Fans suspect cover elements of new illustrated edition of ‘A Feast for Crows’ generated with AI

  • jordanlund@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    This is really on the line for world news.

    American author, American artist, the only thing that barely qualifies it here is the Penguin half of Penguin/Random House is a UK Publisher and the conglomerate itself is owned out of Germany.

    Allowing it for now, but it’s right on the line.

    • ZoteTheMighty@lemmy.zip
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      6 hours ago

      I didn’t know it was illegal for Europeans to read or even know about Game of Thrones. Is all news involving american citizens automatically categorized as “american news”?

      • jordanlund@lemmy.world
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        3 hours ago

        It’s not “Illegal”, it’s that World was concieved and operates as a space free of US news.

        There’s PLENTY of US news all over the rest of lemmy and we wanted a space where non-US news can’t be drowned out.

        If we allowed it, it would rapidly become another US news echo chamber and at that point no different from !news@lemmy.world

    • nogooduser@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Would you not consider an author who sold millions of books worldwide to be qualification enough for world news?

      As a non American I wouldn’t mind articles about American authors in world news. It would have to be those with a high international profile though which gives the problem about where the line is.

        • kbobabob@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          8 hours ago

          This is a bad example IMO

          A car accident doesn’t impact anything globally though. A book being sold worldwide with likely the same concerns worldwide is completely different.

      • scarabic@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Agreed. It is highly reductive to refer to GRRM merely as “American author.” His works have been translated into over 45 languages, and he has won award in (at least) England, Ireland, France, Spain, Russia, Japan, and Finland, not to mention multiple wins from highly international completions like the Hugo and Nebula awards, the International Horror Guild, and Time Magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people in the world. He is one of the most popular authors of all time and if there is a line where someone crosses over into international relevance, we could debate where that line is, but there should be absolutely no doubt that he is far past it.

  • Masamune@lemmy.world
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    19 hours ago

    I mean. If AI is getting involved here, let’s just upload all the current GoT novels, the screenplays from the HBO shows that pick up where the books end, and tell chatgpt or whatever to adapt the remaining screenplays following the style of the novels. Maybe specify a minimum length of 2,500 pages to be safe.

    Let’s not even bother to proofread it because it should absolutely remain garbage slop to reflect the quality of the show’s ending. Might as well add a pretty picture for the cover art too, for good measure.

  • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
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    2 days ago

    Tangentially:

    George RR Martin says he is three quarters of the way through The Winds of Winter

    George RR Martin is asymptotically approaching the completion of the next book in the series, while simultaneously aging in linear time, which presents fairly obvious problems.

      • Siegfried@lemmy.world
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        7 hours ago

        Imo, He was overly hyped and he knows it. The second he releases the ending (which at this point, I believe originally didn’t differ much from what we saw in the show), he will be done.

        I can’t judge him, I would be also spacing the fuck out of the last book.

    • cecilkorik@lemmy.ca
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      2 days ago

      He should finish up what he’s already got by writing “Actually I just don’t care anymore. The End” and leave the last quarter of the book blank pages. Probably better than anything else he’s going to come up with at this point, and as a bonus it will fit perfectly with the ending of the show.

      • Siegfried@lemmy.world
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        7 hours ago

        He could make any character just say “you know what? Fuck it, finish it yourself” and then blank pages…

      • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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        23 hours ago

        I was wondering why he just doesn’t cut the manuscript in 1/2, publish the first as “Part 1” and re-set his publication clock.

        Apparently he has somewhere between 1,100 and 1,200 pages completed.

        But as he explained elsewhere, he doesn’t write linearlly. He focuses on one point of view “chapter” and then that informs other point of view chapters, so there’s a lot of back and forth.

        So 1,100 to 1,200 finished pages doesn’t mean a cohesive narrative.

        So here’s my story… Not a fan. I found the first book to be a slog with nothing happening for the first 400 pages. Lots of people sitting around in rooms talking.

        I also didn’t care much for any of the characters and from that point on chose only to read the Jon and Arya chapters.

        So when I hit Arya discovering the aftermath of the Red Wedding I was like “Well, clearly I missed something…” Backtracked and read that chapter and went “Well… glad I wasn’t invested in THAT character!”

        From a non-linear creative process, imagine if he wrote the Arya chapter first. I don’t know that that’s how he specifically did it, but he’s describing a similar process on the new book.

        Now he has to go back and write that whole thing that he described the aftermath of.

        It wouldn’t be publishable without it.

      • tal@lemmy.today
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        2 days ago

        https://www.workableweb.com/_pages/tips_how_to_write_good.htm

        All too often, the budding author finds that his tale has run its course and yet he sees no way to satisfactorily end it, or, in literary parlance, “wrap it up.” Observe how easily I resolve this problem:

        Suddenly, everyone was run over by a truck.
        -the end-

        If the story happens to be set in England, use the same ending, slightly modified:

        Suddenly, everyone was run over by a lorry.
        -the end-

        If set in France:

        Soudainement, tout le monde etait écrasé par un camion.
        -finis-

        You’ll be surprised at how many different settings and situations this ending applies to. For instance, if you were writing a story about ants, it would end “Suddenly, everyone was run over by a centipede.” In fact, this is the only ending you ever need use.¹

        ¹ Warning - if you are writing a story about trucks, do not have the trucks run over by a truck. Have the trucks run over by a mammoth truck.

        • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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          23 hours ago

          That’s how the Narnia books end funnily enough.

          “And everyone died in a train crash, the end!”

          Sorry if I spoiled the ending of a 70+ year old book series. 😉

          The worst are the books that just don’t have an ending. I had that with Stephen King’s “Cell”. Fantastic premise, an alien information virus hijacks cell phone signals to turn people into mindless zombies building something.

          What are they building? 🤷‍♂️
          Were the heroes successful in stopping it? 🤷‍♂️
          What the hell happened? 🤷‍♂️

          It’s like King went “Oh, shit, the deadline is today? Fine, pack it up and ship it.”

          For the film version they had to invent a new ending because the book just doesn’t have one, it stops, but no ending.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_(novel)

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_(film)

        • ivanovsky@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          Is getting hit by a truck really the end? Or just the beginning?

          Isekai genre: Allow me to introduce myself.

  • tankplanker@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    If I remember correctly they were doing an illustrated version of the book each year and then the series got delayed because they fell out with the orginal illustrator.

    So it would make sense that this one would be shit, because even if its not AI errors like this are basic shit to get right, because I believe the dispute was over money.

  • Diddlydee@feddit.uk
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    2 days ago

    Cool and all, but no thanks.

    Finish the goddamned series we’ve been waiting decades for.

  • HeyJoe@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    This timeline sucks… we really have to answer to people who suspect something may be AI now because it’s too hard to tell sometimes? I kind of wish I was an artist, I would be adding extra fingers to everything just to get a reaction.

    • the_q@lemmy.zip
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      2 days ago

      So in your opinion the problem is people worrying about something being AI generated and not the continued use and force feeding of AI into every aspect of life by corps feeding one another into an economic and ecological disaster? Hmm?

      • HeyJoe@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        No, my problem is that we are at the point where we probably need to put labels on everything to officially certify it’s not AI. Otherwise, everyone will just claim its AI.

        Obviously, if the choice was no AI at all, then, of course, that should be the standard, but that’s never going to happen ever again.

        • njm1314@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          Why is that a problem? AI having to come with labels sounds great. It’s both an obvious good and an obviously correct step to take. In a world with leaders who we’re worth anything it would have happened immediately. The second deep fakes became possible an intelligent society would have immediately said all AI production has to be labeled.

          • HeyJoe@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            So do only AI pics come with watermarks or do all things now need to come with a real and not real label. You pick up a book, and it has a label across the cover saying not generated by AI. Will there be a board created for people to certify its authenticity? Will that now cost people extra to have this verified? Yeah, that sounds great. Instead of simplifying things, it sounds like it just gets harder and harder like usual.

            • njm1314@lemmy.world
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              2 days ago

              Why would you need a “not AI” label? Your argument is approaching absurdity. If something is produced by AI it should come labeled. 100% no exceptions. It’s not difficult.

              • HeyJoe@lemmy.world
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                2 days ago

                This article is about people not believing the cover is real. You think as soon as you start labeling just AI pics people won’t just assume the ones that aren’t weren’t lying without being verified? And yeah, it is absurd, but if you really believe people won’t think that way, then I guess you have more faith in them than I do.

                • njm1314@lemmy.world
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                  2 days ago

                  Oh I have one. Since stupid people exist why have laws at all. Why not allow people to marry dogs. Am I playing the game right?