This is the index for Geoff Davis’s print books, computer story generators, creative writing software, etc.
Generated or processed texts
Above: MA4 Story Generator by Geoff Davis (Micro Arts MA4 1984)
MA4 Story Generator – work shown above, see Geoff Davis Micro Arts MA4 Story Generator
I have been experimenting with computer generated text for a long time. My first release was the MA4 Story Generator for home micros, which was also available on Prestel, the UK nationwide teletext system. This was an endless generator of new stories from my original short story ‘Cow Boils Head’ about Mad Cow Disease BSE (another virus – all of England’s cows were incinerated – so why do people moan about wearing face masks?).
Print books are below.
New computer generated stories
I’ve generated versions of classic (old) texts, and few other things, using an OpenAI GPT-2 text generator and my new (2020) online creative editor Story Live (with Fabrice Bellard). I am now working with GPT-3 beta.
- The Distant Shout of the Great Storm (Tower of Doom Episode 1)
- Born Into Slavery
- Stanley Lying In His Lap
- Why Don’t Cannibals Eat Clowns?
- All The Rubbish of a Great City
- A Mountain of Pent Up Tears
- The Bloody Tale (Tower of Doom 2)
Print Books
These are my physical print books. The novella ‘Death In The Bubble World‘ (from Em Publishing) will be republished 2021 with ‘remixes’ made using a sentiment analyser along with the Story Live text generator.
PEN International New Fiction (Quartet), edited by Peter Ackroyd. My short African Story. Lots of new writers, Ben Okri, Deborah Levy, Clare Boylan, Meira Chand, Tom McCarthy, Iain Sinclair.
Nnn Goes Mobile, novel (Juma Print). Cyberpunk, mildly satirical. Distributed by Forbidden Planet. Came with a computer game on disk, coded by Robert Mettler, which was on Arts Council UK Hub – this was released on a disk see below.
Death in the Bubble World
Death in the Bubble World is a short novel published by Em Foundation in the late 1990s, serialised in the books Em 1,2 and 3, edited by Karl Sinfield. A literary book series (like Granta) with a music cassette and later CD of new bands. Also included Hanif Kureishi and others. There was a Bubble World online animation by Paul Greenfield (see images below). To be republished with ‘remixes’ generated version in 2021.
Death In The Bubble World (G Davis 1997) is now readable on this site
Easy Money Units – EMUs.
In the Bubble World story I invented an virtual currency called Easy Money Units or EMUs. This was stored in ‘handbags’ and was used for various dodgy deals conducted by small-time fraudsters, criminals and gangsters. At the time I thought it was a daftest thing I had ever put in a story. So when along came cryptocurrency it seemed equally ridiculous. Doh!
The Green Eco Building Book (Story Software). This came out of my time developing and building eco houses. Was converted into a large website BuildingDIY.com
Creativity Support Software CST – story board app
Story boarding and notes software with a large canvas and zooming interface (ZUI) software invented in my research Masters in Electronic Arts at Cat Hill Campus, Middlesex University. See original notes on the zooming application.
This software is commercially released as Story Lite (text only version) and Notes Story Board v2.2 (images and text, current version). Story Turbo has been retired.
Calm as a Dead Clam multimedia fiction using the new zooming interface with sort (Middlesex University).