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A review by gina_gina
Death of an Author: A Novella by Stephen Marche, Aidan Marchine
4.0
4 stars for the concept, the work, and the narration
I think there are two other books with the same title that are popular on Goodreads at the moment. When Hoopla suggested the audiobook of Death of an Author to me, I was intrigued. As someone who earns a living by writing -- nothing exciting, mind you -- and has "write bio for the new AVP, Artificial Intelligence" on her task list, I could not resist!
This was a really interesting novella, written in part by creative AI, and I am impressed. In the author's notes, Stephen Marche describes the creative project: it was to be 95% computer-generated, but the content had to be something that someone would want to read. It had to be a "page-turner".
The result -- Death of an Author -- is "a murder mystery about a writer being murdered by the tech that is supposedly killing writers". The novella is simple, but atmospheric. There are nods to Agatha Christie, Raymond Chandler, Sir Conan Doyle, etc. of course. Largely because Marche (the human driving the AI) read those authors and tried to make the machine write like them.
Frankly, the process of writing the novella was absolutely fascinating -- maybe more fascinating than the novella itself. As a non-creative writer, I see how AI could be employed to assist me -- or even replace me. Fingers crossed that they generate a nice severance package when the time comes.
I think there are two other books with the same title that are popular on Goodreads at the moment. When Hoopla suggested the audiobook of Death of an Author to me, I was intrigued. As someone who earns a living by writing -- nothing exciting, mind you -- and has "write bio for the new AVP, Artificial Intelligence" on her task list, I could not resist!
This was a really interesting novella, written in part by creative AI, and I am impressed. In the author's notes, Stephen Marche describes the creative project: it was to be 95% computer-generated, but the content had to be something that someone would want to read. It had to be a "page-turner".
The result -- Death of an Author -- is "a murder mystery about a writer being murdered by the tech that is supposedly killing writers". The novella is simple, but atmospheric. There are nods to Agatha Christie, Raymond Chandler, Sir Conan Doyle, etc. of course. Largely because Marche (the human driving the AI) read those authors and tried to make the machine write like them.
Frankly, the process of writing the novella was absolutely fascinating -- maybe more fascinating than the novella itself. As a non-creative writer, I see how AI could be employed to assist me -- or even replace me. Fingers crossed that they generate a nice severance package when the time comes.