Thirty Impactful Eco-Fiction Books

June 15, 2025April 23, 2025 / thealiennextdoor / Leave a comment

Here is my current list of 30 favourite eco-fiction novels and short story collections that have impacted me, and incited me to think, to feel and to act.

Flight Behavior is a multi-layered metaphoric study of “flight” in all its iterations: as movement, flow, change, transition, beauty and transcendence. Flight Behavior isn’t so much about climate change and its effects and its continued denial as it is about our perceptions and the actions that rise from them: the motives that drive denial and belief. When Dellarobia questions Cub, her farmer husband, “Why would we believe Johnny Midgeon about something scientific, and not the scientists?” he responds, “Johnny Midgeon gives the weather report.” Kingsolver writes: “and Dellarobia saw her life pass before her eyes, contained in the small enclosure of this logic.”

The Overstory follows the life-stories of nine characters and their journey with trees–and ultimately their shared conflict with corporate capitalist America. At the heart of The Overstory is the pivotal life of botanist Patricia Westerford, who will inspire movement. Westerford is a shy introvert who discovers that trees communicate, learn, trade goods and services—and have intelligence. When she shares her discovery, she is ridiculed by her peers and loses her position at the university. What follows is a fractal story of trees with spirit, soul, and timeless societies–and their human avatars.

The Maddaddam Trilogy is a work of speculative dystopian fiction that explores the premise of genetic experimentation and pharmaceutical engineering gone awry. On a larger scale the cautionary trilogy examines where the addiction to vanity, greed, and power may lead. Often sordid and disturbing, the trilogy explores a world where everything from sex to learning translates to power and ownership. The dark poetry of Atwood’s smart and edgy slice-of-life commentary is a poignant treatise on our dysfunctional society. Atwood accurately captures a growing zeitgeist that has lost the need for words like honor, integrity, compassion, humility, forgiveness, respect, and love in its vocabulary. And she has projected this trend into an alarmingly probable future. This is subversive eco-fiction at its best.

Annihilation is a science fiction eco-thriller that explores humanity’s impulse to self-destruct within a natural world of living ‘alien’ profusion. Annihilation is a bizarre exploration of how our own mutating mental states and self-destructive tendencies reflect a larger paradigm of creative-destruction—a hallmark of ecological succession, change, and overall resilience. VanderMeer masters the technique of weaving the bizarre intricacies of ecological relationship, into a meaningful tapestry of powerful interconnection. Bizarre but real biological mechanisms such as epigenetically-fluid DNA drive aspects of the story’s transcendent qualities of destruction and reconstruction. On one level Annihilation acts as parable to humanity’s cancerous destruction of what is ‘normal’ (through climate change and habitat destruction); on another, it explores how destruction and creation are two sides of a coin.

Barkskins chronicles two wood cutters who arrive from the slums of Paris to Canada in 1693 and their descendants over 300 years of deforestation in North America. Proulx weaves generational stories of two settler families into a crucible of terrible greed and tragic irony. The bleak impressions by immigrants of a harsh environment crawling with pests underlies the combative mindset of the settlers who wish only to conquer and seize what they can of a presumed infinite resource. From the arrival of the Europeans in pristine forest to their destruction under the veil of global warming, Proulx lays out a saga of human-environmental interaction and consequence that lingers with the aftertaste of a bitter wine.

Memory of Water is a work of speculative fiction about a post-climate change world of sea level rise. Symbols of water as shapeshifter archetype and its omnipotent life- and death-giving associations flow throughout the story, from the ‘fishfires’ in the northern skies to the painted blue circles on the doors of water criminals about to die. Water couples to main character Tea Master Noria, to explore consequences of commodification and exploitation. Teamaster Noria Kaitio guards its secrets; she alone knows the location of the hidden water source, coveted by the new government. Told in the literary fiction style of emotional nuances, Itäranta’s lyrical narrative follows a deceptively quiet yet tense pace that builds like a slow tide into compelling crisis and a poignant end.

The Broken Earth Trilogy is a fantasy trilogy set in a far-future Earth devastated by periodic cataclysmic storms known as ‘seasons.’ These apocalyptic events last over generations, remaking the world and its inhabitants each time. Giant floating crystals called Obelisks suggest an advanced prior civilization. The first book of the trilogy introduces Essun, an Orogene—a person gifted with the ability to draw magical power from the Earth such as quelling earthquakes. The trilogy focuses on the dangers of marginalization, oppression, and misuse of power. Jemison’s cautionary dystopia explores the consequence of the inhumane profiteering of those who are marginalized and commodified.

The Windup Girl is a work of mundane science fiction that occurs in 23rd century post-food crash Thailand after global warming has raised sea levels and carbon fuel sources are depleted. Thailand struggles under the tyrannical boot of predatory ag-biotech multinational giants that have fomented corruption and political strife through their plague-inducing genetic manipulations. The rivalry between Thailand’s Minister of Trade and Minister of the Environment represents the central conflict of the novel, reflecting the current global conflict of neoliberal promotion of globalization and unaccountable exploitation with the forces of sustainability and environmental protection. Given the setting, both are extreme and there appears no middle ground for a balanced existence using responsible and sustainable means. The Windup Girl, Emiko, who represents the future, is precariously poised.

Parable of the Sower is a science fiction dystopian novel set in 21^stcentury America where civilization has collapsed due to climate change, wealth inequality and greed. Parable of the Soweris both a coming-of-age story and cautionary allegorical tale of race, gender and power. Told through journal entries, the novel follows the life of young Lauren Oya Olamina—cursed with hyperempathy—and her perilous journey to find and create a new home. What starts as a fight to survive inspires in Lauren a new vision of the world and gives birth to a new faith based on science: Earthseed. Written in 1993, this prescient novel and its sequel Parable of the Talent speak too clearly about the consequences of “making America Great Again.”

The Water Knife is set in the near-future in the drought-stricken American southwest, where corrupt state-corporations have supplanted the foundering national government. Water is the new gold—to barter, steal, and murder for. Corporations have formed militias and shut down borders to climate refugees, fomenting an ecology of poverty and tragedy. Massive resorts—arcadias—constructed across the parched landscape, flaunt their water-wealth in the face of exploited workers and gross ecological disparity. Water is controlled by corrupt gangsters and “water knives” who cleverly navigate the mercurial nature of water rights in a world where “haves” hydrate and “have nots” die of thirst.

A Diary in the Age of Water explores the socio-political consequences of corruption in Canada, now owned by China and America as an indentured resource ‘reservoir’; it is a story told through four generations of women and their unique relationship with water during a time of great unheralded change. Centuries from now, in a dying boreal forest in what used to be northern Canada, Kyo, a young acolyte called to service in the Exodus, yearns for Earth’s past—the Age of Water—before the “Water Twins” destroyed humanity. Looking for answers and plagued by vivid dreams of this holocaust, Kyo discovers the diary of Lynna, a limnologist from that time of severe water scarcity just prior to the destruction. In her work for a global giant that controls Earth’s water, Lynna witnesses and records in her diary the disturbing events that will soon lead to humanity’s demise.

Waste Tide is an eco-techno thriller with compelling light-giving characters who navigate the dark bleak world of profiteers and greedy investors. Mimi is a migrant worker off the coast of China who scavenges through piles of hazardous technical garbage to make a living. She struggles, like the environment, in a larger power struggle for profit and power; but she finds a way to change the game, inspiring others. The story of Mimi and Kaizong—who she inspires—stayed with me long after I put the book down.

Fauna is at once beautiful and terrifying. Vadnais’s liquid prose immersed me instantly in her flowing story about change in this Darwinian eco-horror ode to climate change. I felt connected to the biologist Laura as she navigated through a torrent of rising mists and coiling snakes and her own transforming body with the changing world around her. It was an emotional rollercoaster ride that made me think.

The Word for World is Forest chronicles the struggles of the indigenous people under the conquering settlers through empathetic characters. The irony of what the indigenous peoples must do to save themselves runs subtle but tragic throughout the narrative. Given its relevance to our own colonial history and present situation, this simple tale rang through me like a tolling bell.

The Breathing Hole story begins in 1535, when the Inuk widow Hummiktuq risks her life to save a lost one-eared polar bear cub on an ice floe and adopts him. She names him Angu’ruaq. We soon learn that Angu’ruaq is timeless when we encounter him in scenes over the centuries from the Franklin Expedition in 1845 (who he helps by bringing them food) to 2031 when Angu’ruaq—old, hungry, his fur yellowing—returns to the breathing hole where long-dead Hummiktuq rescued him. By then the glaciers have receded and the ground is slush. Murphy’s spare and focused narrative achieves a timeless, dreamlike quality that plays strongly on the emotional connections of the reader; it elicits immense empathy for the Other in a deeply moving saga on the tragic dance of colonialism and climate change.

The Bear by Andrew Krivak is a fable of a post-anthropocene Earth told through the point of view of a young girl—possibly the only remaining human in the world—and the bear that guides her. Unlike the polar bear of The Breathing Hole, who remains silent and is clearly victimized by humanity’s actions, the black bear of The Bear lives with agency in a post-anthropocene world; he proselytizes and tells stories to instruct the girl on living harmoniously with Nature. His actions and elegant use of speech reflect his archetype as mentor in this story. This is foreshadowed in the fairytale the girl’s father recounts to her of a bear that saved a village from a cruel despot through cleverness and a sense of community.

Dune uses powerful world building and symbols of desert, water and spice coupled to the indigenous Fremen, to address exploitation and oppression by colonial greed.

The novel chronicles the journeys of new colonists and indigenous peoples of the desert planet Arrakis, enslaved by its previous colonists. The planet known as Dune lies at the heart of an epic story about taking, giving and sharing. The planet also serves as symbol to any new area colonized by settlers and already inhabited by Othered indigenous. It is the Mars of Martian Chronicles, the Bangkok of The Windup Girl, the North America of Barkskins.

Camp Zero, set in the remote Canadian north, is a feminist climate fiction that explores a warming climate through the perilous journeys of several female characters, each relating to her environment in different ways. Each woman exerts agency in surprising ways that include love, bravery and shared community. The strength of female power carried me through the pages like a braided river heading to a singular ocean. These very different women journey through the dark ruins of violent capitalism, colonialism and patriarchy—flowing past and through hubristic men pushing north with agendas and jingoistic visions—to triumph in an ocean of solidarity. I empathized with each woman as she found her strength and learned to wield true heroism—one based on collaboration and humble honesty.

We, written in 1920, is a hopeful dystopic work of courageous and unprecedented feminism. While the story centres on logical D-503, a man vacuously content as a number in the One State, it is I-330—Zamyatin’s unruly heroine—who stole my attention. Confident, powerful and heroic, the liberated I-330 embraces the Green Wind of change to influence D-503. A force of hope and resilience, she braves torture to successfully orchestrate a revolution that breaches the Green Wall—feats typically relegated to a male protagonist in novels of that era. When pregnant O-90 refuses to surrender her child to the State, I-330 helps her escape to the outside, where the Green Wind of freedom blows. I resonated with Zamyatin’s cautionary tale on the folly of logic without love and Nature.

In Through the Portal: Tales from a Hopeful Dystopia, award-winning authors of speculative fiction Lynn Hutchinson Lee and Nina Munteanu present a collection that explores strange new terrains and startling social constructs, quiet morphing landscapes, dark and terrifying warnings, lush newly-told folk and fairy tales.

I list other significant and impactful eco-fiction books below:

New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson
Canadian Tales of Climate Change (edited) by Bruce Meyer
Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson
Borne by Jeff Vandermeer
Bangkok Wakes to Rain by Pitchaya Sudbanthad
Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich
Lost Arc Dreaming by Suyi Davies Okungbowa
Greenwood by Micheal Christie
Where the Crawdads Sing by Della Owens
Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy

Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.

Significant Science Fiction TV Series—Part 1, Shows that Touch on Justice and Science & Technology: #3 — OCCUPIED

June 1, 2025June 2, 2025 / thealiennextdoor / 1 Comment

I’ve selected ten TV series that have intrigued me, moved me, and stayed with me for various reasons that touch on: abuse of justice, including eco-justice and environmental abuse; technology use and abuse; and the effects and horrors of climate change.

Some are well known; others not so well known. All approach storytelling with a serious dedication to depth of character, important themes, realistic world building, and excellent portrayal by actors. The world-building is extremely well done—in some cases rivalling Ridley Scott’s best—with convincing portrayals of worlds that are at times uncanny in their realism. Worlds that reflect story from an expansive landscape to the mundane minutiae of daily life: like the cracked phone device of Detective Miller in The Expanse or the dirty fingernails of engineer Juliette Nichols in the Down Deep of Silo. Stories vary in their treatment of important themes from whimsical and often humorous ironies to dark and moody treatises on existential questions. In my opinion, these TV series rival the best movies out there, often reflecting large budgets (but not always) and a huge commitment by producers. The ten TV series I’ve selected here come from around the world: Brazil, Germany, France, Norway, Canada and the United States.

In Part 1, I look at five TV series that touch on ethical issues we are facing today; issues that reach far into existential questions of what it means to be human. These TV series explore synthetic biology, cloning and gene editing, and justice in space colonization and exploitation.

*Prime Ministerial bodyguard Hans Martin Djupbik (Eldar Skar) chases a would-be assassin*

OCCUPIED: A Real and Present Threat

In 2016, Occupied (Okkupert), Norway’s most expensive television production to date captivated viewers across Europe. A political thriller about a Green prime minister, committed to renewable energy, overthrown by close neighbour Russia to control his country’s abundant natural gas and oil reserves gripped many viewers, left on the edge of their seats when episode 10 failed to resolve the deadlock. In a review entitled “Bear Lurking in the Fjords” Mark Melton of Providence noted that the first episode of Occupied broke the channel’s rating records as more than 50% of viewers aged 20 to 49 watched, and the show went on to Netflix with English subtitles.

*The Norwegian Prime Minister Jesper Berg (Henrik Mestad) faces hard decisions in* Occupied

Melton shares the intriguing premise. “Sometime in the near future, civil wars prevent Middle Eastern countries from exporting enough oil to meet global demand. Energy independent due to shale gas, an isolationist United States no longer sees a need to have a global presence and pulls out of NATO [shades of the present!] Meanwhile, global warming has become so rampant that a hurricane hits Norway and kills over 600 people. In response, Norwegians elect environmentalists who halt all oil production to help stop climate change. Without Norway’s oil, the European Union falls into a crippling recession. Because the Norwegian Prime Minister refuses to budge, the EU asks Russia to occupy Norway and restart oil production.”

What follows is a captivating three season political action-thriller that explores potential real-life questions for leaders throughout the world. When the first season of Occupied aired, the Russians were a fictional threat. Now, it seems, reality has caught up to fiction.

Melton writes that when Jo Nesbø, a well known Norwegian crime novelist, first pitched the story, people told him the idea was far-fetched. Then the real-world Russian invasion happened on the day the show started shooting, adding tremendous relevance to the fiction envisaged. Given the post-Crimea tensions (and what is now happening in the Ukraine), it is not surprising that the Russian government is not pleased with Occupied adds Melton. Before the show aired, the Russian ambassador in Oslo complained that the show would frighten “the Norwegian audience with a non-existing threat from the east.”

The three season series moves at a swift pace with Season One quickly instating the Russian occupation as the Norwegian PM Jesper Berg (Henrik Mestad) sells Norway’s future to prevent bloodshed from its Russian aggressors. Resistance flares up and intrigue rises from all quarters including the Russian occupiers with some Norwegians profiting from the occupation and others arming themselves and doing sabotage.

*Hans Martin Djupbik (Eldar Skar) stops an assassination*

I found Prime Ministerial bodyguard Hans Martin Djupbik (Eldar Skar), who at one point saves the life of Russian Ambassador Irina Sidorova (Ingeborga Dapkunaite), one of the show’s most intriguing characters. Eventually becoming head of state security, Hans Marin plays a difficult balancing act between Norwegian and Russian interests in the conflict between principle and realpolitik. Ultimately, this unsustainable position impacts him on several levels, including his personal life, as forces literally pull him apart.

Melton notes that Hans Martin first appears as an archetypal hero who uses his position in security and intelligence to help save democracy. And viewers, says Melton, have many opportunities to cheer for him. However, given his unique position and relationship with the Russian occupiers, his actions at times become morally ambiguous and this catches up with him in season three, which is a heartbreaker. I wasn’t happy with how it ended for Hans Martin, who, in my opinion was not just a main protagonist, but also the show’s chief casualty and archetype for integrity and even innocence. It was hard to watch as the relentless political machinations seized him in a vicious spider web of nefarious intrigue even as he tried so hard to play fair throughout. Given the show’s trajectory, the shocking end of season three seemed inevitable and necessary; for in his final and tragic act, Hans Martin re-affirmed his integrity and archetype as hero for democracy and freedom.

In a ruthless war for resources and sovereignty, Hans Martin—like heroic integrity—becomes the main casualty.

*Hans Martin Djupbik (Eldar Skar) follows a lead*

Given the current situation today, Occupied appears frighteningly prescient and possible. “Democracy is a key value that becomes a rallying cry for the resistance,” writes Melton. “Without a strong NATO these characters struggle to preserve their freedoms and democracy. Norway spends more on its military today than it did at the end of the Cold War (adjusted for inflation), but other NATO countries provide equipment and personnel necessary for Norway’s defense. It is easy to understand why Norwegians may fear a world without the alliance. Occupied has reminded European audiences what Russia has already done,” and what it may yet do…

*The Norwegian PM and his aide discuss next moves*

The intriguing machinations of geopolitics aside, Occupied is foremost an environmental thriller about the specter of climate change. In 2020, Taylor Antrim of Vogue writes: “Occupied is the most relevant thing on TV right now, a hyper-entertaining drama that treats the climate emergency with the seriousness it deserves.” In his review entitled, “Occupied is the Climate-Crisis Thriller You Should Be Watching,” Antrim tells us that “Norway is one of those hyper-progressive, enlightened countries that should be free of the world’s social ills—but what unfolds on Occupied is a cheat sheet of all the disquieting trends of our time. First, the country becomes gripped by nativism, with ‘Free Norway’ activists turning on ordinary Russians living within their borders. Then there are escalating acts of domestic terrorism and violence. And by season three, in which climate warriors turn to guerrilla cyber tactics and Free Norway activists commit grotesque acid attacks on accused Russian collaborators, Berg has been transformed from an idealist into a power-mad operator. The brilliance of the show is you never know whom to root for. The stalwart and handsome head of the security services? The crusading Marxist journalist? The steely Russian diplomat who understands realpolitik better than anyone?”

*Russisn diplomat Irina Sidorova and head of Norwegian Security Hans Martin talk deals*

In the end, Antrim exhorts: “Occupied may be entertainment, but the extreme measures its young eco-activists are fighting for (an entirely renewables-based energy system) no longer seem extreme. This is a show that understands that we are marching toward a tipping point, and by the climactic end of the season a desperate, riven country is demanding that the world change its path at any cost.”

Ten Significant Science Fiction TV Series:

Biohackers (Germany)
Orphan Black (Canada)
Occupied (Norway)
Missions (France)
Expanse (USA)
Incorporated (USA)
3% (Brazil)
Snowpiercer (USA)
Silo (USA)
Extrapolations (USA)

“A Diary in the Age of Water” Required Reading at Memorial University

May 25, 2025May 12, 2025 / thealiennextdoor / Leave a comment

“*A Diary in the Age of Water” at the Memorial University Bookstore*

Instructor Keif Godbout-Kinney has made my eco-fiction novel A Diary in the Age of Water required reading in their course Feminist Practices and Global Change (GNDR 3008) at Memorial University, Newfoundland. The book is currently selling at the Memorial University Bookstore.

The Gender Studies course examines connections between feminist theories and activism for social and political change on a global scale.

My novel, told mostly through the diary of a limnologist, describes a world in the grips of severe water scarcity during a time when China owns the USA and the USA owns Canada. The diary spans a twenty-year period in the mid-twenty-first century of 33-year-old Lynna, a single mother who works in Toronto for CanadaCorp, an international utility that controls everything about water, and who witnesses disturbing events that she doesn’t realize will soon lead to humanity’s demise. A Diary in the Age of Water follows the climate-induced journey of Earth and humanity through four generations of women, each with a unique relationship to water. The novel explores identity and our concept of what is “normal”—as a nation and an individual—in a world that is rapidly and incomprehensibly changing.

The AI Wave: To AI or not to AI … That is the Question…

May 11, 2025March 10, 2025 / thealiennextdoor / 2 Comments

I recently ran across a list posted on social media of the 20 most popular AI tools for productivity in writing. I only knew two of them. This heightened my anxiety about what I know and am prepared for in the use of genAI, particularly in academic settings, where I teach writing at university. And it got me thinking why I was so anxious…

I shared the list with my colleagues at the university writing centre and one instructor who was actively following AI tools admitted that they knew only a few of the listed tools as well. They further shared that they were feeling increasingly apprehensive about genAI’s impact on higher education. “It’s hard not to feel overwhelmed,” they ended.

(Photo: Nina writing her novel at a cafe)

This was my exact sentiment: a kind of apprehensive excitement. An understanding that all communicators stand at the precipice of a major paradigm shift in tool use. The ramifications this will have on all aspects of effective and efficient communication will span from redefining plagiarism to reinventing creativity. As with all powerful tools—aside from the obvious threat of misuse—there is always something lost with the gain and I wonder what we are losing with all this. I have some ideas, and they do bother me from time to time.

*Applications of Generative AI (image by Neebel Technologies)*

I do think it important for me as a communicator and writing instructor to understand the trade offs and to work with them.

When the world adopted the portable calculator, rote knowledge of basic math suffered. I know; I tested it during a lab exam when I was teaching college biology many years back. I forbid the use of calculators in the test and many students, who had lost the ability to do long division or multiplication by hand, lost marks. For some reason, I’m still not sure of, it was important for me to insist on students doing math longhand (a basic skill fast becoming obsolete like cursive writing) and punish those who had lost the art. Perhaps I was drawing on Isaac Asimov’s possibly prescient 1957 short story satire The Feeling of Power, which explored the limitations of a future world that lost its basic skills to machines. The corollary, I suppose, is that more complex and conceptual math gained some ground through this handy and efficient tool. Machines have their advantages, certainly. And generative AI is just one sophisticated aspect of machine use.

Consequences to Creative Writing

In my world of professional fiction authors, there is a palpable fear of being replaced by AI as story creators: a version of the ultimate science fiction horror plot of being taken over by the machine world (I’ve even exploited that in my SF thrillers Angel of Chaos and Darwin’s Paradox).

Given our unique powers of imagination, I don’t think that will happen (very soon, if ever successfully). Though, as we dummy-down and simplify complex stories for fast-paced multiplex audiences addicted to fast-paced bite-sized and easy to digest entertainment, AI-generated narratives could get by. How is all this affecting the publishing industry now? I recently learned that one of the top five online science fiction magazines, Metastellar, accepts AI-assisted stories with the proviso that “they better be good.” And Metastellar provides some convincing reasons. This has become a hot topic among my fellow professional writers at SF Canada. One colleague informed me that a “new publisher Spines plans to disrupt industry by publishing 8000 AI books in 2025 alone.” On checking the news release, I discovered that Spines is, in fact, a tech firm trying to make its mark on publishing, primarily through the use of AI. The company offers the use of AI to proofread, produce, publish, and distribute books. They are, in fact, a vanity publishing platform (essentially a service for self-publishing), charging up to $5000 a book and often taking just three weeks to go from manuscript to a published title. The quality of what they will produce is unclear—and questionable.

All to serve as metaphor for what I and my colleagues at university are striving to achieve with students in their academic writing: excellence in communication, particularly in conveying complex scenarios that require creative solutions where clear, concise, and convincing writing is requisite.

I still find myself reluctant to use AI in my writing and communication, though I’ve at times slid into using AI for research and initial summaries to save time. I do this rarely because I absolutely enjoy doing research. I enjoy challenging my brain to summarize key points and write a good line. I enjoy the thrill of unanticipated discoveries, which always happen on these forays. I also recognize that many people do not share my enthusiasm for these brain exercises.

(Photo: Nina writing in another cafe)

I think that AI alone will not replace human mind for unique creativity. I didn’t say “can not.” It could; but it won’t. This is because even as genAI becomes infused in many aspects of life pursuit, there will remain those like that rare mathematician capable of doing math by hand in The Feeling of Power, valued not just because they are rare, but because in that rarity, they fulfill a critical role. When the machines stalled in their ability to move society forward in The Feeling of Power and all seemed lost, this archaic mathematician presented new innovation with basic math. I’m not suggesting that the technology will all break down, plunging the world into darkness (though this remains a possibility and is still a great plot for science fiction); but I submit that diversity rules over monopoly when it comes to survival.

This may seem a rather dark projection of the future, but consider that over the millennia, after five mass extinctions and with the sixth mass extinction underway, diversity has always saved the world. Within that necessary diversity, it is the nurtured rarities, the outliers, the misfits and nonconformists that survived the destruction of the previous world. Each time, diversity made that possible. As though engrained in Nature’s world building.

*Mass Extinctions (image by National Geographic)*

Ecologists call it ecological succession, others use the term “creative-destruction” to describe the recursive pattern of living and non-living things of the planet. Both describe how the oligarchs of an established climax ecosystem fail due to change or disturbance and are replaced by a previous rare misfit or immigrant better suited to the new environment.

*Primary and secondary succession in two different ecosystems*

I think AI is part of our succession. Our use of AI in all its forms will represent a diversity of reaction and action that represent our own diversity and potential to survive in a changing world. All to say: relax and embrace the outliers.

*Writing in nature (photo by Nina Munteanu)*

As William Gibson so famously said in 1993: The Future is already here; it’s just not evenly distributed. And maybe that’s a good thing…

So…

…To AI, or not to AI, that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of terrible writing,
Or to take arms against a sea of scribbles
And by opposing end them. To think—to write,
No more; and by writing to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That tech is heir to: ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To think, to write;
To write, perchance to create—ay, there’s the rub:
For in that creation of unique thoughts what others may come,
When we have shuffled off this genAI…

Significant Science Fiction TV Series—Part 1, Shows that Touch on Justice and Science & Technology: #1 — BIOHACKERS

April 27, 2025March 8, 2025 / thealiennextdoor / Leave a comment

In Part 1, I look at five TV series that touch on ethical issues we are facing today; issues that reach far into existential questions of what it means to be human. These TV series explore synthetic biology, cloning and gene editing, political justice, and justice in space colonization and exploitation.

BIOHACKERS: When Synthetic Biology Meets Ethical Intrigue

This fast-paced techno-thriller created by Christian Ditter has at the very centre of its intrigue synthetic biology. In the journal Science Dov Greenbaum describes this German TV series as “a fictional tale centred around the sociotechnological movement known as do-it-yourself (DIY) biology, in which amateurs, professionals, anarchists, and civic-minded citizens push the boundaries of mainstream biology.” The show centres on Mia Akerlund (played by Luna Wedler) a secretive med-student prowling for answers to the death of her twin brother and her antagonist, the enterprising Machiavellian and narcissistic Professor Tanja Lorenz (Jessica Schwarz). But the real star of the show is biohacking: human enhancement or augmentation to improve health, performance, or well-being. Biohacking ranges from efforts to improve brain function to faster weight loss. Some are relatively safe to try at home; others may pose health risks. Among others, the show features glow-in-the-dark mice, gene-modded weed, underwater pills that extend your ability to hold your breath, and payment microchips in your hand.

The series lent a critical realism to the story by using accurate world building, real sets and equipment from genetics labs and university settings. Dov Grenbaum’s article in the journal Science entitled “Biology’s brave new world” celebrates the show for its accurate representation of complex laboratory equipment and procedures and how it accurately represents the intricacies, motivations and ethical issues of biohacking from sophisticated big-business gene therapies to DIY homespun biology.

Biohackers opens with a disturbing scene of bioterrorism on a train headed to Berlin. All passengers suddenly choke and fall unconscious—except for young med student Mia Akerlund, who tries to help and fails. From that explosive flash-forward scene, the show jumps back to two weeks prior, as college freshman Mia settles into Freiburg University’s prestigious medical school, and betrays a particular interest in synthetic biology, biohacking and genome editing. We soon learn that she is obsessed by celebrated professor and geneticist/entrepreneur Tanja Lorenz (who runs a biopharmaceutical company and has an entire building dedicated to her research with huge neon logo of her name). Both women are connected by a dark secret to do with Mia’s twin brother who mysteriously died when still a boy. Mia quickly gains a position working for Lorenz, which plunges her into the dangerous intrigue of illegal genetic experiences.

*Lorenz and her grad student Jasper discuss experiments in their sophisticated lab (image from Biochackers)*

An early, rather enlightening, scene of the first episode is of Mia’s first introductory biology class given by celebrated gene therapy tycoon Professor Lorenz. Not only does the scene introduce the controversial subject of synthetic biology; it reveals a disturbing sense of what’s at stake and the danger of scientific hubris. Tall, svelte and confident in a smart haircut and tailored suit, Lorenz struts like a self-proclaimed goddess in front of a student-crowded lecture hall and preaches the benefits of synthetic biology. When she asks the class “What is synthetic biology?” and a student replies “with the help of synthetic biology, we can alter existing life forms or create new ones,” Lorenz prickles beyond her already frosty demeanor and impatiently berates the students for their lack of vision. She challenges them to think bigger: “Synthetic biology transforms us from creatures into creators. It’s not just the future of medicine, but of humankind. We can cease entire infections before the outbreak … We eliminate genetic disorders. But if we don’t do our work exceedingly well, it could end our species. It is on us to find a way; this is your future. Your responsibility. You are the creators of tomorrow. We make God obsolete…”

Science, academia and intrigue are skillfully woven in an intelligent mystery-thriller that not only represents science accurately but delivers commentary on the ethical and moral questions of this highly dynamic and rapidly evolving field of science.

Biohackers touches on several ethical and moral questions, such as genetic modification of stem cells, access to advanced gene therapies, and privacy and consent surrounding genomic data. Synthetic biologist Elsa Sotiriadis warns that, “this topic will likely become an ethical minefield in the coming years. On the one hand, we need large and diverse datasets to train medical AI and develop therapies. But on the other, there’s nothing as personal as your literal blueprint. Unlike stolen credit cards, you can’t change your genomic data. I like that Biohackers brings this up.”

*Lorenz does a throat swab for DNA on a candidate in her experiment as Mia looks on (image from Biohackers)*

Ten Significant Science Fiction TV Series:

The Western Woman Will Save the World

April 13, 2025April 14, 2025 / thealiennextdoor / Leave a comment

Some years ago now, when the Dalai Lama was attending the 2009 Vancouver Peace Summit, he was quoted as saying, “The world will be saved by the western woman.”

This set the media buzzing on what His Holiness meant and—perhaps more importantly—how his statement resonates with us, and how his “call” affects the western woman.

Marianne Hughes, executive director of the Interaction Institute for Social Change (IISC), pondered the idea of the aging woman as hag (originally a representation of feminine power) and how it relates to the Dalai Lama’s statement on her blog. “I’m not entirely sure what [the Dalai Lama] meant,” said Hughes, “But I am wondering if when he travels across the globe and sees so many of our sisters impoverished and repressed he sees western women of all ages in a position to speak out for justice and to take on the responsibilities of “the hag”… to take loving care of the planet and its people.”

The original meaning of the word “hag” in Gaelic originally referred to a saint with great powers who was responsible for the land, the waters and the people. The term has since been distorted through patriarchal propaganda into something far less flattering and powerful. The “Hag” is currently being redefined as a strong, beautiful and ageless woman and has its similarities with “the Crone”, the third stage of a woman’s life and evolution from maiden to mother to crone. Postmenopausal women currently comprise the largest demographic group in America. With our increased lifespan, the ancient tripartite divisions of Maiden, Mother, and Crone are more meaningful in women’s lives as the Crone stage occupies one third of our lifespan. Moreover, our current Crone generation (those born in the forties and fifties) is the first in the history of humankind that can claim (and has already claimed) economic autonomy and power.

According to Dr. Linda E. Savage (author of “Reclaiming Goddess Sexuality”) “Each stage of a woman’s life is organized around what Goddess Cultures called the blood mysteries: menarche, (the first monthly flow of blood); childbirth, which is accompanied by blood from birthing; and menopause, when a woman’s “wise blood” remains inside her to give her wisdom. These are still powerful landmarks, which profoundly influence women’s lives. They function as psychological gateways to the change in consciousness required by each new stage.”

Savage describes the Crone as a powerful shamanic figure in society: “The developmental task of the Crone Stage is sharing wisdom. In Neolithic times, Crone women were the tribal matriarchs. Their heightened awareness of human nature yielded great insight and they were the source of wise counsel for important decisions. Spiritually, this is the Mastery phase. The Wise Woman teaches knowledge gained from her skills and life experience. It is a time of reaching into her spiritual depths, utilizing her powers of intuition, and finding meaning in her visions from the dream world. Some Crone women are masters of healing at the highest level. The Crone Stage of life, more than any other, is a time of giving back to society the cumulative wisdom of the years. Many women have an urge to speak out, to organize others, to take action. They have the energy to get more involved in the world-at-large. It is often Crone energy that leads to changes being made in society. As the Crone woman moves further into her life path she feels the urge to teach others and to cultivate her passions. It can be the most productive time in womens’ lives.”

Crone energy isn’t necessarily limited to Crones. It is an energy that may be carried by anyone at any age. Ariane de Bonvoisin, writing for the Huffington Post, made the following observation:

“Most people I meet have a new fear—the fear of not being relevant, the fear of not making a difference, the fear of working on things that don’t really matter in the important times of transition we live in. We’re hungry to be part of making things better. We want to create, we want to do what we love again and find our voice. We sense intuitively that we have a critical role to play in shaping the future of our world. And yet, so many of us give in to excuses of not being good enough, young enough, smart enough, wealthy enough, creative enough. We still play small, still give in to the ‘victim’ archetype. We still buy into what society’s beliefs are and put them right above our own. But we don’t really have time for these fears. If I could create a vaccine, instead of the flu one, I’d create one against fear. It’s what holds us back, every one of us, in every area of our life. And, while we’re holding back, time just moves on faster than ever. We are at a critical time in the evolution of our planet, a time where each one of us is waking up. We feel it.

Our intuition is growing more acute. Our inner microphone, as I like to call it, is getting harder and harder to turn off, so that we can’t just go along with our normal day. There’s a rise in consciousness where we feel more connected to others, a part of something bigger going on, where we each have a role to play. The most important thing isn’t to get the promotion, or stay in the marriage, or lose those 10 pounds. The most important thing is for us to remember who we are—why we are here—to do the inner work and find what are our ‘spiritual’ reasons for being on the planet. Yes we do have something great to accomplish. Now. At any age. Wherever we are.”

I found yet another revealing comment on her blog post that reminded me of another statement by His Holiness: that the next Dalai Lama might be a woman. The commentator told the story of the Buddhist Goddess Tara, who is highly revered in Tibet and was a most promising student of Buddhism. The monks told her she should come back as a man so that she could reincarnate and finish her spiritual journey and become a Buddha. She responded that male/female has no meaning since spiritual beings have perfectly balance aspects of both and in reality can incarnate as either gender. She made a resolution to always come back as a woman. I see this proclamation as a metaphor for choosing “feminine wisdom” or “Goddess Wisdom”, represented by the depth of forgiveness, kindness, tenderness, openness, vulnerability, tolerance, honor, integrity, sacred courage, humility, trust and faith.

So, why “the Western Woman”? We are not particularly known on the globe for these traits, nor does the western philosophy we espouse typically embrace these ideal traits. The western woman has more often been stereotyped (and vilified) with the following characteristics: vanity, pride, shallowness, self-centeredness, self-serving ambition, competitiveness, and pettiness.

While we can, in fact, accept these as our stereotypic weaknesses (it is part of our shallow consumer culture and capitalist model, after all), it is for this very reason that the western woman represents the salvation of the world. Not only do we have the means, as Marianne Hughes pointed out, but we are in the best position to convince.

It is our destiny. We too are on a hero’s journey…

We are the necessary paradox that spawns evolution. The darkness that sparks light. The chaos that creates stability. The inertia that initiates change.

*Viburnam berries, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)*

Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press(Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.

Weaponizing Language: The U.S. Coast Guard Succumbs to TrumpSpeak by Censoring ‘Climate Change’ from its Curriculum

March 8, 2025March 9, 2025 / thealiennextdoor / Leave a comment

Language, the connective tissue of the body politic—that space where the collective “we” matters so much—is losing its ability to fulfill its most basic duty: to communicate. To correlate. To connect us to the world, and to one another
Megan Garber, The Atlantic

*Scene of Winston Smith (John Hurt) in* Nineteen Eighty-Four filmed in 1984 shown here with addition for currency

In his dystopian 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell featured Newspeak, a fictional language of the totalitarian superstate Oceania. Created by the Party to meet requirements of Ingsoc (Englilsh Socialism), the Newspeak consisted of simplified grammar and limited vocabulary designed to limit a person’s ability to critically think. If you can’t find a word to articulate something, then it can’t be expressed and in some way no longer exists. Personal identity, self-expression and free speech become casualties of a simpler world.

Science fiction? Think again.

Today, Inside Climate News reported that the U.S. Coast Guard has eliminated the term “climate change” and related terminology from the curriculum of its training academy to conform to President Trump’s polices.

*U.S. Coast Guard cutter Healy assists a NASA shipborne investigation into climate change in the Chukchi Sea in the Arctic Ocean (photo Kathryn Hansen NASA)*

This comes at a time when scientists report that the effects of climate change and global warming are weakening the world’s most powerful ocean current, the ACC, with projected slowing by a third within decades. A study by international scientists published today in the journal Environmental Research Letters projects that the fresh water from melting Antarctic ice will weaken the Antarctic Circumpolar Currrent (ACC) by 20 percent in the next 30 years. The ACC is the only ocean current to flow around the entire planet unimpeded, carrying more than 100 times more water than all the world’s rivers combined. A paper in the journal Nature Climate Change recently documented how freshwater from melting ice has already weakened the overturning, or vertical circulation, of Antarctic shelf waters, which reduces oxygen in the deep ocean. Effects of the ACC slow down are projected to include more climate variability, with greater extremes in certain regions, and accelerated global warming.

Global warming is a fact.

Anyone negating its existence, let alone its existential threat, is quite simply a fool. But when a fool is in power and negates the bald truth of science—successfully eliminating the most important word to our existence on this planet—then who’s really the fool?

In the 1940s, shortly after the end of World War Two, Orwell wrote an essay “Why I Write”; in it he lamented the growing decrepitude of the English language. Orwell argued that the decline of English went hand-in-hand with the decline of intellectualism in society and facilitated the manipulation of listeners, speakers and writers. Richard Weintraub noted in his 2021 article that Trump used ‘Newspeak’ to dismiss the Covid 19 virus, putting Americans at great risk.

Orwell created the term doublethink—a jargon of purposeful obfuscation—which is ability to simultaneously accept two mutually contradictory beliefs as right at the same time: “war is peace”; “freedom is slavery”; “ignorance is strength”. This oxymoron isn’t some wild gesture to the simultaneous wave / particle existence of particle physics or gestalt dualism of Schrödinger’s cat. Orwell’s brilliant fictional concept was predicated on the historical precedent of fascists around the world: the embodiment of “Big Brother”, who uses “doublethink” to confound, sway and control the minds of all people. The term “fake news” has settled in like a damp fog, a casual rejoinder to any truth one wishes to negate and ultimately erase.

On the weaponizing of language, Megan Garber in The Atlantic writes:

“Language, in 1984, is violence by another means, an adjunct of the totalitarian strategies inflicted by the regime. Orwell’s most famous novel, in that sense, is the fictionalized version of his most famous essay. “Politics and the English Language,” published in 1946, is a writing manual, primarily—a guide to making language that says what it means, and means what it says. It is also an argument. Clear language, Orwell suggests, is a semantic necessity as well as a moral one. Newspeak, in 1984, destroys with the same ferocious efficiency that tanks and bombs do. It is born of the essay’s most elemental insight: If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.”

The hard truths of science are at risk in a world gazing through the lens of confabulation… When the inveigling bits and bites of social media time and again trump scientific fact…

I end with Garber’s solemn call to awareness:

“Orwell published “Politics” at the end of a conflict that had, in its widespread use of propaganda, also been a war of words. In the essay, he wrestles with the fact that language—as a bomb with a near-limitless blast radius—could double as a weapon of mass destruction. This is why clarity matters. This is why words are ethical tools as well as semantic ones. The defense of language that Orwell offered in “Politics” was derived from his love of hard facts. “So long as I remain alive and well I shall continue to feel strongly about prose style, to love the surface of the earth, and to take a pleasure in solid objects and scraps of useless information,” he confessed in his 1946 essay “Why I Write.” His was an elegant dogma. Words matter because facts matter—because truth matters. Freedom, in 1984, is many things, but they all spring from the same source: the ability to say that 2 + 2 = 4.”

Writing in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: AI and Post-Plagiarism

January 19, 2025February 24, 2025 / thealiennextdoor / 1 Comment

*AI entity performing a myriad of duties (image from Bernard Marr & Co.)*

I teach academic writing to students at the University of Toronto Writing Centre. It’s wonderful and fulfilling work and I enjoy helping students in several disciplines (engineering, health sciences, social sciences) learn to write better. As with the rest of the academic world of writing, we are all making sense of the use of AI-generated tools by students, instructors and researchers: large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, and even Grammarly. Students have told me that they found AI helpful in brainstorming and outlining as well as organizing literature reviews and editing for grammar and such. A recent survey of universities and corporations around the world by the Digital Education Council revealed that a majority of students used AI tools. Of those surveyed, close to two thirds used AI as a search engine; a third used it to summarize documents; and a fifth used it to create first drafts.

In her 2024 article “The Future Is Hybrid”, Beth McMurtrie suggested that genAI “may eventually take its place in the pantheon of game-changing technologies used every day in education—alongside calculators, search engines, and Excel.”

In my other pursuit as a professional fiction author, I see the artistic and communication industries embracing AI, particularly in the visual arts. I’m now told that several publishing houses and magazines have dedicated efforts to publish AI-generated work. Some magazines are entirely AI generated, Copy Magazine, for instance. Author futurist Bernard Marr writes that “Generative AI is already being adopted in journalism to automate the creation of content, brainstorm ideas for features, create personalized news stories, and produce accompanying video content.” Marr then goes on to provide 13 ways that all writers should embrace Generative AI that includes anything from drafting plot lines to world building. Sports Illustrated was recently found to publish AI generated stories. Even newspapers, such as the LA Times, the Miami Herald, and Us Weekly acknowledge AI-written content. And I recently learned that one of the top five online science fiction magazines, Metastellar, accepts AI-assisted stories with the proviso that “they better be good.” And Metastellar provides some convincing reasons. This has become a hot topic among my fellow professional writers at SF Canada. One colleague informed me that a “new publisher Spines plans to disrupt industry by publishing 8000 AI books in 2025 alone.” On checking the news release, I discovered that Spines is, in fact, a tech firm trying to make its mark on publishing, primarily through the use of AI. The company offers the use of AI to proofread, produce, publish, and distribute books. They are, in fact, a vanity publishing platform (essentially a service for self-publishing), charging up to $5000 a book and often taking just three weeks to go from manuscript to a published title.

The emerging field of AI-assisted writing and communicating is a burgeoning field that promises to touch every person in some way—writers and readers alike. Tech companies are scrambling to use it to save time and effort. Others are involved in improving current and developing new models. Many are training LLMs for improved use. Even I was headhunted as a creative writer by one tech firm to help create more safe, accurate and reliable LLMs.

*Generative AI applications (Image from Neebal Technologies)*

Universities and Other Educational Institutions Use of AI

How universities and other educational institutions are dealing with the challenge and promise of these emerging tools in communication varies from out right forbidding AI use in the classroom to full on acceptance and obligatory use in some classroom projects. McMurtrie described how two instructors at Rollins College, Dan Myers and Anne Murdaugh, had students collaborating with AI on semester-long research projects. They were instructed to use Claude and Copilot to brainstorm paper topics, conduct literature reviews, develop a thesis, and outline, draft, and revise their papers. Myers and Murdaugh asserted that “the skills that students use to engage thoughtfully with AI are the same ones that colleges are good at teaching. Namely: knowing how to obtain and use information, thinking critically and analytically, and understanding what and how you’re trying to communicate.”

In fall of 2024, Stephanie Wheeler and others at the department of writing and rhetoric in the University of Central Florida, along with their philosophy department, set up an interdisciplinary certificate in AI. Their purpose was to develop conceptual knowledge about AI. Wheeler asserted that writing and rhetoric have long been concerned with how technology shapes these disciplines. Sharon L.R. Kardia, senior associate dean of education at the University of Michigan argued that AI could greatly benefit public health in its ability to aid in data analysis, research review, and the development of public-health campaigns. However, she cautioned that LLMs also absorb and reflect the social biases that lead to public-health inequities.

One of my Writing Centre colleagues at UofT recently shared some thoughts about a conference session he’d participated in, in which a student panel listed tasks that they thought genAI cannot do (yet). These included: generate music, offer interpersonal advice, and verify facts; I think AI can already help with two of these. Chad Hershock, executive director of the Eberly Centre for Teaching Excellence and Educational Innovation at Carnegie Mellon University shared that they are researching key questions about whether AI enables or impedes: does using AI while brainstorming generate more or fewer ideas? Can generative AI give less-experienced students a better chance to be successful in technical courses? To what extent does using AI help or hinder writing skills? Does having generative AI as a thought partner enhance students’ ability to make a claim and support it with evidence?

My own experience with a less-experienced student’s use of genAI was often abysmal. The student had used the tool as a crutch and had failed to learn from their use of the tool. This suggests that the most important limitations of the tool lie with the user’s own limitations and it points to the need for guidance by educators.

In her 2024 Axios article “Why AI is not substitute for human teachers” Megan Morrone described findings of the Wharton School on access to genAI: while genAI tutors improved student performance on practice math problems, students who used these tools performed significantly worse on exams (where they couldn’t use AI). The school concluded that the students used genAI to copy and paste answers, which led them to engage less with the material. Wharton School associate professor Hamsa Bastani argued that, “if you just give unrestricted access to generative AI, students end up using it as a crutch…[and] end up performing a lot worse.” This is partly because students—often stressed-out by heavy work loads—find that LLMs save time and can produce content close to what the user might produce themselves. Researchers have even come up with a term for this: Cognitive Miserliness of the User, which, according to writer Stephen Marche, “basically refers to people who just don’t want to take the time to think.”

Melanie M. Cooper, chemistry professor at Michigan State University cautioned that while “there’s a lot of ebullience in the AI field, it’s important to be wary.” She argued that it is easy to misuse AI and override the system to get a quick answer or use it as a crutch. McMurtrie shares that, while “AI evangelists promise that these tools will make learning easier, faster and more fun,” academics are quick to reject that rhetoric. McMurtrie ends her article with a cautionary statement by Jennifer Frederick of Yale: “Universities really need to be a counterpoint to the big tech companies and their development of AI. We need to be the ones who slow down and really think through all the implications for society and humanity and ethics.”

Considering the impact of artificial intelligence on writing, Dr. Sarah Elaine Eaton, professor at the University of Calgary, introduced the idea of life in a postplagiarism world. She expanded on her ideas to come up with six tenets that characterize the post-plagiarism age. These include:

Hybrid human-AI writing will become normal
Human creativity is enhanced
Language Barriers disappear
Humans can relinquish control, but not responsibility
Attribution remains important
Historical definitions of plagiarism no longer apply

*6 tenets of Postplagiarism (image from Sarah Elaine Eaton)*

Eaton’s fifth point (attribution remains important), I think becomes all that more important in the presence of AI use. Transparency in presentation, particularly in an academic setting, takes on a new level of importance when communicating with tools such as generative AI. Where things come from, which tool was used and how it was used are key to understanding and interpreting the nature of the writing itself. The path taken to the destination becomes all important when interpretation and comprehension (and replication) is required. To fully understand “where you are”; we need to know “how you got there.” It’s like solving math problem; if you don’t show your work and just provide the answer, I have no way of knowing that you actually understood the problem and really solved it.

I am certain that generative AI will continue to take on various forms that will continue to astonish. Its proper use and development will serve humanity and the planet well; but there will always be abusers and misusers and those who simply don’t care. We must be mindful of them all. We must remain vigilant and responsible. Because, just as with freedom, if we grow lazy and careless, we run the risk of losing so much more.

*Generative AI (image from techvify-software.com)*

References:

Eaton, Sarah Elaine. 2021. “Plagiarism in Higher Education: Tackling tough Topics in Academic Integrity.” Bloomsbury Publishing, 252pp.

Marr, Bernard. 2024. “13 Ways Writers Should Embrace Generative AI.” Bernard Marr & Co. February 5, 2024.

Marche, Stephen. 2024. “AI Is a Language Microwave.” The Atlantic. September 27, 2024.

McMurtrie, Beth. 2024. “The Future Is Hybrid.” The Chronicle of Higher Education. October 3, 2024.

Morrone, Megan. 2024. “Why AI is no substitute for human teachers.” Axios, August 15, 2024.

Niloy, Ahnaf Chowdhury, et al. 2024. “Why do students use ChatGPT? Answering through a triangulation approach.” Computers and Education: Artificial Intelligence 6.

Movie Review & Book Review: The Unexpected Protocol of “I, Robot”

November 10, 2024September 2, 2024 / thealiennextdoor / 1 Comment

Early editions of “I, Robot”: 1950 1st edition hardcover by Gnome Press; 1950 dust jacket of 1st edition hardcover by Grosset & Dunlap; 1950 1st book club edition by Doubleday; 1952 1st UK edition by Grayson & Grayson; 1956 Signet cover; 1958 Digit Books UK; 1961 Signet 3rd printing; 1968 Signet 6th printing; 1970 Fawcett Crest; 1968 Panther Science Fiction

I reread Dr. Isaac Asimov’s 74-year-old masterpiece, I, Robot, in preparation for the 2004 Twentieth Century Fox motion picture of the same name, knowing fully well that to appeal to today’s action-thriller rollercoaster-addicted audience there was no way the movie and the book could even come close. I was right. But not the way I thought I would be.

The movie, directed by Alex Proyas, begins with the three laws of robotics:

First Law: that robots must not harm a human being;

Second Law: they must obey human orders, so long as this does not violate the first law; and

Third Law: they must protect their own existence, so long as that doesn’t violate laws one and two.

Apart from these three laws and the use of the same title and some of the character names, the motion picture appears to radically depart from Asimov’s book, first published by Gnome Press in 1950. To give Twentieth Century Fox credit, the film does not pretend to be the same as the book; I noticed that in the credits the movie was “suggested by,” rather than “based on” Asimov’s work. But how different was it, really? I submit that the two are much more similar than they first appear.

*The robot Sonny causes a great ruckus when he ignores the three laws*

Surficial differences between book and motion picture are nevertheless glaring. First off, Asimov’s, I, Robot, is essentially a string of short stories that evolve along a theme; much in the vein of Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury. The book is told largely from the point of view of Dr. Susan Calvin, a plain and stern robo-psychologist, who gets along better with robots than with humans. Dr. Asimov uses this cold and colourless character as a vehicle to stir undercurrents of poignant thought on the human condition through a series of deceptively mundane tales. I, Robot offers a treatise both of humanity’s ingenuity and its foibles and how these two are inexorably intertwined in paradoxes that speak to the ultimate truth of what it is to be human. Each of his nine stories discloses a metaphoric piece of his clever puzzle. The puzzle pieces successively tease us through the three laws of robotics, as ever more sophisticated robots toil with their conflicts when dealing with perceived logical contradictions of the laws. For instance, there is “Robbie,” the endearing nursemaid robot. Cutie (QT-1) is a robot Descartes in “Reason.” In “Liar,” Herbie has problems coping with the three laws as a mind-reading robot. And in “Little Lost Robot,” Susan Calvin must out-smart Nestors — or the NS-2 — model robots, whose positronic brains were not impressioned with the entire First Law of Robotics. The larger question and ultimate paradox posed by the three laws culminate in Asimov’s final story, “The Evitable Conflict,” which subtly explores the role of “free will” and “faith” in our definition of what it means to be human.

The book jacket of the mass market 1991 Bantam book aptly describes I, Robot this way: “…humans and robots struggle to survive together — and sometimes against each other … and both are asking the same questions: what is human? And is humanity obsolete?” Interestingly, the latter part of the book jacket quote, which accompanied the 1991 Bantam mass-market edition, can be interpreted in several ways.

Asimov’s stories span fifty years of robot evolution, which play out mostly in space from Mercury to beyond our own galaxy. Proyas’s movie is set in Chicago in 2035 and condenses the time frame into a short few weeks with some flashbacks from several years prior. This serves the film well but at some cost. What is gained in tension and focus is lost in scope and erudition, two qualities often best left to the literary field. Asimov’s tales are quirky, contemplative, and thoughtful. The film version is more direct, trading these for a faster pace, pretty much a prerequisite in the film industry today.

The original screenplay, entitled “Hardwired” by Jeff Vinter, was reworked by Akiva Goldsman into a techno-thriller/murder mystery directed by Alex Proyas (Dark City) with its requisite hard-boiled detective cop (Will Smith) and a ‘suicide’ that looks suspiciously like murder. Smith’s character (a Hollywood invention, so don’t go looking for him in the book) is a 20th century anachronism: a Luddite who wears retro clothes and sets his computer car on manual. The story centers on Spooner’s investigation of a so-called suicide by Dr. Alfred Lanning, robot pioneer and the originator of the three laws of robotics. Lanning was an employee of U.S. Robotics, a mega-corporation run by Lawrence Robertson (Bruce Greenwood). Robertson relies on the real brains, V.I.K.I, the corporation’s super-intelligent virtual computer.

*the NS-5 robot Sonny with VIKI in the background*

By this time, technology and robots are a trusted part of everyday life; except for robo-phobic police detective Spooner, who nurses a guilty secret for his prejudice.

With a “simple-minded” plot (according to Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times) and a lead character who is little more than a “wisecracking … guns-a-blazin’… action-hero cliché” (Rob Blackwelder, Splicedwire), the motion picture rendition of Asimov’s ground-breaking book seems to promise little but disappointment for the literate science fiction fan according to many critics.

I disagree.

I was not disappointed. This is both despite and because of director Alex Proyas’s interpretation of Asimov’s book and his three laws. Several critics focused on the surficial plot at the expense of the subtle multi-layered thematic sub-plots contrived by a director not known for creating superficial action-figure fluff. I think this critical myopia was generated from critics admittedly not having read Asimov’s masterpiece. Familiarity with Asimov’s I, Robot is a prerequisite to recognizing the subtle intelligence Proyas wove into his otherwise playful and glitzy Hollywood techno-thriller.

*Detective Spooner talks to Dr. Lanning’s holo at USR after his apparent suicide*

While literate science fiction fans will certainly recognize the names of Lanning, Calvin and Robertson, these movie characters in no way resemble their book counterparts. Dr. Calvin (Bridget Moynahan) is a robo-psychologist, but in the movie she is far from plain and fails to disguise that she is clearly ruled by her feelings, unlike the coldly logical book character. The lead character in the film, Detective Del Spooner (Will Smith) is, of course, a Hollywood fabrication, along with an entourage of requisite techno-thriller components: spectacular chase and battle scenes, explosions, lots of shooting, and some romantic tension. The film is also fraught with Hollywood clichés: for instance, repressed psychologist (Moynahan), who typically speaks in three-syllabic words, encounters cynical anti-hero beefy cop (Smith) whose rude attentions help transform her into a gun-slinging kick-ass warrior.

*Megalithic USR vehicles housing killer robots close in on Spooner’s car in a rousing car-chase scene*

Of course, there is also the ‘evil’ machine that turns against its masters to rule the world. But Proyas also treats us to some of the most convincing portrayals of a futuristic metropolis, complete with seamlessly incorporated CGI-generated robots and an evocative score by Peter Anthony. Dr. Asimov fans will, of course, also recognize certain aspects of the book in the movie, such as a scene and concepts borrowed from “Little Lost Robot.”

Despite the clichés and comic-action razzle-dazzle, Proyas manages to preserve the soul and spirit of Dr. Asimov’s great creation. He does this by allowing us to glimpse some of Asimov’s elevated theme, if not his more complex questions.

The most poignant scenes in the movie are those which involve the ‘humanity’ of the robot called Sonny (Alan Tudyk). A unique NS-5 model with a secondary processing system that clashes with his positronic brain, Sonny is capable of rejecting any of the three laws and hence provides us ironically with the most complex (and interesting) character in the movie. Sonny is both humble and feisty, a robot who dreams and questions. For me, this was not unlike the several stirring scenes in Asimov’s “Liar,” where the mind-reading robot, Herbie, when dealing with the complex nature of humans, unintentionally caused its own destruction (with the help of a bitter Dr. Calvin) by trying to please everyone by telling them what he thought they wanted to hear. Sonny’s complex character (like any character with depth) keeps you guessing. Sonny asks the right questions and at the end of the film we are left wondering about his destiny and what he will make of it. This parallels Asimov’s equally ambiguous ending in “The Evitable Conflict.”

*As Spooner searches for him, Sonny hides among his own*

*Sonny holds a gun to Dr. Calvin’s head*

Which brings me back to the foundation shared by both book and movie: the three laws of robotics, the infinite ways that they can be interpreted, and how they may be equally applied to robot or human. The laws may apply physically or emotionally; individually or toward the whole of humanity; long-term or short-term … the list is potentially endless. Asimov’s collection of stories centers on these questions by showing how robots deal with the conflicts the perceived contradictions present by the laws. Asimov’s last story describes a world run by a network of powerful but benevolent machines, who guide humankind through strict adherence to the three laws (their interpretation, of course!).

*USR vehicles dominate the streets of Chicago*

Taking his cue from this, Proyas cleverly takes an old cliché—that of ‘evil’ machine with designs to rule the world—and turns it upside down according to the first law of robotics. His ‘evil’ machine turns out not to be evil, but misguided. V.I.K.Y acts not out of its own interests, like the self-preserving HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey, but in the best interests of humankind (at least according to the machine). Citing humanity’s self-destructive proclivity to pollute and make war, V.I.K.Y decides to treat us as children and pull the plug on free-will. Viewed from the perspective of the first law, this is simply a logical, though erroneous, extrapolation of ‘good will’; and far more interesting than the workings of simple ‘evil,’ which I feel is much overdone and overrated in films these days. The well-meaning dictator possessed of the hubristic notion that he holds all the keys to the happiness and well-being of others smacks of a reality and a humanity all too prevalent in well-meaning governments today. It is when the line between ‘good-intentions’ and ‘wrong-doing’ blur that things get really interesting.

*Doctor Calvin prepares to terminate Sonny*

Both Asimov and Proyas explore this chiaroscuro in I, Robot, though in different ways. The challenge is still the same: If given the choice of ending war and all conflict at the expense of ‘free will,’ would we permit benevolent machines to run our world? Or is it our destiny—and requirement for the transcendence of our souls—to continue to make those mistakes at the expense of a life free of self-destruction and violence?

On the surface, Proyas offers the obvious answer. He likens the benevolent machine to an overprotective parent, who in the interests of a child’s safety, prevents the enrichment of that child’s heart, soul, and spirit otherwise provided by that very conflict. Asimov is far more subtle in “The Evitable Conflict” and while these questions are discussed at length, they remain largely unanswered.

In one of his most clever stories, “Evidence,” near the end of his book, Dr. Asimov expounds on the three laws to describe the ultimate dilemma: of defining and differentiating a human-looking robot with common sense from a genuine human on the basis of psychology. Asimov’s Dr. Calvin says: “The three Rules of Robotics are the essential guiding principles of a good many of the world’s ethical systems. Every human being is supposed to have the instinct of self-preservation. That’s Rule Three to a robot. Also every ‘good’ human being, with a social conscience and a sense of responsibility, is supposed to defer to proper authority. That’s Rule Two to a robot. Also, every ‘good’ human being is supposed to love others as himself, protect his fellow man, risk his life to save another. That’s Rule One to a robot. To put it simply, if [an individual] follows all the Rules of Robotics, he may be a robot, and may simply be a very good man.” Proyas metaphorically (if not literally) explores the question of “what is human” with his robotic character, Sonny.

*Spooner discovers older robot models, grouped together in a storage container*

In a stirring scene of the motion picture where Sonny is prepared for permanent shut down, Dr. Lanning expounds on his belief that robots could evolve naturally: “There have always been ghosts in the machine… random segments of code that have grouped together to form unexpected protocols. Unanticipated, these free radicals engender questions of free will, creativity, and even the nature of what we might call the soul… Why is it that when some robots are left in the dark they will seek the light? Why is it that when robots are stored in an empty space they will group together rather than stand alone? How do we explain this behaviour? Random segments of code? Or is it something more? When does a perceptual schematic become consciousness? When does a difference engine become the search for truth? When does a personality simulation become the bitter moat of the soul?”

I found myself following a less dazzling but deeper thread in the movie version of I, Robot. One steeped in metaphor that pulled at my emotions. Throughout the film, we were given subtle and brief glimpses of old robot models discarded as new ones were designed and launched. I remember one scene in particular that saddened me; alongside the cheerful rollout of the NS-5s, the NS-4s were unceremoniously removed and stored offsite to spend their remaining days in the darkness of storage.

In a later scene in the movie, these older models are hunted down by newer models and violently destroyed. It’s a slaughter. When Spooner stumbles on this robot-carnage, one injured NS-4, fearing for Spooner’s welfare, urges him to run.

*Injured NS-4 exhorts Spooner to run away to save himself*

Why did I find these scenes so sad? Was it the curiously disarming design of the ND-4? They did not fight back; designed to be kind, they simply let themselves be destroyed.

Perhaps I was reminded of how we can so easily abandon an old thing once loved for a new and shiny toy. No longer useful they are carelessly cast aside as somehow less than they might have once been. We’ve seen what becomes of anything we deem inferior or unworthy of our compassion. How we treat a perceived lesser being can often be cruel and careless. One need only look to our long history of human slavery, of animal abuse, of environmental exploitation, and even of material destruction. Our capitalist world lies replete with examples of neoliberal consumerism that favours a throwaway ethic. We have become a user society, addicted to the next big thing; the next i-phone, the next shiny car, the next new friend… Toss the old away without a care while we embrace the new…

*Abandoned NS-4s left in storage with no purpose*

Near the end of the film, Sonny, having fulfilled his initial purpose (i.e., stopping V.I.K.Y. to save humanity from oppressive subjugation), asks Spooner, “What about the others [the NS-4s and the NS-5s, recalled for servicing and storage]? Can I help them? Now that I have fulfilled my purpose I don’t know what to do.” To this, an enlightened Spooner answers: “I guess you’ll have to find your way like the rest of us, Sonny… That’s what it means to be free.”

Proyas gives us a strong indication of what his film was really about by ending not with Spooner—his lead action-figure character who has just saved humanity from the misguided robot army—but with Sonny, the enigmatic robot just embarking on his uncertain journey. The motion picture closes with a final scene of Sonny, resembling a messianic figure on the precipice of a bluff, overlooking row upon row of his robotic counterparts.

We are left with an ambiguous ending of hope and mystery. What will Sonny do with his abilities, his dreams, and his potential “following”? Will his actions be for the betterment of humankind and/or robots? Will society trust him and let him seek and find his destiny or, like Asimov’s fearful “Society for Humanity,” will we squash them all before they get so complex and powerful that not only do we fail to understand them but we have no hope of controlling them? This parallels Asimov’s equally ambiguous ending in his book. In it, Stephen Byers (a humanoid AI), and robo-psychologist, Susan Calvin, discuss the fate of robots and humanity. Ironically, it is through her interaction with robots that Susan discovers a human trait that may be more valuable to humanity than exercising “free will”: that of faith. It is she who confronts the coordinator with these words: “…How do we know what the ultimate good of Humanity will entail? We haven’t at our disposal the infinite factors that the Machine has at its.” Then to his challenge that human kind has lost its own say in its future, she further responds with: “It never had any, really. It was always at the mercy of economic and sociological forces it did not understand … at the whims of climate, and the fortunes of war…Now the Machines understand them…for all time, all conflicts are finally evitable. Only the Machines, from now on, are inevitable.” This quote in Asimov’s final story may horrify or anger some, even as it may inspire and reassure others. But, if true “free will” is largely a self-perpetuated myth of the Western pioneer movement, then we are effectively left with respect and faith in oneself and in others. Perhaps, ultimately, that is what both Asimov and Proyas had in mind.

It is interesting to note that Harlan Ellison and Asimov collaborated on a screenplay of I, Robot in the 1970s, which Asimov said would provide “the first really adult, complex worthwhile science fiction movie ever made.” Am I disappointed that this earlier rendition, most likely truer to the original book, did not come to fruition? No. That is because we already have that story. You can still read the book (and I strongly urge you to, if you have not). Proyas’s film I, Robot is a different story, with a different interpretation. And like the robot’s own varying interpretation of the three laws, it is refreshing to see a different human’s interpretation expressed.

Best of Metastellar Three and Virtually Yours

October 20, 2024October 3, 2024 / thealiennextdoor / Leave a comment

The third of Metastellar Magazine’s ‘Best of’ anthologies The Best of Metastellar Year Three was recently released and is available at numerous booksellers. Available in print and ebook, the anthology hosts forty-six riveting short stories of science fiction, fantasy and horror. This anthology also features my dark speculative story “Virtually Yours.” Their second ‘Best of’ anthology contained my short story “The Way of Water.”

Virtually Yours in The Best of Metastellar Year Three: In a world of seamless surveillance where virtual and real coalesce in a teasing dance, love is the trickster…

The Way of Water in The Best of Metastellar Year Two: A woman stands two metres from a public water tap, dying of thirst in a water-scarce world rife with corporate/government corruption…

You can purchase the previous anthologies on Amazon here: The Best of Metastellar Year One and The Best of Metastellar Year Two.

*Nina tickled when her copy of “The Best of Metastellar Anthology Three” arrives* in the mail

Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.