They didn’t know they were exiling me to the future.”įirmin was the author of over forty books and won many literary prizes, including the Booker and the Edgar. “The Canadian military wanted to make an example of me,” Firmin once said, “so they exiled me to the least relevant place they could think of: Programming. As punishment, she was relegated to the field of programming where she began to write. In the early 1970s, she trained as a fighter pilot for the Royal Canadian Air Force but declared herself a pacifist after her training. She was the author of over forty books, including the critically acclaimed “Cybernetic Dreams,” “The Azure Grid,” “The Heart of the Machine,” and “The Last Virtual Frontier.” Her most famous book, “God, Inc.,” was a bestseller in over forty countries and has been adapted into ballets, operas, and hologram shows.įirmin’s journey to becoming an author was an unusual one. Peggy Firmin, renowned author and pioneer in the field of computing, passed away at the age of 80. He clicked on Peggy Firmin’s obituary in the online edition of The Globe and Mail, searching for answers, even though he knew he would find none. Gus Dupin sat in silence, staring out at the rolling lake, the surface rippling in the wind. Toronto Police are treating the incident as a homicide. The location was so remote that there were no witnesses to the crime. Gus sat down at a booth, opened his phone, and read the first news item that came up when he searched “Peggy Firmin”-a piece from CP24.Ĭanadian literary icon Peggy Firmin was found shot dead on a bridge on the Leslie Street Spit, a wilderness area on the East Side of Toronto, on August 14. With their faces fixed to their phones, the cottagers hardly noticed the white clouds scudding overhead or the pungent aroma of the placid lake water, absorbed in their own private information bubbles.
He eased into the marina and made his way to the Regency Cafe, which was already crowded.
His pocket started buzzing-Gus’s phone buzzed every time he passed the line where his phone service reconnected. So, the next morning, he steered his Boston Whaler across Stony Lake, relishing in its smooth surface as the warm sun beamed down and the gentle breeze cooled him. Gus usually enjoyed the solitude of being disconnected from the internet and phone.
It wasn’t the first time he had wondered what Peggy Firmin meant. He wondered what the invitation meant by Peggy Firmin giving her own eulogy. So, as he watched the motorboat carve the water in fine white curves, the filament of human contact retreating across the lake, the disappearing boat provoked disquiet and excitement in equal measure. He had retreated to Stony Lake to escape the responsibilities of his job as a professor teaching crime and cyber fiction at the University of Toronto and the agonies of his recent divorce. His cottage lacked an internet connection and phone service, and that was exactly how he liked it. Gus Dupin was not accustomed to receiving letters or messages of any kind. As she set off into the lake, she yelled “an honest-to-God letter” over her shoulder.
A girl in a bright yellow sundress jumped off and sprinted to his mailbox, dropping in an envelope before running back. Gus Dupin, walking along the stillness of Stony Lake in the gathering night, recognized the sleek motorboat approaching his dock. Read WIRED’ s policy on publishing AI-generated content here. This story is adapted from Death of an Author, a murder-mystery novella written by Aidan Marchine, a collaboration between author Stephen Marche and three artificial intelligence tools: ChatGPT, Sudowrite, and Cohere.
0 kommentar(er)
