Unless you really aren’t paying attention to this blog or my newsletter, you should know that the amazing team at Purple Toga just published a new anthology about care, compassion, and social justice. Since it included two of my stories, I thought I’d share some teasers with you (those of you still reading 😉

The first story I wrote was about what you’d expect from me, involving Roman myths and gods:

But, well, not quite. It doesn’t involve Felix, and is set in our modern days. In fact, my inspiration for it was taken altogether from real life:

My mother passed away a couple of months before writing this story. Physically, at least. Mentally she hasn’t been there for a few years, lost to Alzheimer’s. My dad passed away nearly two years ago, and though he was mostly sound in mind, towards the end that cancer the has been eating at his body also started to affect his mind. I’ve seen my grandparents lost to dementia as their age tipped a critical point.

Truth be told, the prospect of getting dementia scares the shit out of me.

I also miss their stories, their wit and humour, the passions that drove their lives throughout the tumultuous 20th century and the wisdom they gained. I wish I had more time to sit and listen to them. We don’t do this enough, as a society.

Interestingly, Douglas Lumsden (whose work I love), has also written a story involving old gods. His inspiration (and pantheon) are wildly different, and it’s fascinating to see two authors take what is essentially a similar prompt, but come up with two very different stories.

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The second story is quite different. It is also inspired by real life, but this one from my job as a product manager of software products (which has a lot of common with writing fantastical ancient mysteries).

I happen to be exposed to both sides of the AI debate, the technology developers and the creator community side. I’ve been developing AI-powered products for a few years (since before it was cool). I’ve been working in and around information management and data privacy, always considering the ethical dimension of the technology we use. I’ve played around with generative AI when it became all the rage. And, of course, I have my own opinions about digital piracy and the publishing industry.

Having little faith in the capacity current of humanity to think kindly towards each other and about the longer term, I sat down to write a dystopian tale. But the story took turns that surprised me.

I grew up on stories by Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke, and others. At
university, I studied computer science, played with neural networks and other emerging AI technologies. My day job involves developing and marketing software products, which for the past few years have had Machine Learning components (well before the current generative AI hype cycle). You could say I have been following the social-philosophical and professional-practical aspects of AI for most of my life.

With both AI and the anthology on my mind, it’s no wonder the idea of the care relationships between humans and machines popped into my head. But when sitting to write the story, it turned out quite different to what I originally envisaged.

Is it utopian or dystopian? Or somewhere in between? You decide.

Again, I wasn’t the only one writing about the future of AI in the care of humanity. Cindy Tomamichel has also written an futuristic tale, and again – the similarities of input and the wide variety of output are what makes human creativity so fascinating.

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So if you have found my stories entertaining in the past and care about social justice, head on to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, or the retailer of your choice, and get your copy today!

(And then leave a review, because we authors are gluttons for punishment 😅)