Future shocks
The Resistance: Digital Dissent in the Age of Machines By Joel Achenbach (Diversion Books; $2.99)
In this clear, fascinating summary of the arguments for and against machine intelligence, Washington Post reporter Joel Achenbach presents the views of digital utopians and especially of dissenters, and augurs an unsettling future. The utopians promise “the coming of an era of transhumanism that we cannot possibly imagine,” while the dissenters don’t buy that the word “human” will have much of a place in a world run by machines.
Dissenters’ predictions range from the worrisome to the apocalyptic: Unemployment and economic inequality will rise as labor becomes increasingly automated, people will lose their sense of connection and community as they fall ever further into the gaze of their devices, and we will unwittingly “trade our privacy for free Internet service” and become worker bees in a sharing economy where, according to Douglas Rushkoff, “we are the content. We are the data. We are the media.”
And in the most unthinkable scenarios, the unchecked rise of autonomous weaponized machines will lead to mass annihilation. “Anyone looking for something to worry about in the near future,” writes Achenbach, “might want to consider the opposite of superintelligence: super-stupidity.” In our attempt to master machines, are we unwittingly coding our own obsolescence?
Not Coming Soon to a Theater Near You By Neal Pollack (Amazon Digital Services; $2.99)
When Neal Pollack moved from Austin to Los Angeles in 2006, his writing career was at its peak. His satirical novel, “The Neal Pollack Anthology of American Literature,” had garnered a cult following, and he had toured the country and world. He had opened for They Might Be Giants, and David Byrne had backed him on bongos during a spoken-word poetry jam. His fourth book, “Alternadad,” was about to come out, so the time seemed ripe to turn the Pollack name into a “billion-dollar comedy empire.”
At first everything fell into place. He found a house and a trendy preschool in Silver Lake for his son. He landed a hot agent and was soon rubbing shoulders with J.J. Abrams, Albert Brooks, Matt Groening and Matthew Weiner. But a fatal error and a twist of fate did him in. While his agent was out of contact, he mistakenly signed away his name to Warner Bros. for a pittance, and within days of delivering a pilot to CBS, the Writers Guild launched a strike against the studios, throwing the brakes on his momentum. Pollack is the perfect narrator for this outsider’s inside look at Hollywood: funny, smart, self-effacing, happy to skewer sacred cows and willing to name names.
Satchel Paige and the Championship for the Reelection of the General By Jonathan Blitzer (The Atavist; 2.99)
Satchel Paige was arguably the greatest pitcher of his generation, one of the hardest and most accurate throwers of all time and certainly the biggest draw in the Negro Leagues. He would finally make the majors in 1948, at age 42, a year after Jackie Robinson broke the baseball color line, and he would go on to help the Cleveland Indians win the World Series. But Blitzer’s story takes place 11 years earlier, when Paige and many of his teammates from the Pittsburgh Crawfords signed contracts to play in the Dominican Republic.
This was seven years into the nearly three-decade reign of Rafael Trujillo, and the Generalissimo had decided to put on a baseball tournament in the run-up to presidential elections. “He enjoyed the formality of the vote, all the better for his personal pageantry. ”
Paige played for the dictator’s team, and soon learned that he was to win at all costs. During one close game, in a less-than-subtle message to pitch well or else, Trujillo ordered troops to surround the field. Another time, he threw Paige in jail in order to keep him from staying out late before a big game. More than a footnote in history, Blitzer’s story underscores the political, social and economic forces at work in America’s favorite pastime.
Day One Stories by Julia LoFaso, Cady Vishniac, Monica Macansantos and Cecilia M. Fernandez (Amazon Digital Services; $.99)
The annual Best New American Voices Anthology used to be the place to find some of the finest fiction writing emerging out of the MFA workshops, but it ceased publication in 2010. Besides the literary magazines, which have always led the way in discovering fresh talent, Amazon’s Day One, a weekly e-journal featuring short stories and poems from debut writers, is attempting to fill the void.
Recent highlights include “After the Beauties,” by Julia LoFaso, about a tropical island under quarantine after a deadly parasite infects the waters; “Questions I Don’t Ask Bubby,” by Cady Vishniac, about a Holocaust survivor who plans to undergo a risky surgery to restore her youth; “Playing With Dolls,” by Monica Macansantos, about a Filipino family brought to reckoning when the father runs off with the maid; and “Flags and Rafts,” by Cecilia M. Fernandez, about two long-lost lovers, one in Miami, one in Cuba, trying to reunite, with over a hundred miles of shark-infested waters between them. The variety of form, setting, situation and subject matter in Day One is impressive, and the writing is consistently fresh and interesting, challenging the tired criticism that fiction workshops churn out a predictable type of safe, quiet, mannerly story.