When we think of artificial intelligence, we usually expect it to be, well, intelligent.
But in his new “sci-fi that’s a bit cyberpunky” novel Mal Goes To War (hardcover, Kindle, audiobook), writer Edward Ashton gives us an AI who, well, let’s just say he’s perfectly capable of making bad decisions.
In the following email interview about Mal, Ashton talks intelligently about what inspired and influenced this smart story.
In fiction, it’s fun to think about “What If…?” scenarios, especially where history is concerned.
For instance, what if the first human on the moon was Russian? Y’know, like in the TV show For All Mankind. Or what if the Nazis won World War II? Like they do in Philip K. Dick’s novel The Man In The High Castle and the recent Wolfenstein games.
It’s this kind of questioning that sets the stage for Nir Yaniv’s satirical military science fiction novel The Good Soldier (paperback, Kindle); a stage in which neither the first World War, nor the second, ever happened, but Europe still kneeled before Germany after the other nations split…for space.
In the following email interview, Yaniv discusses what inspired and influenced this novel, including why he made the main character so Gomer Pyle-esque.