,  Rhizomes, Assemblages and Nomad War Machines , by Kay Sidebottom. It was a challenging read and I made notes as I went along, but it contained the idea that Twitter is like a ...

  I'm currently enjoying my first foray into writing science fiction for adults. A s I try to imagine what life will be like a hundred years from now , along with some of the wonderful things that computers m ight be able to do by then, I can't help wondering... who will be the writers of 2112? I' d like to think that people not so very different from ourselves will still be wrestling with characters, plots and dialogue. But I have a strong suspicion that we may have a bit of competition by that time - from electric authors of a different kind. Never, never, never, I hear some of you cry. A computer or a robot will never be able to produce anything that stands up a s a work of literature. At best, a parody, perhaps. S omething written to a formula, contr o lled by strict parameters. Fan fiction? But never, never, anything that might considered original or (heav e n forbid) win a major literary prize. Of course, there could be a market for the type of ...