Tag: sci-fi

Van Troff’s Cylinder by Janusz Zajdel – an AI Vision from the 80s

~ Veselin ~ 2 Comments

An exploration spaceship returns from a distant star with a 200-year delay. They find the Earth and the Moon in shambles. Earth is inhabited by stupid people, and the Moon has a smart but unsustainable population, suffering from radiation, depression, and a shortage of oxygen.

Zajdel explores how climate and genetic manipulation can destroy Earth. Humans decided to replace trees with machines, and it didn’t work very well. They also decided to resolve the overpopulation crisis by changing the DNA so that very few girls were born. That also didn’t work well.

Both disasters are overshadowed by the impact of AI. Robots do everything and people don’t need to learn how to count. They communicate with 50 words and don’t develop even basic feelings. It’s a utopia modern people can imagine – the world ending not because of a war or climate change but because of obedient robots doing all the work.

4.5*/5

Celestial Hit List by Charles Ingrid book review

~ Veselin ~ 3 Comments

The elite battlesuit carrier and a walking tank Jack Storm goes to a new planet. He’ll face prophecies, miracles, magic, and a human nemesis. Or at least the nemesis he thinks he has. I’m sure there will be no shortage of future nemeses to Jack and his sentient suit. One of the major opponents is a civilization of cruel and clever cockroaches that’s unlikely to go away.

The series is still interesting to me. I’m captivated by books with complex worlds and simple plots. The enemies are clear, and the solution to the problems they create is also clear. There will be battles with lasers, jets, and spaceships. What is not clear is who will endure all the challenges and who will be sacrificed by the writer.

I think the score for this one is 4/5.

Kajanga by Lubomir Nikolov

~ Veselin ~ 1 Comment

5pm on a warm Sunday. I’m about to visit a book signing for a genre of books that almost ceased to exist in the late 90s. It’s in Lozenets, an expensive neighborhood located on a hill, in what looks like a residential building. There are no signs. I’m looking left and right. Am I at the right place? I see a door open and decide to get in. 10-15 meters after, there is another door that appears to be locked and a staircase leading downstairs to the right. I see bookshelves everywhere seemingly unattended. Perhaps I’m at the right place. Shall I keep going down to page 17? Or perhaps I should force the door (page 27)? In case I carry a little angry dog in my backpack, turn to 7.

This is the wiring style of gamebooks, and the new one is a 2nd edition of a rare book published in the 90s by Lubomir Nikolov, most copies of which have been lost or thrown away.

I kept walking down and found a large room, perhaps a bar, full of folks about my age. Why would anyone build such a large room 2-3 floors under a residential building?

I entered, got my book with an autograph, chatted with people, and it was fine.

The first game book published in Bulgaria was by the same author Lubomir Nikolov – Fire Desert. It started a genre and a community that inspired me to write and later to code. I’m not a very active member of this community but I buy the new books to support it and read some of them. If you want to try that but don’t speak Bulgarian, try Blood Sword.

A short story about our AI-assisted future

~ Veselin ~ Leave a comment

The WordPress.com Reader found me this story from 2023 on a site with almost no visitors. It imagines a utopia where AI does almost all the work except for some. Like Human Resources. Why is that spared? Check the story.

Human Resources

I don’t believe the current boom in generative AI will push us toward UBI, but it is important to imagine the threads of the future and see what we like and what we don’t so we can act accordingly.

Crash Course – Matthew Reilly

~ Veselin ~ 2 Comments

This is a simple book and part of a series I hope to finish. It comes with promises – there will be races with fighter-jet fast homemade cars. Whatever happens in the race will be decided milliseconds before the finish line. There will be crashes, of course, with speeds that would make the F1 cars look like they don’t move.

This book will teach you nothing. Not even a grain of rice of usefulness. Not a grain of anything that could possibly happen. It’s fantastic, pure joy. 5/5

Goodreads