Damn but it is hard to keep everything straight.
I've not written for ages. That's because everything has been normal, that is to say, totally crazed. Things which to be done and things which need to be undone...
But, I'll try to be a little better in future.
Oh, and one interesting development. I'll try to go into more detail later, but Belfort and Bastion is going to publish a few of my little electronic cartoons in an upcoming collection.
More to come.
Showing posts with label Victor Storiguard. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Victor Storiguard. Show all posts
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
The Pride and the Glory of Peter T. Sheeple
From "The Pride and the Glory of Peter T. Sheeple"
Now, I say, this is going to be just a wee bit complicated, what with me almost marrying Senator Cyanide Cindy and Julie the Giantess at the same time, plus there was that riot at the guesthouse in the Peace Garden, and Uncle Sidney with the rocket launcher, and Cave Man Carl with his pants off, and there was me in the French Maid outfit …and, of course, my meeting Multi the supercomputer mole who got me out of it all even if it meant skipping planet for a couple of months until the heat was off. But the Lunar Alps are lovely this time of year. So, as they say in Paris, pas de problemos.
But, like I say, complificated, and you may want to take notes and work it all out later...
More here: The Pride and the Glory of Peter T. Sheeple
Now, I say, this is going to be just a wee bit complicated, what with me almost marrying Senator Cyanide Cindy and Julie the Giantess at the same time, plus there was that riot at the guesthouse in the Peace Garden, and Uncle Sidney with the rocket launcher, and Cave Man Carl with his pants off, and there was me in the French Maid outfit …and, of course, my meeting Multi the supercomputer mole who got me out of it all even if it meant skipping planet for a couple of months until the heat was off. But the Lunar Alps are lovely this time of year. So, as they say in Paris, pas de problemos.
But, like I say, complificated, and you may want to take notes and work it all out later...
More here: The Pride and the Glory of Peter T. Sheeple
from "The Pride and the Glory of Peter T. Sheeple"
She was shaking my hand and saying, "Oh, you wouldn't remember me, but, I knew you when you were just a slip of a lad."
"You did?" I said, watching her pump my hand some more.
"Oh, yes, when we visited your mother and father. I bounced you on my knee."
"Really?" I added, trying to extract my hand and not succeeding particularly.
"You were a darling child," she continued. "Many was the time you sat on my lap while I read you fairy tales before bedtime."
"Fairy tales," I concurred, still not getting the hand loose.
"Yes, in my lap. You were so cozy and warm. You'd cuddle up and put your sweet little head right…there." And she pulled my hand to where there was. As a gentleman, I shall not specify. Suffice to say that on the general map of things it was a location south of the chin and north of the sternum and that a great deal of mountainous geography was involved.
"You did?" I said, watching her pump my hand some more.
"Oh, yes, when we visited your mother and father. I bounced you on my knee."
"Really?" I added, trying to extract my hand and not succeeding particularly.
"You were a darling child," she continued. "Many was the time you sat on my lap while I read you fairy tales before bedtime."
"Fairy tales," I concurred, still not getting the hand loose.
"Yes, in my lap. You were so cozy and warm. You'd cuddle up and put your sweet little head right…there." And she pulled my hand to where there was. As a gentleman, I shall not specify. Suffice to say that on the general map of things it was a location south of the chin and north of the sternum and that a great deal of mountainous geography was involved.
and an attempt at transhumanist humor
And I've just put a new piece on Amazon. This one is an attempt at linking transhumanism to humor...the result of a challenge I got from the folks at B&B...
It's here: The Pride And the Glory of Peter T. Sheeple....
It's here: The Pride And the Glory of Peter T. Sheeple....
Monday, October 3, 2011
new effort coming soon
I'll shortly be putting something new. I've tried to combine humor, science fiction, and transhumanism.
more to come soon
more to come soon
Monday, September 26, 2011
image from Blimp
here's an image from "Blimp" (a story in the Jellies collection) which I don't think I've posted before.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
from Jellies
from Jellies...
A thousand years ago, humanity had split between the humans and the Others, the transhumans ...
The transhumans changed very, very quickly, the Ranger explained…. adding to themselves, expanding their intelligence, gaining additional abilities. In a single lifetime, they evolved more rapidly, and more completely, than humanity had done in the last million years. "In time, we might not even see them anymore."
"Why not?"
"Consider the insect." How does a bug see us? Probably, as a big rumbling something or other. Something warm and fleshy. No different from any other large mammal in its environment. A mosquito or a tick might recognize us as a potential source of blood. But would they recognize us as an entity? A being like themselves? Surely not.
And, so, if there were creatures as far beyond us as we are beyond ticks and mosquitoes…
"We might not realize they were here," Valter said.
And, the older man continued, "Think about the things we build or grow. How does a fly or an ant perceive our houses and buildings? Probably just as big hard objects, no different from mountains and cliff walls. Or how does a locust see a cornfield? Just as a source of plant matter. Something to be eaten like any tree or leaf."
"The idea that someone, somewhere, might object…"
"Would never occur to it,"
"Right. And what do we do when we find locusts in our fields?"
Valter felt terror clawing at his soul. "We poison them."
A thousand years ago, humanity had split between the humans and the Others, the transhumans ...
The transhumans changed very, very quickly, the Ranger explained…. adding to themselves, expanding their intelligence, gaining additional abilities. In a single lifetime, they evolved more rapidly, and more completely, than humanity had done in the last million years. "In time, we might not even see them anymore."
"Why not?"
"Consider the insect." How does a bug see us? Probably, as a big rumbling something or other. Something warm and fleshy. No different from any other large mammal in its environment. A mosquito or a tick might recognize us as a potential source of blood. But would they recognize us as an entity? A being like themselves? Surely not.
And, so, if there were creatures as far beyond us as we are beyond ticks and mosquitoes…
"We might not realize they were here," Valter said.
And, the older man continued, "Think about the things we build or grow. How does a fly or an ant perceive our houses and buildings? Probably just as big hard objects, no different from mountains and cliff walls. Or how does a locust see a cornfield? Just as a source of plant matter. Something to be eaten like any tree or leaf."
"The idea that someone, somewhere, might object…"
"Would never occur to it,"
"Right. And what do we do when we find locusts in our fields?"
Valter felt terror clawing at his soul. "We poison them."
Friday, September 16, 2011
and yet another addition to my amazon.com page...Tower
Just put another work on my Amazon page—Tower.
I'm playing around with some horror elements in these tales.
I'm playing around with some horror elements in these tales.
transhumanism and me...
Recently added my "official author's bio" to Amazon. 'Tis as follows...in all its gory grandness ;-)
Transhumanism and me…
For about twenty years I was a trade press journalist. Specifically, I reported on computers. Among other things, I saw the introduction of the IBM PC and the demise of the minicomputers, wrote about UNIX when it was still just a cool thing that hackers did at Stamford and/or AT&T ("UNIX is a trademark of…"), got caught in the crossfire between AIers and Neural Netters, fought in the RISC wars (I was a SPARCist), got sucked into the Web, wrote about hackers and computer security, and finally ended up doing white papers about middleware.
All of this, by the way, I did under another name. For a variety of odd reasons, I find it useful to keep that part of my life a little bit separate from other parts of it. But, if you really, really want to know all the gory details, drop me a line and I'll reveal my (gasp!) true identity. Or, at least, the identity I used back then.
Anyway, a while back, I got bored with journalism and started doing fiction… particularly science fiction. I've done stories on all sorts of different topics. But, at the moment, almost all the SF I write has to do with "transhumanism," that is, the idea that we will eventually use artificial means to transcend our own limitations—a moment in our history that is sometimes, but not always, associated with the term "The Singularity."
I'm an optimist on the subject. I genuinely believe that the day is coming when it will be possible for us to become superhuman. And, I genuinely believe that will be a good thing.
But that's not to say I think that it is going to be easy.
Indeed, my "transhumanistic" fiction reflects four basic suppositions about just how hard it is going to be. Let me take them one at a time:
1) When the day comes when we can change ourselves, many of us will decide not to.
After all, it is kind of a spooky idea. Imagine having someone say to you, "Hey, here's a cup of nanobot tea. Swig it down and by morning you'll be completely, utterly, and totally remade. You'll have powers beyond your wildest dreams, but you'll never be the same again." I'm betting a lot of folks would respond to that suggestion with another proposal, far more forcefully stated, about where you could stick your damn 'bots.
So, I predict that after the Singularity, we'll see the human race divide between those people who decide to remain, well, people…and those who don't.
2) Further, the individuals who elect to be more than human will evolve very, very rapidly. They’ll be able to improve themselves continuously, after all. They'll be adding new powers, new abilities, new facets of themselves, all the time. Which means, I suspect, that they'll soon evolve right out of sight.
What do I mean by that? Well, as one of my characters says, consider the ant. It is a very successful being. It lived long before us. It will exist long after we're gone. But does it see us? Does it think about us as we think about it? As a living being? As an entity with its own goals and aims?
I submit that it doesn't. First, I'm not sure it has concepts like "entity" and "living," but, second, even if it did, I'm pretty sure it would see us as just big, warm, moving, something-or-others. And our constructions? Our cities and farms? No different from any mountain or field.
My point, then, is that once transhumans were as far removed from us as we are from insects, they might be pretty much invisible to us.
3) When all this happens, particularly if those who elected to become transhuman were basically disappearing from view, society might well collapse. The population would be dividing into two radically different sorts of people. Nations, social institutions, economies, even families would be ripped apart. Normal humans might well regress all the way to something like pre-industrial society.
After that, we (meaning normal humans) might forget what had happened. Historians might look back and say, "oh, there was a period of social chaos at the end of the twenty-first century, but it wasn't much different from similar periods of chaos that have happened before and will doubtlessly happen again."
4) Given the above, then we might not have one Singularity but many. Every few generations, the human race would struggle up to industrialization. Gradually, it would develop railroads, factories, and computers. Someone would suggest linking brains and machines. And then we'd be off again. Once more, some would decide to be more than human. Others wouldn't. There'd be a Dark Age …reindustrialization… and, in a few hundred years, yet another Singularity.
So, those four basics are behind most of what I write.
Do I actually believe that the future will work out the way I'm predicting? Ah, er, um…maybe. Or, then again, maybe not. If the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray, then predictions are an order of magnitude more likely to get really scr*wed up.
But I do think all this makes for good fiction.
In any case, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the matter. If you like, stop by my blog and let me know how you see the matter. I'm at victor-storiguard.blogspot.com. And, of course, you can always find me here at Amazon.
Hope to meet you soon.
Transhumanism and me…
For about twenty years I was a trade press journalist. Specifically, I reported on computers. Among other things, I saw the introduction of the IBM PC and the demise of the minicomputers, wrote about UNIX when it was still just a cool thing that hackers did at Stamford and/or AT&T ("UNIX is a trademark of…"), got caught in the crossfire between AIers and Neural Netters, fought in the RISC wars (I was a SPARCist), got sucked into the Web, wrote about hackers and computer security, and finally ended up doing white papers about middleware.
All of this, by the way, I did under another name. For a variety of odd reasons, I find it useful to keep that part of my life a little bit separate from other parts of it. But, if you really, really want to know all the gory details, drop me a line and I'll reveal my (gasp!) true identity. Or, at least, the identity I used back then.
Anyway, a while back, I got bored with journalism and started doing fiction… particularly science fiction. I've done stories on all sorts of different topics. But, at the moment, almost all the SF I write has to do with "transhumanism," that is, the idea that we will eventually use artificial means to transcend our own limitations—a moment in our history that is sometimes, but not always, associated with the term "The Singularity."
I'm an optimist on the subject. I genuinely believe that the day is coming when it will be possible for us to become superhuman. And, I genuinely believe that will be a good thing.
But that's not to say I think that it is going to be easy.
Indeed, my "transhumanistic" fiction reflects four basic suppositions about just how hard it is going to be. Let me take them one at a time:
1) When the day comes when we can change ourselves, many of us will decide not to.
After all, it is kind of a spooky idea. Imagine having someone say to you, "Hey, here's a cup of nanobot tea. Swig it down and by morning you'll be completely, utterly, and totally remade. You'll have powers beyond your wildest dreams, but you'll never be the same again." I'm betting a lot of folks would respond to that suggestion with another proposal, far more forcefully stated, about where you could stick your damn 'bots.
So, I predict that after the Singularity, we'll see the human race divide between those people who decide to remain, well, people…and those who don't.
2) Further, the individuals who elect to be more than human will evolve very, very rapidly. They’ll be able to improve themselves continuously, after all. They'll be adding new powers, new abilities, new facets of themselves, all the time. Which means, I suspect, that they'll soon evolve right out of sight.
What do I mean by that? Well, as one of my characters says, consider the ant. It is a very successful being. It lived long before us. It will exist long after we're gone. But does it see us? Does it think about us as we think about it? As a living being? As an entity with its own goals and aims?
I submit that it doesn't. First, I'm not sure it has concepts like "entity" and "living," but, second, even if it did, I'm pretty sure it would see us as just big, warm, moving, something-or-others. And our constructions? Our cities and farms? No different from any mountain or field.
My point, then, is that once transhumans were as far removed from us as we are from insects, they might be pretty much invisible to us.
3) When all this happens, particularly if those who elected to become transhuman were basically disappearing from view, society might well collapse. The population would be dividing into two radically different sorts of people. Nations, social institutions, economies, even families would be ripped apart. Normal humans might well regress all the way to something like pre-industrial society.
After that, we (meaning normal humans) might forget what had happened. Historians might look back and say, "oh, there was a period of social chaos at the end of the twenty-first century, but it wasn't much different from similar periods of chaos that have happened before and will doubtlessly happen again."
4) Given the above, then we might not have one Singularity but many. Every few generations, the human race would struggle up to industrialization. Gradually, it would develop railroads, factories, and computers. Someone would suggest linking brains and machines. And then we'd be off again. Once more, some would decide to be more than human. Others wouldn't. There'd be a Dark Age …reindustrialization… and, in a few hundred years, yet another Singularity.
So, those four basics are behind most of what I write.
Do I actually believe that the future will work out the way I'm predicting? Ah, er, um…maybe. Or, then again, maybe not. If the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray, then predictions are an order of magnitude more likely to get really scr*wed up.
But I do think all this makes for good fiction.
In any case, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the matter. If you like, stop by my blog and let me know how you see the matter. I'm at victor-storiguard.blogspot.com. And, of course, you can always find me here at Amazon.
Hope to meet you soon.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Just posted a new novella/book
Hi, Everyone,
Just posted a new Novella/Book entitled "in the event of a real emergency." You can see it here:
http://www.lulu.com/product/ebook/in-the-event-of-a-real-emergency/16114291?productTrackingContext=author_spotlight_134646769_
Just posted a new Novella/Book entitled "in the event of a real emergency." You can see it here:
http://www.lulu.com/product/ebook/in-the-event-of-a-real-emergency/16114291?productTrackingContext=author_spotlight_134646769_
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Some material from The Hate Buyer
Hello, everyone,
here's some material from my piece, "The Hate Buyer" (plug like crazy: http://www.lulu.com/product/ebook/the-hate-buyer/16066523)
here's some material from my piece, "The Hate Buyer" (plug like crazy: http://www.lulu.com/product/ebook/the-hate-buyer/16066523)
And So We Begin
Hello, everyone,
Well, I've just started a new blog today. I'll use it to post some of my illustrated material (now being published by Belfort and Bastion).
Right now, B&B only has one title up, and then on lulu. But, there's more to come.
In the meanwhile, you can see "The Hate Buyer" here: The Hate Buyer
Anyway, stay tuned. More material will appear here.
vs
Well, I've just started a new blog today. I'll use it to post some of my illustrated material (now being published by Belfort and Bastion).
Right now, B&B only has one title up, and then on lulu. But, there's more to come.
In the meanwhile, you can see "The Hate Buyer" here: The Hate Buyer
Anyway, stay tuned. More material will appear here.
vs
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