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I have a burning need to know stuff and I love asking awkward questions.

Saturday, February 25, 2023

Book Tag: 5.... 4.... 3.... 2.... 1.... Borrowed from Marianne @ Let’s Read 


FIVE Books you Love 

Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen 

The Dispossessed by Ursula K LeGuin 

Pure by Andrew Miller 

Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel 

Night Train to Lisbon by Pascal Mercier 

No doubt I could have added more if I was allowed to. 


FOUR Auto-buy Authors 

Bernard Cornwell 

Martin Cruz Smith 

Robert Harris 

Joseph Kanon 

Authors that have (with one notable exception) never let me down. 


THREE Favourite Genres 

Science Fiction [my first love] 

Historical [endless variation] 

Crime [puzzles galore] 


TWO Places You Read 

These days, on my sofa. In my previous life I’d read anywhere and at any time I had more than a few minutes of otherwise ‘dead’ time. I always carried a book – because you never know when you’ll have a few minutes to spare (or be stuck somewhere for HOURS with nothing else to do but wait). 


ONE Book You Promise to Read Soon 

There are SO many to choose from, but....  

The Midnight Watch by David Dyer 

9 comments:

Stephen said...

Hah! Cornwell and Harris would be on my list, too. By the way, if you have an interest in transhumanist themes I previewed a book last night that I think I'll buy once the TBR stack is smaller..."The Body Scout". The author has an interesting substack on the flood of ChatGPT-generated stories that are going to seriously hurt small authors by overwhelming the organs they rely on to get their stories out to the public.

https://countercraft.substack.com/p/the-flood-of-chatgpt-crap-about-to

CyberKitten said...

I've skimmed the AI generated novel bumph that's coming out ATM. Reading between the lines [lol] I'm getting a *serious* whiff of BS. AI *might* with a HEAVY emphasis on *might* be able to auto generate countless (honestly fake) novels but I don't think it'll take too long to see that they'll be shit. But, if they *can* generate readable stories using off the shelf formulae - which I seriously doubt - then maybe its a sign that people should stop producing low quality formulaic novels.

But, to be honest, I think the 'story' is yet another example of techno-panic we've seen a 100 times before. There *might* be a nugget of truth there but its being buried under a ton of over-hyped journalistic crap.

Marianne said...

Glad that you liked the post so much that you did the meme, as well. I also copied it from others.

Anyway, some interesting books there and would we have been allowed more, I might have put P&P and Night Train to Lisbon, as well, two great books. Although, I did put Persuasion, my favourite by Jane Austen.

Genre, historical is also on my list, of course!

And this is one of the challenges where it's not difficult to find any books to put on the list, just to limit yourself.

Stephen said...

The problem discussed in the article is not that AI stories can compete with human writers, but that the sheer volume of them being submitted to magazines is so overwhelming those who are charged with evaluating content can't. It's the literary equivalent of a DDoS attack as people chase pennies.

CyberKitten said...

@ Stephen: I think the solution is to use an AI to do the initial (speedy) evaluation... to weed out the dross (DDOS) [grin]

CyberKitten said...

@ Marianne: P&P only *just* pipped Persuasion to my fave Austen, probably because P&P was my first and I'd previously fallen in love with Lizzie Bennet from an earlier TV adaptation. I was *much* impressed with Anne Elliot though. I remember debating her decision not to accept Captain Wentworth's initial proposal and trying to explain that women in that time simply couldn't (or not very easily) marry for love only. There had to be *some* financial prospects too...

Limiting the numbers was definitely the most difficult part for me too!

Marianne said...

I totally understand. Most people prefer P&P to Persuasion. I just feel more like Anne Elliot, that's probably my reason.

And yes, I could have found a hundred books for the challenge.

CyberKitten said...

I really liked Lizzie Bennet for her feisty nature (although I might find it difficult to actually be *friends* with her!) but I greatly admired Anne Elliot for her practicality and her common sense (which is never really common enough!), but I think I admired her most for her strength and her inherent goodness. She was navigating through difficult and dangerous waters but managed to hold her course throughout. A very impressive character portrait.

Marianne said...

That is exactly what I liked about her. She certainly didn't have an easy life with those sisters and the father and everyone else interfering but she was the smartest of them all.