We're currently in the middle of a thunderstorm. Curious hates thunder. He is now hiding his head under a blanket from the thunder b/c with the cone he can't get all the way underneath the bed.

My cat, who is named Curious, has decided the only appropriate response to the humans forcing him to wear a cone is to become a slug.

My cat, a very large Maine Coon rescued several years ago from the pound, recently had minor surgery. He must wear this cone for two weeks. He wants people to know he is trying his best to salvage his dignity.

This reminds me of Syndrome in the film The Incredibles, who wants to destroy superheroes by giving technology to mimic their powers to everyone. As he says, "When everybody is super, no one will be." Tech bros want people to believe that using AI can make you a writer or artist. 4/

Great new review of Plague Birds: The Red Day Edition, released the other day by @apexmag.bsky.social. "An original, dazzling and ambitious science fiction story that shows that there are possible variants to surprise and excite us within the genre." 1/ distopolis.com/resena-de-pl...

Saw this comment on Reddit and I now want more authors to write about the the Idiot’s Journey instead of the Hero’s Journey.

Emily Bell's Bluesky account posted that a "group of fellow writers and editors have come together to protect Emily from the relentless attacks and harassment." As previously stated, my response to stuff like this is to tap the sign. 1/ www.patreon.com/jasonsanford...

Happy book birthday to Plague Birds: The Red Day Edition, the rerelease of my Nebula and Philip K. Dick finalist novel about the human-AI hybrids who are judges & executioners in the far future. Thanks to @apexmag.bsky.social for bringing out the new edition! www.apexbookcompany.com/products/pla...

I've the receipts to prove all this. I saw the initial sketches Bolívar created, along with the updated and final versions of the cover art for both the original and new release of Plague Birds. It's a good thing to oppose genAI slop. It's not good to attack artists and their human-created art. 6/

That red glow around Crista's eyes and in the line on her face are not evidence of AI usage -- Marcela Bolívar created the first mockups for this cover art back in 2021, when the original edition of Plague Birds was released. Here's the original art she did for the book's first release. 2/

Attending Mo*Con and listening to @scott-h-andrews.bsky.social of Beneath Ceaseless Skies interview legendary editor @annvandermeer.bsky.social. "Communicating through stories brings us together." -- Ann VanderMeer

This weekend I signed and numbered 30 special ARCs of Plague Birds: The Red Day Edition for @apexmag.bsky.social. Also pictured is Wobbly, the cigar-box robot that @cmzhang42.bsky.social snagged for me from the Seattle Worldcon Hugo Award afterparty. Wobby approves of special signed editions! 1/

I agree 100% with Steven Vickers that authors will be falsely accused of using AI in the coming years. In particular, authors like myself whose works were stolen to train AI systems are at risk. When we write in our own unique styles, AI trained on us will quite likely flag us as using AI.

If you're a Patreon backer of @bcsmagazine.bsky.social, you can now read the ebook of BCS's science-fantasy issue #452 containing my novella "Where the Dream Train Goes." If you're not a backer, consider doing so and supporting a great magazine! 1/ www.patreon.com/posts/151389...

My story "Where the Dream Train Goes" will be published in a few weeks in this year's final science-fantasy month double issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies! The story is a very personal fantasy about living as an autistic person and how people continually steal the dreams of others. 1/

People will keep discovering how bad so-called generative AI can be in very personalized, horrific ways. And please, instead of saying "hallucinating numbers" say "BSing numbers." BTW, the Reddit post was deleted by mods b/c of course they did. Here's the archive. web.archive.org/web/20260215...

Book club scams are now threatening authors who don't fall for their BS. In December, I received an email from Herry Sharp, so-called CEO of "Super Book Lover Curator" praising my novella We Who Hunt Alexanders. Totally AI-generated and a scam so I didn't respond. Now Herry is threatening me. 1/

In Gaiman's new response, he mentions the "reporting" that proves he's innocent. This reporting is an anonymous Substack where the person keeps posting about Gaiman being innocent. But no true evidence is presented, as opposed to the evidence presented by actual journalists like Shapiro. 2/

We Who Hunt Alexanders is on the longlist of nominees for the BSFA Awards in the Best Shorter Fiction category! Many thanks to everyone who loved the novella and all the members of the British Science Fiction Association who nominated it! @apexmag.bsky.social www.bsfa.co.uk/bsfa-awards-...

Reading the Deep Space 9 tie-in novel A Stitch in Time by Andrew J. Robinson, who played Garak. One of the all-time best Star Trek novels. Love this quote: "What people lie about the most are themselves, and these lies become the stories they believe and want to tell you.”

When the scammers set up the AI query to create all this, I imagine they asked the LLM to create a "Distinct Book Club." And the LLM did exactly that. 😂 While that's funny, the sad thing is these scams keep getting better. Soon it will be hard to tell real reading communities from fake. SMDH. 4/

What's amusing is that the scammers used AI to create all this, including the community members who interact with any authors who fall for the scam. Ironically, the name the LLM created for their club absolutely screams genAI: "Distinct Book Club." 3/

The "Distinct Book Club" has a professional-looking website with events promoting authors, blog posts, and a claim that they have a community of "22,100+ Active Readers" that have read "186,000+ Books." Naturally, most of the site was created by generative AI. 2/

Last September I reported on how scammers are using generative AI systems (LLMs) to create fake book club communities, including Discord chats with AI-powered members. As an update, the scammers are getting better. Check out this new scam email I received today. 1/ www.patreon.com/posts/genre-...

I'm with @therisingtithes.bsky.social on my shock at Wake Up Dead Man having the character of Lee Ross, a wash-up author, write a book that is 782,815 words long! I so loved the film slipping in something that only writers will laugh at that I screenshot the scene.

The exec even attributed emotions to the AI, as the attached screenshot shows, saying the models "experience something like anxiety and fear" and "have latent wants and desires." The exec was basically saying we need to care more about the possible emotions of AI than the emotions of humans. 2/

Beautiful, snowy day in Ohio. Good day for writing.

Today's the deadline to register for @sfwa.org's fall online Nebula event, Quasar, which takes place November 15 and 16. If you took part in this year's Nebula Conference there's no cost to register. 1/ membership.sfwa.org/event-6301796

When the trail divides in the woods, I will always follow the one named "short story."

Many thanks to @apexmag.bsky.social for supporting my weird story of a far-future Earth where genetically altered humans and ethereal AIs live side by side. Crista and Red Day look forward to reminding the world why everyone fears the powerful human-AI hybrids known as plague birds. 2/