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Thank you to dark.shelf.of.wonders and Books Are The New Black for submitting this theme!
One of the unfortunate consequences of the rise of large language models is how they anre impacting the indie and self-published corners of the bookish community. I’m seeing more and more authors from these sectors use LLMs not only to design their book covers but also to help write or even sometimes do all of the work of writing their stories. (This is something I know because many of them actually admit to it!).
I am morally opposed to the use of LLMs in general because of how harmful they are to the environment, the widespread theft of written and visual imagery that was used to create them, and the devastating number of people who have lost their jobs as a result of these things. Therefore, the number of indie and self-published authors I review on my blog is seeing a steady and probably permanent decline. As committed as I used to be to featuring authors that needed such exposure, I can’t ethically continue to do so under current conditions.
You have the right to your own opinion on this topic, of course, but I will only be approving kind and respectful replies here.
So this post is looking back at a happier time before all of that stuff started happening. Here are ten self-published books I’ve reviewed here in the recent past. To the best of my knowledge, no LLMs were used in the creation of them.
The links below will take you to my reviews of these stories!
1. Homeless by Neil Shooter
2. Love Bug by Zoe Tasia
3. Five Miles Out Of Black Creek by Neil Shooter
4. Amina by P.B. Cannon
5. Marginal Worlds by Alfred Bekker
6. Cosmophobia by George Saoulidis
7. Mayday Mayday Mayday by Holly Schindler
8. Beach House on the Moon byLeigh Kimmel
9. Chasing June by Holly Schindler
10. A Hundred Julys by Holly Schindler
Title: The Bloody Road to Castle Dracula – Explore the History of Vampires & the Inspiration Behind Bram Stoker’s Masterpiece
I wish we lived in a world where Warp Drives really existed as well so we could travel faster than the speed of light and see more of the universe. Right now we are only capable of traveling to the moon which, while still a noteworthy place to explore, doesn’t have any life on it.
Title: 
Now that you’ve all had a chance to read it for yourselves, this tale was about a young man who was meeting up with a landlady who happened to have a room available to rent to him. She was a rather strange woman who seemed to be obsessed with taxidermy. The story ends with the young man drinking a cup of tea she offered him that tasted faintly of bitter almonds.
Unless you want to hear stories about me reading encyclopedias from the 1960s at my grandmother’s house when I was a child, I’ll have to tweak this topic a little in order to participate. 
Title: 
I do not like alcohol (and have medical reasons to avoid it now anyway), so any wine, beer, or other alcoholic beverage made in Ontario isn’t something I will be imbibing.
