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Critter Notices
Books from Critters!
Check out Books by Critters for books by your fellow
Critterfolk, as well as my list of recommended books for writers.
The Sigil Trilogy
If you're looking for an amazing, WOW! science fiction story, check out THE SIGIL TRILOGY. This is — literally — one of the best science fiction novels I've ever read.Space Travel for SF Writers
Hot off the presses from ReAnimus Press! Space Travel - A Science Fiction Writer's Guide— An indispensible tool for all SF writers that explains the science you need to help you make your fiction plausible. (Also via Amazon)
Interviewed!
I was interviewed live on public radio for Critters' birthday, for those who want to listen.
Free Web Sites
Free web sites for authors (and others) are available at www.nyx.net.
ReAnimus Acquires Advent!
ReAnimus Press is pleased to announce the acquisition of the legendary Advent Publishers! Advent is now a subsidiary of ReAnimus Press, and we will continue to publish Advent's titles under the Advent name. Advent was founded in 1956 by Earl Kemp and others, and has published the likes of James Blish, Hal Clement, Robert Heinlein, Damon Knight, E.E. "Doc" Smith, and many others. Advent's high quality titles have won and been finalists for several Hugo Awards, such as The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy and Heinlein's Children. Watch this space for ebook and print editions of all of Advent's current titles!
Book Recommendation
THE SIGIL TRILOGY:
The universe is dying from within...
"Great stuff... Really enjoyed it." — SFWA Grandmaster Michael Moorcock
Announcing ReAnimus Press
If you're looking for great stuff to read from bestselling and award-winning authors—look no further! ReAnimus Press was founded by your very own Critter Captain. (And with a 12% Affiliate program.) [More]
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FEATURED BOOK
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Critters Policy on AI
I. AI-generated Critiques
Definitely a hard No.
The point of Critters is for you, as a human creator, to improve your craft. Doing critiques of others is fully half the value toward improving your own craft, since you learn to see problems in your own work by seeing them in others. If you aren't identifying what works and what doesn't by critiquing others, you aren't helping yourself. So you're probably just cheating the system to get your own work critiqued.
It's also likely a copyright violation, since you don't have the rights to feed someone else's work into an AI. Don't do it.
Thus the policy about using AI for creating critiques is: Hard No. You must do all your own analysis and critiquing, no software tools. (Unless you yourself are an AI, of course. That would be a different matter. The point is, no using external tools in critiques. The creator has to do all the work in a critique.)
II. Getting AI-generated Content Critiqued
Right now, there doesn't seem to be much AI-generated content in Critters. So long as it remains 99% human created content, the following policy will apply, as explained...
The point of Critters is for each member to improve their craft (of their own creations), so it doesn't make a lot of sense to submit AI-generated stories to get critiqued. If you didn't put in the hard work to create it, like, what's the point? And I don't want to see a lot of resources diverted to critiqueing AI content that otherwise would go toward critiqueing human created art.
Critters is arguably about not just art but financial reward for art (e.g. becoming a "professional" writer), so a case could be made that someone wants to see if the AI-generated stuff they have is good enough to maybe make them money. It's sad to see art being taken away from humans as way to (try to) make a living.
But clearly AI tools are here, and people will use them to create things. Some people argue that if it's good, it's good, regardless how it was created. So, yeah, that may be.
So for now, Critters policy is to identify what sort of AI/software assistance was used to create a submission.
Thus: Place notes in the "URGENT reviewer notes and AI usage notes" box of the submission form a description of any AI or other non-trivial software you used to create the submission. A spell checker or grammar checker doesn't count, that's trivial. If ChatGPT wrote the story, you gotta say that. Explain why you've used AI rather than doing your own work as a human. Motivation matters: If you're just trying to earn a buck and not really become a writer, for example, say so, so that critiquers can make the call whether to allocate their critique resources to you that would be taken away from human created work.
Individual critiquers can decide whether it's an issue for them and choose not to critique a piece if this goes against their grain.
Obviously if Critters gets so much AI content submissions that it's taking resources away from human created content, then I'll take a more aggressive step and ban AI content.
(And if this goes the other way, and humans are replaced such that few humans create art and most of the demand is to review AI work, then the policy should reflect that.)
Ultimately, I see the policy as being that Critters is here to help the creator improve their craft. Critters can't help AIs improve (at least, until they start directly using the service without humans involved), so at this point Critters is here to help humans improving their human craft.
