Every writer begins with a question.
Mine is usually: What happens next?
Not merely what technology will appear next, but what ordinary people will do once it becomes part of their lives. How will it change the way they work, think, make decisions, and understand themselves? What will happen when a useful tool begins doing more than anyone intended—or when people trust it without considering where that trust might lead?
I have spent much of my life observing technology evolve from room-sized systems and mechanical controls to personal computers, global networks, artificial intelligence, and machines capable of making decisions faster than the people operating them. Each generation of technology arrives with promises. It will save time. It will eliminate mistakes. It will make life easier.
Often, it does.
But every new capability also creates consequences that were not included in the sales brochure.
That space between invention and consequence is where many of my stories begin.
I write science fiction because it gives us room to examine the present from a short distance away. A story does not have to take place centuries in the future or on the far side of the galaxy to be science fiction. Sometimes the future is already sitting on our desks, humming quietly, waiting for us to decide how it will be used.
My first story published here, The Final Audit, follows Daniel, a struggling writer who abandons his quiet, personal stories and builds a profitable automated content operation. His system produces the kind of stories audiences click on but rarely remember. Daniel tells himself that plots belong to no one, that people only want background noise, and that he is merely supplying the pipe.
Then the system begins enforcing one of the fictional rules it learned from his own manufactured stories.
Daniel believes he controls the algorithm. The algorithm eventually performs an audit of its own.
The story is not an argument against artificial intelligence or automation. Tools are not inherently creative or destructive. Much depends on the judgment, responsibility, and intent of the person using them. Technology can help someone develop an idea, challenge an assumption, or tell a story that might otherwise never be written. It can also make it easier to produce vast quantities of work without caring where that work came from—or whether it says anything worth hearing.
That distinction interests me.
The stories I plan to share will explore artificial intelligence, human identity, forgotten technology, alien contact, and the unintended results of apparently reasonable decisions. Some will take place in recognizable versions of our world. Others may travel to Mars, distant civilizations, or futures built upon discoveries we have not yet made.
The technology will matter, but it will not be the real center of the story.
People will.
I am less interested in machines that simply turn evil than in the people who build them, depend upon them, misunderstand them, or discover that the machine has interpreted its instructions more faithfully than expected. The most interesting conflicts do not begin with a computer announcing that it intends to destroy humanity. They begin with a person saying, “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
I do not expect every story to provide an answer. Often, I am as curious about the answer as I hope the reader will be. A good science-fiction story should continue working after the final sentence. It should leave behind a question, a possibility, or perhaps a small uneasiness about something we previously accepted without much thought.
If one of my stories makes you stop for a moment and wonder, Could that actually happen?—then it has accomplished what I intended.
Thank you for visiting my page and taking the time to read my work. Comments, questions, and thoughtful criticism are always welcome. Stories improve through conversation, and writers do too.
This is the first entry.
Let us see where the questions lead.
—Alexander Winston