We went to Space. Then we went to war.
2323 was the year the Aligned Intelligent Species fell apart, and Earth fell prey to invasion. Battles were fought in Space and on a hundred worlds, on land and underwater. Humanity was unprepared, and victory by no means assured…
In a 100-page tribute to the classic 1970s collections of SF cover art, 2323: The First Terran Galactic War stitches together more than 300 spectacular colour artworks, 3D and AI, into a tale of interstellar conflict – remembering the future as it used to be.
The inspiration for 2323: The First Terran Galactic War goes all the way back to the 1970s, when even I was young. Stewart Cowley’s Terran Trade Authority handbooks – 1970s science fiction paperback covers assembled by a publisher’s editor and bound together by a new future-war narrative, starting with Spacecraft 2000 to 2100AD – inspired me to draw and eventually model and render spacecraft and space scenes. But it was slow work with no outlet, and I had many other interests.
Then along came AI: so-called artificial intelligence, algorithms designed to generate images using pretty much everything that had appeared on the internet up to 2021. Experimenting, I realised that with just a few weeks of work I could produce my own version of a TTA book, and with Amazon I could even publish – even if only for myself.
Should I, though?
Generative AI is the spinning jenny of our times. It will replace some of us whether we like it or not, just as we’ve already replaced others. We manipulate photographs on screens instead of hiring illustrators, push mice instead of hiring typesetters, render digital environments instead of building sets. Whatever we feel about it, AI will happen. I would never have paid someone to paint this book for me, so it’s not depriving anyone of that work, and frankly it’s not going to take any sales away from anything similar.
When I look at the TTA books next to my efforts, the sense that a person conceived and sculpted one and not the other, and admiration for that person’s talent and skill, are still there. Portrait painters and photographers co-exist.
I conceived and wrote 2323, and some of its visual content either is or contains my pre-AI labour, but I could never have found the time to make the book without AI. It’s my tribute, and it’s fun.
Although I can illustrate, I’m far more writer than illustrator, and I’m still absorbing the idea that before very long, AI will be able to write as well as I can. If it doesn’t replace me, it will at least compete with me.
Whether I like it or not.