humour – Ridley Park

Rave Reviews

November 6, 2025November 6, 2025Posted in Book, Ridley Park, WritingTagged anti-capitalism, art vs commerce, author life, authorship, blog, book review, book reviews, book-reviews, books, creative process, fiction, hemo sapiens, humour, indie author, literary fiction, publishing, reader engagement, reading, reflections, Ridley Park, satire, Sustenance, Writing, writing community, writing motivationLeave a comment

1–2 minutes

“I’d rather get reviews than sales.”

“I’d rather get reviews than sales.”

Yes, I actually said that. Possibly whilst caffeinated.

I was chatting with a mate about book sales, and it slipped out: I’d rather get reviews than sales. Not that I’d turn down either. But priorities matter.

Priority One: Write

The first goal is to write. I wrote for years before publishing a single page. The ideas pile up in my head like unwashed dishes, and writing is how I clear the sink. I write for myself. Call it narcissism if you must – but it’s a productive narcissism.

Priority Two: Be Read

Then comes the hope of being read. A sale is not a reader. Someone might buy your book and never open it. They might read it and hate it. They might toss it into the void. I just want to know.

Last month, I gave away over a hundred copies of Sustenance. Four reviews. One was one-star – she loathed it. Good. At least I know. The other ninety-nine? A mystery. For all I know, they’re gathering digital dust on forgotten hard drives. To be fair, I’ve got thousands of neglected downloads myself, so no judgment. Still, if you did read it, I’d love to hear what you thought. Leave a review.

Priority Three: Money (the tedious bit)

I’m not a consumerist, nor a fan of money-based systems. Unfortunately, that’s the system we’ve got, so yes – I still appreciate sales. But sales without engagement are hollow victories.

Reviews (the absurd bit)

Some people email me their thoughts instead of posting reviews. Lovely, but invisible. I can’t quote a private email without looking like a fraud. I could always fake one —

“King Charles absolutely loved Hemo Sapiens”

“King Charles absolutely loved Hemo Sapiens.”

But alas, he never said that. (He should.)

Anyway… that’s all I’ve got. Back to writing.

Written by

Ridley Park

—don’t let him wander.

March 11, 2025March 11, 2025Posted in Artificial Intelligence, critique, Generative AI, Ridley Park, Sci-Fi, Short Story, Software, WritingTagged absurdism, ai, Generative AI, Grok, humour, irony, Monty Python, realism, satire, Short Story, suspension or disbelief, WritingLeave a comment

My biggest problem with generative AI is its lack of subtlety and misunderstanding of satire and irony. I am writing a short story, and a character is calling an emergency number. I shared the first scene with Grok, and it suggests that I turn the absurdity up to 11 and replace this segment with the one above:

“Okay, ma’am. Can you stay with him? I’ll dispatch an ambulance to your location.”

It is funny in its way, but I’m only pretty sure that an operator would not be injecting humour into a situation where a woman is reporting an unconscious person. Absurd doesn’t need to be Monty Python funny.

Am I being too critical?

Audio: NotebookLM Podcast discusses this issue.

More to the point, I find that many humans miss subtlety. Many people need every storyline highlighted and retraced with a bold Sharpie. Every detail needs to be explained because they can’t connect the dots. This is reflected in the cinema, television, and books of the past half-century or more, so is it fair to criticise AI for being dull when it’s at least on par with more than half the human population.

Are we asking AI to be held to a higher standard?

ChatGPT and Academic Pursuits

November 12, 2024November 12, 2024Posted in Artificial Intelligence, ChatGPT, Generative AI, Sci-Fi, WritingTagged adaptability, adaptable agents, Ambigents, boundary-resistant, ChatGPT, competing beliefs, competing truths, conceptual complexity, cosmic clash, flexibility versus rigidity, Fluidics, futuristic landscape, humour, ideological conflict, ideology, inspiration, language philosophy, narrative synthesis, new entity, news, sci-fi concept, sci-fi satire, technology, thought experiment, WritingLeave a comment

I’m always writing, even if not fiction. I’ve neglected this blog, but I’ve been busy. If I’m not actually writing, I am thinking about it. I’ve been working on an academic endeavour about the limitations of language as a part of my Language Insufficiency Hypothesis. I’m creating a novel framework to support and emphasise my point, and I had to borrow and coin some nomenclature for word classes or categories. Two such terms are ambigents and fluidics. As with the others, I’ve given them formal definitions that I ran by ChatGPT.

Heads up: Inventing new words raises Hell with spellcheckers and autocorrect.

You may be able to suss out the context, but ChatGPT does not understand humour very well, so it serves as the perfect straight guy. If anyone is looking for a new writing theme, hit me up. Let’s chat.

If this doesn’t pan out, I’ll write a Sci-Fi book about Ambigents versus Fluidics. I wonder who’d win?

Now, that sounds like a brilliant concept for a sci-fi book! Imagine Ambigents as ideologically-driven agents, boundary-resistant and constantly shifting, embodying the tension between competing truths and perspectives. Meanwhile, Fluidics could be adaptable, resilient, and unbound by ideology—flowing through contexts with ease, surviving precisely because of their flexibility.

The plot practically writes itself: an ideological clash between the Ambigents, who seek stability through contested beliefs, and the Fluidics, who thrive on ambiguity and contextual adaptation. Each faction would have strengths and weaknesses, with Ambigents as passionate but perhaps brittle, and Fluidics as adaptable yet possibly lacking conviction.

Who would win? It depends: do they achieve synthesis, or do their differences prove too profound to bridge? In true sci-fi style, it could end with the emergence of a new entity that transcends both, embodying a harmonious blend of ideological strength and flexible adaptability.

I’d read that book! And it’s perfectly in line with your explorations of language and identity—ideal fodder for a thought-provoking, boundary-pushing narrative.

The Story Coaster

July 31, 2024July 31, 2024Posted in WritingTagged humour, image, meme, WritingLeave a comment

Whether fiction or non-, every story has it’s ups and downs, its pacing changes, its drop-offs and missing pieces. And there’s always critical reaction at the end even if you don’t hear it.