I Am Sorry… To the people of the future—I am sorry. I'm sorry someone read my book and decided to make it real. I'm sorry that, instead of heeding the cautionary tale woven into my words, the takeaway was a blueprint for control and manipulation. I mean, it was just fiction. Speculative fiction… science fiction… nothing that could ever happen in the real world, right? Who would have guessed that authors like Asimov and Banks are to blame for the actions of Musk and Thiel? We wouldn't be enduring Zuckerberg's metaverse if Neal Stephenson had just left his pen safely on his desk. "Pens don't change the future," you say. "People change the future." Are you sure? The Guardian asks us, "Will sci-fi end up destroying the world? " as it lays blame on "skewed interpretations of classic works." It seems we've been banning the wrong books all along. It wasn't the books about our past we needed to fear, but those about our f...

Lately, as I write and research, I find myself caught in quiet arguments with myself—turning over questions about creativity, machines, and what makes something meaningful. These thoughts aren’t just abstract; they shape how I build worlds, characters, and systems in my fiction. One recurring question keeps surfacing: if something not human can create, what does that mean for those of us who’ve long defined ourselves by the act of creation? This essay isn’t a set of conclusions—it’s a snapshot of the questions I keep coming back to, sparked by real-world debates and fueled by the strange, shifting edge where imagination and emerging technology meet. Photo by cottonbro studio: https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-person-holding-a-prosthetic-arm-6153345/ The Shifting Boundaries of Creativity: Human Exceptionalism Meets AI Throughout history, humans have consistently created special categories to maintain separation between themselves and other entities — whether animals, people of different ...

  Artificial Intelligence (AI) is no longer a concept confined to the realm of science fiction. Its presence is rapidly growing across various industries, including the creative arts, the environment, and even our everyday lives. As a writer, I’ve had the opportunity to explore different facets of AI in my work, and I’ve been reflecting on the ways in which it’s shaping our world—both for better and for worse. In my latest projects, RePHleXions: Echoes of Existence and The Life of Phi , I dive into different aspects of AI. RePHleXions takes a closer look at AI’s role in the creative arts—how it’s reshaping music, writing, and visual art. In The Life of Phi , I delve into AI’s biases and the environmental implications of technology. Both works confront the rapid advancements in AI and the profound implications they have on our lives and the world around us. But as much as I explore these themes in my books, I’m also deeply curious about your thoughts and experiences. We live in ...

  Hello Blogger, My Old Friend… I’ve made some changes to my website. My old domain, mountainhermit.lawrencenault.me , is still up for now, but my primary site is now lawrencenault.me . As part of this shift, I’ve also moved my blog off my website to mountainhermit.blogspot.com and bid farewell to WordPress. WordPress is (or was) great, but between the constant updates, outdated templates, and rising costs, maintaining it started taking more time than it was worth—time better spent writing. By using Blogger, I’m hoping for something more stable and long-term, while also benefiting from external links to my site for SEO. This entire process has been a classic case of procrastination disguised as productivity (and, of course, far more complicated than just sitting down to write). But now, it’s time to shift gears and focus on the next phase—promoting my upcoming book. The Life of Phi – Coming April 22nd My next speculative fiction novel, The Life of Phi , launches April 22nd....