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All possible plots by major authors (2020)

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Re: All possible plots by major authors (2020)

#21

Post by nfw2 »

ethbr1 wrote: post #16

>> Dan Brown -- Award-winning author Dan Brown has written a complicated role for you with his expensive pen. You are a humanities professor at an Ivy League university, but also, somehow, in mortal peril. Your love interest is picturesque but ill-mannered and French. This is somehow worth several million dollars. Kafka seems low-effort though. I humbly substitute: You have inside you an extraordinary writer but are…

You are a humanities professor at an Ivy League university, but also, somehow, in mortal peril. Your love interest is picturesque but ill-mannered...

This is also true of Indiana Jones, which everyone likes.

Re: All possible plots by major authors (2020)

#22

Post by bryanrasmussen »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #17
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

due to my being saddled with the British National debt it turns out that a loner of a dying race must set out on a morally ambiguous journey through all reality, killing everyone he meets except for a thinly disguised Sancho Panza - Volumes 1 through 119.

due to my having accidentally stolen the brown acid from Alan Moore, who you probably suspected I might actually be for some years, in Volume 120 loner from a dying race meets other loners from other dying races in future and merges into 1000 limbed kaiju and is forced to eat the soul of Sancha Panza. on edit: due to having eaten the brown acid I stole I forgot how to spell words like eldritch and Alan and have edite…

due to coming down from previous trip I realized that racism has infected fantasy like a virus, and the only way forward is poorly disguised Gormenghast pastiche.

on edit: thinly veiled threat to write 500 more comments on this issue in the next few months.

Re: All possible plots by major authors (2020)

#24

Post by egypturnash »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #17
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

due to my being saddled with the British National debt it turns out that a loner of a dying race must set out on a morally ambiguous journey through all reality, killing everyone he meets except for a thinly disguised Sancho Panza - Volumes 1 through 119.

due to my having accidentally stolen the brown acid from Alan Moore, who you probably suspected I might actually be for some years, in Volume 120 loner from a dying race meets other loners from other dying races in future and merges into 1000 limbed kaiju and is forced to eat the soul of Sancha Panza. on edit: due to having eaten the brown acid I stole I forgot how to spell words like eldritch and Alan and have edite…

clearly you have read a significant portion of the Saga of the Eternal Champion.

Re: All possible plots by major authors (2020)

#26

Post by HanClinto »

HanClinto wrote: post #10

Michael Crichton: Humanity employs raw hubris and technological advancement for a close-encounter with non-humanity. Chaos ensues.

The above was written by hand. As an experiment, I asked Claude to generate a few dozen more. Most weren't great. Here are the highlights:

Michael Crichton:

You're a brilliant scientist who's just created something that will revolutionize the world. Congratulations! It's now trying to eat you.

Michael Crichton:

You've stumbled upon a conspiracy involving [insert scientific field]. Now you're being chased by [insert government agency] while trying to explain complex scientific concepts to the reader.

Suzanne Collins:

You must choose between two brooding love interests while simultaneously overthrowing a totalitarian regime. Priorities!

Stephen King:

Welcome to small-town Maine, where the biggest threat isn't the weather, it's the [insert supernatural horror]. Don't worry, a writer will save the day.

Neil Gaiman:

Mythology crashes into modern life. You're either a god who's fallen on hard times or a regular person about to have a very weird Wednesday.

Margaret Atwood:

Society has taken a slight turn for the worse. Women are now [insert dystopian scenario]. This is definitely not a commentary on current events.

And perhaps my favorite:

George Orwell:

Big Brother is watching you. So is your toaster. And your pet. Trust no one, especially not the pigs.

Out of 30 generations, there were a few more that made me smile, but these were the main ones I enjoyed. Something I've noticed with statistical content generation is that it has a difficult time not being too "on the nose" -- almost like next-token-prediction is making it want to rush and get to the punchline a little too quickly. It has a hard time being subtle, and too often it felt like it was just a glib little summary of a story, rather than a sardonic take-a-step-back-and-look-at-the-big-picture sort of approach.

No major revelations, but just barely interesting enough to warrant commenting here. If there were a Dull Men's Club version of Hacker News, I would have posted this there.

Re: All possible plots by major authors (2020)

#27

Post by w-m »

ethbr1 wrote: post #16

>> Dan Brown -- Award-winning author Dan Brown has written a complicated role for you with his expensive pen. You are a humanities professor at an Ivy League university, but also, somehow, in mortal peril. Your love interest is picturesque but ill-mannered and French. This is somehow worth several million dollars. Kafka seems low-effort though. I humbly substitute: You have inside you an extraordinary writer but are…

Don't make fun of renowned author Dan Brown!

> Renowned author Dan Brown woke up in his luxurious four-poster bed in his expensive $10 million house – and immediately he felt angry. Most people would have thought that the 48-year-old man had no reason to be angry. After all, the famous writer had a new book coming out. But that was the problem. A new book meant an inevitable attack on the rich novelist by the wealthy wordsmith’s fiercest foes. The critics.

> Renowned author Dan Brown hated the critics. Ever since he had become one of the world’s top renowned authors they had made fun of him. They had mocked bestselling book The Da Vinci Code, successful novel Digital Fortress, popular tome Deception Point, money-spinning volume Angels & Demons and chart-topping work of narrative fiction The Lost Symbol.

> The critics said his writing was clumsy, ungrammatical, repetitive and repetitive. They said it was full of unnecessary tautology. They said his prose was swamped in a sea of mixed metaphors...

https://onehundredpages.wordpress.com/2013/06/12/dont-make-f...

Re: All possible plots by major authors (2020)

#28

Post by bryanrasmussen »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #22
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

due to my having accidentally stolen the brown acid from Alan Moore, who you probably suspected I might actually be for some years, in Volume 120 loner from a dying race meets other loners from other dying races in future and merges into 1000 limbed kaiju and is forced to eat the soul of Sancha Panza. on edit: due to having eaten the brown acid I stole I forgot how to spell words like eldritch and Alan and have edite…

due to coming down from previous trip I realized that racism has infected fantasy like a virus, and the only way forward is poorly disguised Gormenghast pastiche. on edit: thinly veiled threat to write 500 more comments on this issue in the next few months.

due to my having survived the last 3 or 5000 comments, this part is somewhat hazy, I would just like to say that China Miéville is my legacy and he thinks of me as his literary father, which I am in a way, although I am a heroic loner from a forgotten race doomed to wander through HN writing comments for all eternity until I can finally destroy the Evil God who cursed me to do so and cash my royalty checks.

on edit: or perhaps I have cashed these royalty checks here, in the end times, and am having lovely sex times with erotically gender strange creatrixii - a word like any other. While the world dissolves into a tangerine ice cream created by the whim of the last human minds to develop a plot point.

Re: All possible plots by major authors (2020)

#30

Post by bryanrasmussen »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #28
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

due to coming down from previous trip I realized that racism has infected fantasy like a virus, and the only way forward is poorly disguised Gormenghast pastiche. on edit: thinly veiled threat to write 500 more comments on this issue in the next few months.

due to my having survived the last 3 or 5000 comments, this part is somewhat hazy, I would just like to say that China Miéville is my legacy and he thinks of me as his literary father, which I am in a way, although I am a heroic loner from a forgotten race doomed to wander through HN writing comments for all eternity until I can finally destroy the Evil God who cursed me to do so and cash my royalty checks. on edit:…

OK, but what if it turns out - in the end of all this - I'm actually Jesus! huh!? Pretty cool right! Those drugs were so freaking worth it!! Now to pay off the mortgage I took out to afford the drugs!

on edit: I would like to detour into a very long series of comments in the following subtree of this site as to why Grant Morrison sucks and has ripped me off and is no good.

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