So I decided to dabble in a test of a website that specialises in A.I.-generated stories -- not that I was expecting good results, but what has arrived is surprising silly and quite impressive. Something that many fanfic creators could only ever dream about the the 1970s and 80s.
There seem to be quite a number of these types of sites springing up. (I remember adding personal details of a penpal's nephew -- his pets, best friends, etc -- to a children's "Batman" picture book about 20 years ago.)
This recent one, "Book by Anyone", requests silly/funny details that can be entered into an A.I. generator, to create a rather handsome trade paperback (or hardcover) single copy. Duplicates can be ordered, too, but essentially the story is still sight unseen, and a bit of a risk. Like many print-on-demand books, the packages arrived at my door within a week! Maybe as a gift item for that hard-to-buy-for fan, or a fun coffee table book?
That it emphasised humour outweighed my suspicion that the writing would be very stilted and unoriginal. I was quite pleasantly surprised by the results. Even reading only the chapter headings and back cover blurbs, on the day of ordering, still made me grin at all the in-jokes that had firmly embedded themselves into the three narratives. I actually had no intention of ordering all three fiction titles (themes of science fiction, guide book and fantasy), but I just couldn't decide, and figured it was a worthwhile experiment. The three books are over 250pp each.
I figured I would skirt around the Trek elements, of course, but one text ending up referring to Orions and Rigellians (not my doing).
Of course, for the cover art, I uploaded several old Andorian cosplay pics -- and, as expected, the Andorian antennae were ignored by the generator -- but two of the cover images did have blue skin. I did think I might add antennae to the cover art later, or maybe add blue translucent Contact, but decided to customise the spare art into a bookmark instead.
"The Tales of Therin of Andor" series (2025) by Ian McLean, on Flickr
I ended up doing a frame grab of the original cover of the third book because there was a technical glitch, and the story simply refused to load. Starting over again meant that an all-new cover was generated, too. However, the new cover did have alien zoo exhibits (from the story) in the artwork, so I decided to use the spare image, which had a deeper blue tone to the skin, and just add antennae, to create a bookmark template to use with my three books.
"Therin of Andor" bookmark template by Ian McLean, on Flickr
There seem to be quite a number of these types of sites springing up. (I remember adding personal details of a penpal's nephew -- his pets, best friends, etc -- to a children's "Batman" picture book about 20 years ago.)
This recent one, "Book by Anyone", requests silly/funny details that can be entered into an A.I. generator, to create a rather handsome trade paperback (or hardcover) single copy. Duplicates can be ordered, too, but essentially the story is still sight unseen, and a bit of a risk. Like many print-on-demand books, the packages arrived at my door within a week! Maybe as a gift item for that hard-to-buy-for fan, or a fun coffee table book?
That it emphasised humour outweighed my suspicion that the writing would be very stilted and unoriginal. I was quite pleasantly surprised by the results. Even reading only the chapter headings and back cover blurbs, on the day of ordering, still made me grin at all the in-jokes that had firmly embedded themselves into the three narratives. I actually had no intention of ordering all three fiction titles (themes of science fiction, guide book and fantasy), but I just couldn't decide, and figured it was a worthwhile experiment. The three books are over 250pp each.
I figured I would skirt around the Trek elements, of course, but one text ending up referring to Orions and Rigellians (not my doing).
Of course, for the cover art, I uploaded several old Andorian cosplay pics -- and, as expected, the Andorian antennae were ignored by the generator -- but two of the cover images did have blue skin. I did think I might add antennae to the cover art later, or maybe add blue translucent Contact, but decided to customise the spare art into a bookmark instead.
"The Tales of Therin of Andor" series (2025) by Ian McLean, on Flickr
I ended up doing a frame grab of the original cover of the third book because there was a technical glitch, and the story simply refused to load. Starting over again meant that an all-new cover was generated, too. However, the new cover did have alien zoo exhibits (from the story) in the artwork, so I decided to use the spare image, which had a deeper blue tone to the skin, and just add antennae, to create a bookmark template to use with my three books.
"Therin of Andor" bookmark template by Ian McLean, on Flickr
