This very short story reminded me of “Spark of Genius” by Michael F. Flynn as it is yes another story that basically predicts the present use of generative AI. Here we are presented with a shop that sells both coffee and algorithmically generated novels tailored perfectly to the readers personal preferences.

Analog December 2012

As the story is fairly there is little more to it than the premise here:

As he waited, he imagined the software routines searching through the vast database of quotations, snippets of books tagged by keywords and Book Genome metadata. The algorithms strung the snippets together into a coherent narrative, altered the selections, replacing names, dates, places, descriptions so that they all fit, tweaked and polished the whole thing so that it all appeared seamless and consistent.

p. 64

Unlike our world, in this story the authors are actually payed every time their contributions are used. However, the final morale of this story is one I 100% agree with, that art is meaningless if it isn’t fundamentally about communication between humans.

He wanted to tell a whole story, not to write snippets. He wanted it to be read from start to finish. He didn’t care if he would be paid.

p. 65

A poignant little story by one of the current living masters of the genre, that definitely deserves to be read in present times.

Read in Analog December 2012
Read the story at baen.com
Rating: 3+