The one book to read this summer *beep-boop-beep*
This is not an AI-generated piece. Like, I promise.
(Photo by tbretc.bsky.social)
Listen, I’m not gonna throw my whole CV at you, but I’ve been a freelancer for a very long time and have written–or still write!–for places like The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, NPR, Esquire, the Boston Globe, the San Francisco Chronicle, and a bunch of others. I’ve written and contributed to a LOT of lists over the last fifteen years. Best of the year lists. Summer lists. Lists about (insert something) authors you should know. Lists of the best (insert genre or strong element) novels ever. You know the deal. Anyway, every time I write one, I get hundreds of replies and reposts and private messages letting me what I missed and how dumb I am and how my list is bullshit. When this comes from passionate readers, I’m cool with it. In fact, I hope once in a while someone goes, “List of fifty new horror voices or whatever and Gabino isn’t on it?!” Hah. That must feel nice! Point is, I have my opinions and you have yours. Ah, but when the complaints come from an author and they’re saying they should’ve been on the list? Oh, fuck every author who does that, and I mean that disrespectfully.
Anyway! The Chicago Sun-Times published a list of the books folks should read this summer and Zero Saints isn’t on it and that is BULLSHIT. I mean, there are a lot of deserving books and I would’ve loved to write about them. I wouldn’t even put Zero Saints on it because I have journalistic integrity, you know? But Zero Saints should’ve been here because there’s a bunch of books on the list that DON’T FUCKING EXIST and I truly feel that BOOKS THAT DON’T FUCKING EXIST shouldn’t get more coverage that books that exist and were written by humans and everything.
I have a book coming in a few days and every waking minute is spent thinking about ways to help it do well, so of course this was the first post that came to mind, but I’m always criticizing AI. Because listen, someone “wrote” the list and didn’t check it because people who use AI don’ give a shit about the slop that comes out. That person had an “editor” that didn’t check it. Or no one checked it because there’s no time for editors and who even checks facts anymore, right? You can blame whomever you like, but it all goes back to fucking AI. To slop. It also ends with it. Don’t use it. It’s a dumb plagiarism machine that’s constantly wrong. And all this public shaming? Hah. They would’ve paid someone like me $200 or so for a list like this. Instead, you get cheap AI. Hope you check out Zero Saints and can’t wait to review all these BOOKS THAT DON’T EXIST!
Zero Saints is on my Summer Reading list. There I wrote that. Fuck the newspaper that paid for this AI bullshit. Fuck AI
I remember, once upon a time, newspapers had these people called editors who would fact check what authors put in. I know this, because I experienced it first-hand. I also watched as my college roommate, who worked for a competing newspaper had her ass handed to her by Nancy Grace of all people for not fact checking her work and publishing a story that later turned out to be false. Sure, she wrote for a few more years, but that more or less destroyed her credibility. So, here, instead of losing faith in a reporter, we're tossing out an entire newspaper because they decided saving a few bucks was more important than fact checking. I hate this new world we live in. But, all that said, I am so excited to read your new book!