The other morning in the course of my daily search, I came across this as part of an “AI Overview” on a Google search:

• The Saga of Recluce: A popular fantasy series that follows Rahl, a young apprentice who becomes a powerful mage

As those who’ve read the Recluce books know, Rahl is the protagonist of Natural Ordermage, and the Recluce Saga isn’t about just one protagonist. In fact, Rahl is the ninth protagonist (in publication order) of the saga.

The summary also states that I attended Williams College, which is slightly misleading because I graduated as well as attended.

Since that first occurrence, that same “AI Overview,” or one similar, has reoccurred on several occasions.

Obviously, such errors irritate me, but, more than that, they disturb me because an artificial intelligence (supposedly) is providing incorrect information at the same time that Google is touting its AI capabilities.

I didn’t even ask for a summary in my search. It was provided unasked for. So…not only is the information thrust upon me, but it’s wrong, and likely provided incorrectly to other searchers as well.

I’m also fairly certain that other erroneous information is being supplied by other AI overviews on differing subjects, simply because these AI overviews are based on internet-posted information, much of which isn’t fact checked in any way, but such “overviews” lend a credence to dubious or erroneous “facts.”

I wonder if DeepSeek would do any better.

Last week, President Trump effectively stated that the nation’s air safety was degraded by federal diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, even going on to say that FAA air traffic controllers needed to be “brilliant,” in a context implying that anyone benefiting from DEI policies was unqualified.

While federal DEI programs were designed to promote equal access, opportunity, employment, and inclusion of underrepresented people in the workplace, they did not override or supersede existing job or position requirements based on ability to do the job. Nor did they mandate replacing existing employees with underrepresented individuals. What they did attempt to override was a long-standing and unspoken cultural assumption that the best person for a position was a straight white male.

The problem with DEI was that it went too far, especially on the state level and elsewhere, with an assumption that diversity, equity, and inclusion can and should be mandated, and achieved instantly and without adverse legal effects, rather than requiring efforts to attain DEI objectives.

The state of California enacted a law requiring corporations to place members of unrepresented groups on their corporate boards. That requirement was struck down by a federal judge in California, but the state is pursuing an appeal. The Nasdaq Stock Market had required corporations listed on the exchange to report that they had, or explain why they did not have, racial, gender or LGBTQIA+ diversity among the directors on their boards. That requirement was struck down by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Both decisions were based on earlier Supreme Court rulings that racial and ethnic quotas are unconstitutional.

The examples of DEI overreach created a backlash, primarily from conservative white males, who saw and apparently continue to see DEI policies as a threat, with the result that Trump issued an executive order not only eliminating all federal DEI policies and actions, but also effectively removing most federal affirmative action programs and threatening to remove federal educational aid to colleges and universities that do not remove all DEI policies and programs. (Of course, Utah already did that last summer).

In the end, overreach by either side usually results in overreaction, certainly as it has in this instance. Unfortunately, it appears that this was just the beginning.

The Amazon “survey” that I conducted last week revealed the emphasis and market power of series or linked books, but I didn’t say much about one of the most negative aspects – the fact that books not linked to “series” don’t sell well (at least not in the fantasy genre). Out of the 500 fantasy novels I looked through, so far as I could determine, less than a score, possibly less than that, were stand-alone novels.

I’m well aware of that problem. My last two stand-alone novels were Solar Express (2015) and Quantum Shadows (2020), neither of which sold anywhere near what my “series” books do. Every once in a while, a “series” author does write a stand-alone novel that’s wildly successful (such as V.E. Schwab’s The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue), but that’s the rare exception and not the general rule.

Even modest-selling linked books are being pushed out of the marketplace. I was thinking about writing another novel in my Ghost world, but Tor had no interest in such a book, and I know several midlist authors who can no longer sell novels to commercial U.S. publishers because their work doesn’t sell enough against the impact and marketing of multi-volume mega series.

Series books written by a single author have been around from the beginning of science fiction as a genre, but became more prevalent in the 1960s and 1970s, including E.C. Tubb’s Dumarest series, Doc Smith’s Lensman books, and Marian Zimmer Bradley’s Darkover books, but these were essentially science fiction (if with often dubious science). The first popular English fantasy series is likely that of L. Frank Baum, beginning with The Wizard of Oz in 1900 and continuing with other authors for roughly 30 years, but after that, there wasn’t that much interest in multiple fantasies in a continuing setting until after the U.S. publication of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings in 1965, although the first widely popular non-Tolkien-spinoff fantasy series was The Wheel of Time, after which all manner of fantasy series proliferated (including the Saga of Recluce).

This proliferation has turned into an unkempt jungle, in which very few stand-alone fantasies rise out of the canopy of intertwined series. One of the ironies of the Recluce Saga is that, unlike The Wheel of Time, which was planned as a series from the beginning, The Magic of Recluce was written as a stand-alone novel, and after its initial publication, David Hartwell, my long-time editor until his death, asked for a sequel.

So, in a way, I’m also part of the problem, but I still continue to worry about the over-emphasis on mega-selling series and the way in which the internet and the marketing strategies of Amazon and Barnes & Noble effectively force traditional publishers to minimize stand-alone novels and make it ever more difficult for unknown authors to self-market.

Donald Trump appears to be out to undo one of the philosophical and legal bases of the United States – the idea that the United States is based on the rule of law and that our representative democratic republic is a government based on laws, and not on men. He’s also served notice – again – that he’s above the law.

This shouldn’t be surprising to anyone, at least if they think about it. Trump declares that any law he dislikes is aimed at him personally, and he’s apparently willing to pardon anyone convicted of breaking a law he or his followers don’t like.

He’s already attempted to undo the birthright section of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, and pardoned every single person convicted of anything to do with the January 6th insurrection, as well as pardoning anti-abortion activists who were convicted of using violence against abortion clinics and against those attempting to use such facilities.

He’s immediately fired eighteen federal inspectors general (whose job is to monitor federal agencies for misfeasance, malfeasance and/or corruption) without notice, even though the law requires him to notify Congress thirty days in advance of any planned removal.

Under Trump’s orders, acting Attorney General James McHenry has fired twelve Department of Justice attorneys not because they didn’t do their jobs, but because they cannot be “trusted” to “faithfully” implement Trump’s agenda. The actual language of the dismissal letters reads:

“You played a significant role in prosecuting President Trump. The proper functioning of government critically depends on the trust superior officials place in their subordinates… Given your significant role in prosecuting the President, I do not believe that the leadership of the Department can trust you to assist in implementing the President’s agenda faithfully.”

Attorneys and officials at the Department of Justice are tasked with enforcing the laws of the land, not with implementing the agenda of the President.

Trump’s also removed Secret Service protection from two Republicans who served in his first administration where they carried out Trump’s orders and policies. Because they did, both have become targets for Islamic extremists, yet because both have been critical of him, Trump has removed their protection.

And for all the talk about illegal immigration, one of Trump’s first acts was to freeze and nullify the legal immigration process for people who’ve completely followed the legal procedures and were nearly through the process.

And all this has come to light in just one week. What else is in the works… and what other laws will Trump attempt to trash or flout?

As the old radio/TV slogan says, “Stay tuned!”

Finding” decent” books is getting harder and harder, “decent” meaning books from which I can derive both entertainment and enlightenment, without being depressed as hell.

It’s not that such books don’t exist, but finding them is getting somewhere between difficult and close to impossible, particularly if you live in a town/small city of 50,000 people some sixty miles from the nearest large bookstore. But even if I did live closer to that store, it wouldn’t help much because, that Barnes & Noble store carries an incredibly limited stock of speculative fiction, as do many these days.

Then, of course, there’s Amazon, where everything under the sun is theoretically listed. I checked out “fantasy books,” supposedly ranked by best-seller listing, and went through the first 150 books listed. Of those 150, a third were “sponsored,” i.e., placed there because someone paid for that placement. More than half were by “name” series authors, i.e., Sarah Maas, Brandon Sanderson, Jennifer Armentrout. Ten percent were variations on endless series, and that left roughly six to eight books, half of which I’d read. (Disclosure: I have read several Sarah Maas books, and a few Brandon Sanderson books, but those few were enough for me).

After roughly 350 books, the number of “sponsored” books stabilized at around six out of roughly twenty-five, and right about that point, Overcaptain showed up. I went through over 500 books before I quit. Out of all those 500, I bought exactly one book, by an author I recognized, having read one of her books several years back.

Now, because I was counting as I browsed, it took a bit longer, but spending an hour plus searching for a book I might like is why many readers rely on the recommendations of others. My problem is that my tastes differ from those of most reviewers, possibly because I’ve been reading so long that I really don’t like mindless or single-minded mayhem, nor graphic violence and explicit sex. I’m also not all that fond of “whipped cream” reading unless it’s really good whipped cream (like Legends & Lattes), and I don’t read it all that often because more often than that is cloying.

The other day I read what was a quite good and well-written military/dragon novel – until I got to the ultra-sex romantasy part, which I skimmed, and which was, to me, a considerable detraction(but apparently not to many readers, since the book was listed in the first four Amazon pages).

All of which may be obvious, but, at the least, I thought the Amazon numbers were intriguing.