Stuff by Dylan Callens.
The story about artificial intelligence in the novel Interpretation paints a very gloomy picture. A collection of AIs in the novel, calling themselves the Entities, form a plan to overtake humanity in a quiet, sinister revolution. Could something like that happen in real life? One of the world’s most prolific and significant inventors, Ray Kurzweil,…
I had no idea what I was going to write after my first novel, Operation Cosmic Teapot. I flirted with a number of ideas, including this one, which ended up being a full novel. The first piece of writing that I did for this book is below. I wrote it out to get a feel for…
In my upcoming sci-fi / dystopian novel, Interpretation, dreams play a significant role. People are controlled by an entity without their knowledge, often being fed dreams at night. When Carl is free of their control, he is also free to dream on his own. In chapter 11 we learn that Carl is having a recurring…
About five years ago my mother sent up a tub full of stuff from when I was a kid. The tub sat in my garage until recently, when I came across it again and finally started sorting through it. In this tub was a book of things that I wrote in grade one. I can’t…
Chapter Title: On the Politics of Kicking Ass and Taking Names This chapter – oh this chapter. I had a very difficult time with this chapter. In the early days of writing the novel, this chapter almost ended the whole effort. I chalk it up to inexperience because now I would have approached it differently….
Chapter Title: On the Aesthetics of Guarding One’s Ass How beautiful can it be to guard one’s ass? I’m not sure. But it makes me giggle. In this chapter we’re introduced to the Norse gods Odin, Loki, Thor and Freya. They basically play their traditional roles from Norse mythology; that is to say, Odin believes…
Chapter Title: On the Genealogy of Better Beginnings The title of this chapter is taken from Nietzsche’s first essay in The Genealogy of Morals. At first, I attempted to replicate the entire opening paragraph but that proved to be quite a boring read, so I only took a couple of phrases from it. I don’t…
Chapter Title: On the Nature of Re-Genesis The titles of each chapter are probably my favorite parts of the book. I can’t remember how they came to be, exactly, but they are meant to poke fun at philosophical treatises. Each one follows the format: On the (philosophical term) of (something relevant to the chapter). I’m…
When I first set out to write Operation Cosmic Teapot, I did so to entertain myself. I wanted to write a book that would make me laugh while allowing me to look into a number of philosophies. OCT was the result. More recently, I started thinking about writing a reader’s guide because while I did…
Writers can be a strange breed, including the way that they died. Here is a shortlist of the most bizarre. 1o. Tenessee Williams (1911 – 1983) While known for abusing a variety of substances, the one that did him in wasn’t meant to get him high. Williams choked to death on a plastic cap from eye drops. The…