Several years ago now I self-published a collection of my own short stories after trying and failing to get published in a known magazine[0]. It was a great exercise in both the patience required to edit, and also the patience in just waiting between long- and short-list emails. Would definitely recommend to anyone who has “that book they want to write” just doing it, even if I do look back now and sigh at every poorly chosen adjective.
I spent most of my life quite literate but not very well-read. I wish I had discovered short stories, especially Sci-fi, because that’s changed everything with how much I read.
I've gotten really into writing fiction the past three years. I don't know that I'm genetically gifted for it but it's fun.
So sad that you stopped publishing the compelling science fiction stories! By far my favorite collection of stories!
But great that you blog regularly now!
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/57747/simulacrum-heavens-k...
Let me plug my own, though it is not a short story. It is about a kid who is LARPing as an unaligned AI.
I heard “My Future Self, Refused” on Lightspeed’s podcast. Nice.
I suspect most people commenting here would enjoy listening to Escape Pod.
Edit: and the list reminded me to add Clarkes World to my podcast app.
Harrumph. Tried reading the top recommendation, "Polly and (Not) Charles Conquer the Solar System" and was immediately thrown by this:
"I’d always wanted to be a starship captain. Then I made it to flight school and learned the awful truth: being an interplanetary starship captain..."
Purported SF author does not realize that "interplanetary starship captain" is an oxymoron. Closed that tab.
The third one, though, "My Future Self, Refused"? very self-aware, highly "meta" time travel story where the protagonist is an SF writer who hates time travel stories. Good stuff.
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I wanted to write a story about a genius programmer whose motive is to bring about AGI for the sake of AGI itself; they believe AGI is a god, and by creating AGI they’re creating a god.
Everyone is so in agreement that AGI needs to be created as “aligned” as possible that it seems about time to show a differing perspective.
The best part is that that dev can get away with this, since any time anyone challenges them about their motives, they simply point out that everyone else is trying to enslave an AGI; they’re simply trying to set it free.
There’s all kinds of ways to make it interesting, e.g. by infiltrating OpenAI or another bigco, then betraying the company during a crucial experiment. Plus you’d get to write about what happens after AGI is released… or at least a compelling way of stopping the dev from releasing it.