Chapter 32 chapter eight

"We sell it," Terena said, "just one copy. The moment the book was sent to them by the metalight, millions of artificial intelligences probably shared it in real time. When dealing with those silicon chips, the interstellar copyright Not worth the fart." "Okay," I said, plunging back into my chair, "what's next?" Outside, lightning bolts were as wide as Oldland's ancient superhighways, dancing among corporate spiers and cloud towers. Terena got up from the desk and walked to the edge of the carpet circle.Her body field flickered, like conductive oil on water. "Next," she said, "you decide: to be a writer, or to be the biggest masturbator on the World Wide Web."

"what?" "You know what I'm talking about," Terena turned and smiled.Her teeth were tipped with gold. "According to the contract, we can recover the advance payment in any way we want. Confiscate your assets in UnionPay, recover the gold coins you hid in Liberty Homeland, sell that flashy Far Evangelion Home, and that's about it. Then You can go to Billy the Sad King, doesn’t he always collect such talents no matter where he goes, such as amateurs in art, guys who quit halfway, mental illness or something.” I was dumbfounded. "Furthermore," she said, showing that inhuman smile, "we can also forget about this temporary setback, and you can also continue with your next work."

My next work was in print in five standard months. "The Dying Earth Volume II" begins immediately after the ending of the first part. This time, it is written into an easy-to-understand article. The length of the sentences and the content of the chapters have been carefully scrutinized. It was passed through a test group composed of 638 ordinary readers. , were revised on the basis of their neurobiologically supervised responses.This book is written in the form of a novel, which is very short and will not deter potential buyers in front of the food market sales counter. The cover is a 21-second holographic interactive screen. In the screen, a tall and dark stranger (I guess it is A Malfi Schwartz, though Amalfi is short and white and wears corrective glasses) rips the corset of a struggling woman down to her bustline, and the defiant blonde turns to the reader, The breathless cry for help is voiced by holographic porn star Rita Swan.

"The Dying Earth Volume II" sold 19 million copies. "Not bad," Terena said, "so many readers in a short time." "The first Dying Earth sold three billion copies," I said. "The Pilgrim's Progress," she said, ". One a century. Maybe less." "But it sold for a full three billion..." "Look," Terena said, "in the old days of the 20th century, some fast food chain used dead beef, fried it, added some carcinogens, wrapped it in petroleum-based plastic, and sold it for 900 billion. Human beings will show off."

"Dying Earth Volume 3" introduces several characters, Winona, a runaway slave girl who later rose to prominence and became the owner of a fiber plastic plantation (don't worry, fiber plastic is not a viable species on the old ground ), Atro Red Tomb, the brave blockade runner (what blockade?!), and Wu Koo Sperry, a nine-year-old psychic near death with an unspecified case of Nell's disease .Wu Gu lived until "The Dying Earth Volume 9", and then Chaoxian asked me to kill this little bastard.On the day Wu Gu died, I stepped out of the house and came to twenty worlds, drinking and having fun, celebrating for six days in a row.Waking up at last in the lungs of Heaven's Gate, covered in vomit and heavy-breathing mold, pregnant with the worst headaches on the Web, convinced that soon I'll be starting Chapter 1 of Chronicles of a Dying Earth Ten volumes.

It is not difficult to be a scribbler for hire. The six standard years between Dying Earth Volume 2 and Dying Earth Volume 9 have been relatively painless.These novels are very superficial, with corny plots, cardboard characters, and shitty writing.I have my own free time.I traveled and married twice; each wife left me not with much pain but with a handsome paycheck to share the royalties from my next Dying Earth.I ventured in religion and booze, finding more solace in the latter. I kept my home and added six more rooms in five worlds filled with beautiful art.I love so much.There are writers among my acquaintances, but, as in all ages, we tend to be suspicious of each other, abuse each other, secretly resent the success of others, and find fault with their work.Each of us knows in his heart that he is the real word artist who just happens to write some commercial work; the others are hired writers.

Then, one cool morning, with my bedroom swaying slightly on the high boughs of Saints' World, I awoke to a gray sky and realized: my muse had fled. I haven't written poetry for five years. The "Psalms" is spread out in the tower of Sibing in Tianjin. Apart from the published ones, only a few pages have been completed.I've been using a thought processor to write my novel.As I entered the study, one of them started to move.Heck, it printed out.What have I done to my muse? It says that there is something in the style of my current work that makes my muse escape, without anyone noticing it.There are those who never write, those who are never excited by the creative urge, and telling them about the Muse is like a figure of speech, like a fantastic fantasy.But for those of us who live on words, our muse is real, it is everything to us, like the clay of language with which we sculpt.When one writes (and that is real writing), it is as if the gods are sending him superluminous messages.The real poet, after his mind has become a tool such as a pen or a thought processor, processes those discoveries that come from nowhere and expresses them. The joy at that time cannot be expressed in words. Express.

However, my muse escaped.I ran to my otherworldly home and searched for it, but on the walls adorned with art, in the empty rooms, only silence resounded.I teleported to my favorite place, watched the sun set into the windswept prairie, the night fog covered the black cliffs of Yongpu star, but although I hollowed out my endless pile of "dying" Earth's garbage mind, my muse still has no sound. I searched for it in alcohol, in flashbacks, back to those productive days at Heaven's Gate, when inspiration kept buzzing in my ears, interrupting my work, calling me out of sleep. Awake, but during these recurring days and nights, her voice is silent, chaotic, like a damaged audio disk from a forgotten century.

My muse has escaped. I was transmitted to Tyrena Green Wing Fei's office as scheduled.Terena has been promoted from Chief Editor of the Hard Communications Department to the position of Publisher.Her new office occupies the highest level of the superline spire at the center of the whale, where it stands as if perched on the spire of the highest carpeted mountain in the galaxy; only the invisible dome of the slightly polarizing containment field arches overhead. , the edge of the carpet terminates at a 6,000-meter vertical.I wondered if other authors would have the urge to jump down. "Is it a new work?" Terena asked.This week, Luthers dominates the style universe, and "dominant" is the right word; my editor wears leather irons, rusty spikes around her wrists and neck, giant ammo belts from Her shoulders spanned across her left chest.The ammunition looked genuine.

"Yes." After I finished speaking, I threw the box containing the manuscript on her desk. "Martin, Martin, Martin," she sighed, "when will you transmit your books to me instead of printing them out and sending them all the way here yourself?" "I get a strange satisfaction in delivering them myself," I said, "especially this one." "Oh?" "Yes," I said, "why don't you read it?" Terena laughed, tapping the cartridges in the ammo belt with her black nails. "I know, Martin, it's certainly up to your highest standards," she said. "I don't know it without reading it."

"Please read it," I said. "Really," Terena said, "I don't know why. It always makes me uncomfortable to read a new book in front of the original author." "This work won't," I said, "you just have to read the first few pages." She must have heard something in my tone.She frowned slightly and opened the box.She read the first page and flipped through the rest of the manuscript, her brow furrowed even tighter. The first page contained only one sentence: "Then, one beautiful morning in October, the dying earth swallowed its own entrails, convulsed one last time, and died." The remaining two hundred and ninety-nine pages were empty. "Are you joking, Martin?" "No." "Is that a sneaky hint? Are you going to start a new series?" "No." "Martin, we've anticipated that. Our story planners have several series ideas for you, all very exciting. Mr. Sabowitz thinks you could write a novel for the holographic film Scarlet Avenger, which would be great Extremely." "You can stick 'Crimson Avenger' on your own corporate ass," I said heartily, "I'm done with Hyperline, I'm done with that pre-chew you call fiction." Terena's expression didn't change.Her teeth were no longer sharp; today they are rusted iron to match the spikes on her wrists and neck. "Martin, Martin, Martin," she sighed, "you apologize Correct, talk carefully, otherwise, you don’t know how you will finish the game. But you can wait until tomorrow to talk about it. Go home, wake up, think about it, how about it?” I laughed out loud. "I've been sober for eight years, ma'am. It only took me a moment to realize that I'm not the only one writing these scumbags... There isn't a single book coming out on the Ring this year that isn't downright rubbish. Ha, However, I intend to disembark your thief ship." Terena stood up.I noticed for the first time, on the belt of her simulated sail net, a military death stick.I expected it to be an engineered fake, like everything else about the costume. "Listen, you poor wretch, you incompetent hired bookman," she said with contempt on her face, "Superline owns everything in your body. If you dare to talk nonsense again, we will send you to the Gott Roman factory Work, I'll name you Rosemary Titmouse. Come home now, get sober, and get on with your Dying Earth Volume Ten." I smiled and shook my head.