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Fiction
The Time Lord - Download
- Details
- Written by: Richard_McKie
- Parent Category: Ideas
- Category: Fiction
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A short story
The Bangkok Sky-train, that repetition of great, grey megaliths of ferroconcrete looms above us.
All along the main roads, under the overhead railway above, small igloo tents and market stalls provide a carnival atmosphere to Bangkok. It’s like a giant school fete - except that people are getting killed – half a dozen shot and a couple of grenades lobbed-in to date.
Periodically, as we pass along the pedestrian thronged roads, closed to all but involved vehicles, we encounter flattop trucks mounted with huge video screens or deafening loud speakers.
The Craft is an e-novel about Witchcraft in a future setting. It's a prequel to my dystopian novella: The Cloud: set in the the last half of the 21st century - after The Great Famine.
As I was writing The Cloud, I imagined that in fifty years the great bulk of the population will rely on their Virtual Personal Assistant (VPA), hosted in The Cloud, evolved from the primitive Siri and Cortana assistants available today. Owners will name their VPA and give him or her a personalised appearance, when viewed on a screen or in virtual-reality.
VPAs have obviated the need for most people to be able to read or write or to be numerate. If a text or sum is within view of a Cloud-connected camera, one can simply ask your VPA who will tell you what it says or means in your own language, explaining any difficult concepts by reference to the Central Encyclopaedia.
The potential to give the assistant multi-dimensional appearance and a virtual, interactive, body suggested the evolution of the: 'Sexy Business Assistant'. Employing all the resources of the Cloud, these would be super-smart and enhance the owner's business careers. Yet they are insidiously malicious, bankrupting their owners and causing their deaths before evaporating in a sea of bits. But who or what could be responsible? Witches?
With the invention of the first practical steam engines at the turn of the seventeenth century, and mechanical energy’s increasing utility to replace the physical labour of humans and animals, human civilisation took a new turn.
Now when a contemporary human catches public transport to work; drives the car to socialise with friends or family; washes and dries their clothes or the dishes; cooks their food; mows their lawn; uses a power tool; phones a friend or associate; or makes almost anything; they use power once provided by slaves, servants or animals.