So, I’m going to board the hype train. But not as a passenger. As the driver! Think about it. Who better to write a book on AI than a diehard curmudgeonly tech-savvy skeptic who treats this whole thing as one big conditioning experiment? Exactly. No one. Now, the topic. Ethics, of course. What else is there.
Well, well, that was quick. Three months, done. Now, let me throw some lovely statistics at ya. Book length? About 80,000 words, give or take a few, thirty-five images, thirty-three tables, a combat simulation (written in octave). Study material? I read about 150 books, and about thrice as many reports, journals, monographs, and webpages in six languages. I marked about 800 annotations, and ended up with slightly under 700 citations and references. And the genre?
A couple of months back, I finished writing my brand new-old fantasy book. A fresh, third attempt at an old idea. Why, you may ask. Well, the old one just wasn’t good enough. Despite its verbosity, almost three quarters of a million words, it was clunky, ponderous, perhaps even boring. And reading, I was quite surprised, and delighted, by how much my writing style has changed over the years, and decades. This got me wondering. How many words does it take for one to find their “true” voice?
I don’t like repeating myself. Let me say that one more time. I don’t … no, wait. Aha! So, as it happens, I’m not really fond of writing “more of the same”, so to speak. Once I’ve done a certain theme, I don’t find great enjoyment in rehashing it. Some authors love their worlds, and keep spinning endless sequels in them. But that’s too familiar, too easy for me. I always need to push beyond my would-be comfort zone, and I always want to try new things, writing wise. Hence, the two new topics I’m going to do in 2025: military history and romance novel, what.
More books news, more excellent offers! As I wrote on dedoimedo.com just now, my benevolence truly knows no bounds. Not only have I just announced a mega-awesome Smashwords holiday sale 50% deal on all my e-books published yonder, you’re going to get another splendid gift, too. From Thursday, December 19 till Monday, December 23, midnight to midnight inclusive, The Amazing Advetures of Dashing Prince Dietrich is going to be free for grabs in the Amazon Kindle store. Hear, hear.
All right, listen up. Are you sitting down? Good. Here we go. As I just announced on my main blog, dedoimedo.com, I am running a discounted sale for all of the books I’ve published through Smashwords. From December 12 through the end of the year, you can grab a bunch of fiction and nonfiction works. These include the four volumes in The Lost Words fantasy series, and please note the first book, The Betrayed is FREE (zero cost), my mythological novel I Shall Slay the Dragon!, and the recently published How to Make Your Career Suck Less, your one-stop shop to reducing work-related suffering.
I did it. The brand new (yet old) 63-chapter, 160,000-word fantasy book featuring magic, dragons, wizards, gritty heroes, and lots and lots of lore is done. I finished the project within roughly six months of leisurely writing (for the most part), give or take a few weeks. On its own, this wouldn’t be a major feat, except … I have tried to “rewrite” this idea three times already, unsuccessfully. But now, I finally succeeded.
If you don’t follow my main blog, dedoimedo.com, here’s a wee announcement. Black Friday. Cyber Monday. Yup. This coming long weekend, tens of millions of Americans will be forced to endure the company of their in-laws and awkward cousins over Thanksgiving family gatherings. I would like to help them, and what better way to avoid social unpleasantries than a good reading! My book, How to Make Your Career Suck Less, will be offered at a discount, from the Draft2Digital chain of stores. To wit, the universal book link, at your disposal.
It’s happening. I’m very close to finishing the new old fantasy book! After twenty years and two failed rewrite attempts, this third endeavor is finally bearing fruit. I found the right formula. Rather than trying to fix the old, clunky, ponderous manuscript, I’m writing a brand new book, with brand new words. Only the original idea (mostly) remains the same. In fact, even though this book will “only” stretch some 150,000 words, less than a quarter of the original version of mine, it’s still more fun, has more detail, more character development, better pacing, better everything.
Hear, hear! I am happy to announce the publication of my latest nonfiction, tech-related book. It comes with a snarky title How to Make Your Career Suck Less. Or, in other words, A Guide to a Less Painful IT Existence. This book is a culmination of some twenty years of my fairly successful work in the tech industry, where I’ve faced many an absurd situation, hordes of yesmen, tons of bureaucracy, and heaps of nonsense. And I bet, if you work in the tech space, you’ve experienced it all, too.