Not only were the AI pieces overall rated better, once again we humans were no better than random chance at correctly telling apart AI from human-written fiction.
Results here: https://mark—lawrence.blogspot.com/2025/08/the-ai-vs-authors-results-part-2.html

The exercise was really interesting, and I’m really grateful to the OP who alerted the subreddit to this the other day, https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/1mry334/mark_lawrence_has_pitted_ai_vs_human_authors/
because I personally haven’t seen any AI fiction work as I tend to stay away from AI content generally, and have mostly seen AI stuff in academic/professional contexts so I’m more used to seeing its “tells” there. Spoilers ahead if you haven’t gone to take the test yourself.

For the stories, I was trying to use the following ideas to ‘tell’ AI from human:
- whether the intro was too exposition-y
- inconsistencies of details, or superfluous details that a real writer …

People that treat the job as an actual job, and ideally not power fantasies where they’re one man armies but use deception and subterfuge to accomplish their goals.

Bonus points if there’s a good character arc for them.

Despite having the word assassin in a lot of the titles, Robin Hobb’s books are not what I’m looking for because there’s very little actual assassin work in them.

Technically it’s an anime, but it’s the best urban fantasy worldbuilding I’ve ever seen. And i needed to talk about it with this subreddit.

One of the things Ive seen almost across the board is a science/magic divide. Like dresden files possits magic literally makes post 90s tech malfunction and explains it in world. And for Dresden it works. But so much urban fantasy feels like the magic world is still living in the 40s or the 20s. Which doesn’t really make sense if you think about it too long.

For anyone unaware Dandadan is a shonen anime about two kids. A guy who believes in sci fi and UMAs and stuff, a girl who believes yokai and curses. And what happens when it turns out they are both right. (There’s some really wacky and weird shit that happens, just go with it, you’ll fall in love).

For example there’s something that happend in last week’s episode. So the good guys are trying to do a big exorcism. The priestess is in like …

https://mark—lawrence.blogspot.com/2025/08/so-is-ai-writing-any-good-part-2.html

Mark Lawrence has repeated his past ‘experiment’ and posted 8 flash fiction stories on his blog, some written by established human authors, some from AI prompts (he outlines that input).

Vote on each story to see if you can tell which were human made and which are clankers, and also: pick your favorite.

This is Mark’s PART II on the issue - just how good are the machines at reassembly and how does this regurgitated/recombinant algorithm play against genuine, human originality?

Basically the question. What fantasy works have stood out to you as far as being entertaining AND well-written? Include sub-genre as applicable.

Sally Rooney is a somewhat divisive author, but whether you enjoy her work or not you have to admire someone who takes a stand for what they believe in and to hell with the consequences.

Been best friends with this guy for many years now. Reading has never really been something he was that interested in - he’s always been more of a sports, video games and anime kinda guy. Never looked down on reading or anything - just wasn’t something he enjoyed doing.

Over the past year or so though, he’s started to show a bit more interest in sci-fi. A lot of it was due to me pestering him to watch The Expanse and Foundation lol. He then asked for me some good beginner hard sci-fi to start reading - seems like he really enjoys the grounded and somewhat realistic approach to sci-fi on The Expanse, as opposed to the more fantastical space opera stuff. Seems pretty obvious in retrospect given that he works in data modelling/coding and really loves talking about the intricate nuts and bolts of his work.

I started him off in the very shallow end with The Martian and Project Hail Mary, which he really enjoyed, and then eventually onto some harder stuff like Spin, Red …

Hey,

I recently read the Salvation trilogy by Peter F. Hamilton and the dark forrest. I really like the storytelling aspect of humans’ first interaction with aliens being one where we “fuck around and find out”, essentially. Humanity realizing that our technology is severely lacking in intergalactic warfare.

Should mention that I really appreciate a “smart” usage of technology, and a pretty hard sci-fi core. So not just “Aliens arrive and go pew-pew, now we’re dead” sort of thing.

Do you guys have any recommendations where this is a strong point of the storytelling?

Much appreciated!

EDIT:

Really appreciate the tips so far. I realize I’ve been a bit vague in what tickles me with my book series examples. I’m predominantly interested in the conceptuality of humanity being out-matched. I.e. I like the thought-porn of how the invading force is technically superior, and how that manifests.

I’m not so much searching for …

Worldcon in Seattle was the first Worldcon I’ve been to. Before this, I’d mainly been to Comic Cons and PAX West where the focus is very much on getting you to spend money. By comparison, Worldcon is all about the panels, the conversations, and being fans together. It’s run wholly by volunteers so is more amateur-ish and less professional, but I had a much better time than at Comic Cons or PAX.

When I went to the autographing area, Ada Palmer was holding court with about 10 fans, just talking. She mentioned Gene Wolfe writing a character in The Book of the New Sun he believed would be impossible to cosplay, after seeing cosplayers at conventions. Someone asked if she knows of a game that brings out the best in its players, and she said the Daybreak card game. Palmer also talked a lot about using LARPing to teach history, and having this module with a flexible amount of players for different class sizes for a real historical scenario that happened in the Sistine …

We all know the classic authors who are pretty infamously known to write female characters with the depth and personality of a particularly curvy plank of wood (Heinlein and I’ve memory holed any other ones I’ve read). That’s if they’re present in any meaningful way (Asimov).

Which more recent authors in the last 30-35ish years (1990 onwards) have you found to write terrible female characters? Or just leave a bad taste in your head in general in the way they write women?

Ex: Peter F Hamilton writes like a beast and I love his Night’s Dawn and Void books, but by the fifth time I read about how attractive an eighteen year girl and how attractive she was BECAUSE of her age I was just over it. Which is a shame because he writes pretty engaging and imaginative stories otherwise. I can’t remember off the top of my head but I distinctly remember reading a sentence in one of his books about a young girl wearing a skirt so short no woman over the age of 22 could pull it off ??? Had to throw …

I really like Ted Chiang’s writing.

I’ve noticed that many of his fans, including in the otherwise reviews, either don’t understand or don’t share what I personally subjectively think of as his most unique qualities. So I wrote my own review, covering:

1. His stories are neither “hard” science fiction (where the focus is on scientific realism and plausible extrapolations of known physics), nor “soft” science fiction (where the focus is science-as-window-dressing to tell stories about human or societal universals), but a secret third thing. In the review, I call it “true” science fiction: basically, where the principles of science themselves are meaningfully different from our world, but still internally consistent.
2. In his stories, technology can be complex and a mixed blessing, but they are often good. In most modern science fiction, technology is assumed to be evil (Torment Nexus) by default. Chiang resists these cliches, and …