We have 178 guests and no members online
We were to drive to Poland from Berlin. In September and October 2014 were in Berlin to meet and spend some time with my new grandson, Leander. But because we were concerned that we might be a burden to entertain for a whole month-and-a-half, what with the demands of a five month old baby and so on, we had pre-planned a number of side-trips. The last of these was to Poland.
To pick up the car that I had booked months before, we caught the U-Bahn from Magdalenenstraße, close to Emily's home in Lichtenberg, to Alexanderplatz. Quick - about 15 minutes - and easy.
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?
Most commentators expect that traditional print media will be replaced in the very near future by electronic devices similar to the Kindle, pads and phones. Some believe, as a consequence, that the very utility of traditional books and media will change irrevocably as our ability to appreciate them changes. At least one of them is profoundly unsettled by this prospect; that he argues is already under way.