The Backlash (and other new fiction)

Some new very short stories by me: one for everyone to read, and four more as a treat for paying subscribers

If there is one lesson I have learned in recent months more than any other it is ‘You Can’t Do It All, No Matter How Many Extra Hours You Put In.” An inevitable casualty of the last three and a bit weeks, during which I have signed and posted more than 2000 of my books to destinations around the world, has been my output here, which since March 19th has been limited to one video explaining the current situation with my publishers and the books I have had to sell. As a result, I have, quite understandably - especially when you additionally factor in the state of the world - lost around 25 paying subscribers. Now I have some space to move easily around my house again that frenetic period for me is thankfully over - I’ll still be mailing books to people, but at a more sane pace - and I thought I should everyone know, just in case you are considering upgrading, that I’m currently sending anyone who takes out a full annual paid subscription here a signed paperback of my 2019 book Ring The Hill, wherever you happen to be on the planet. If you decide to upgrade in the next 24 hours, you’ll also get that subscription for 25% cheaper than a monthly subscription. This will give you access to all the stories in today’s newsletter, plus my full archive, plus the many pieces I’ll be posting in the coming weeks, now I’ve got my writing life back.

P.S. If you currently have a monthly paid subscription and upgrade to an annual one please do let me know via hello@tom-cox.com as Substack doesn’t notify me about that kind of upgrade.

Ok, ok, so I haven’t been making much effort with my outfits lately; no need to hammer the point home.

THE BACKLASH

Nothing boosts a neglected writer’s career quite like death and, in the weeks following 1187868832832.5’s funeral, all those marginal voices who’d been singing his praises for years finally came together into a chorus heard by the almighty’s ears and the 53000 plus novels he had written in his lifetime began to make some serious money for his publishers and the literary agent who now handled his estate. The sales snowball expanded exponentially as it tumbled over an icy ridge onto the low slopes of popular culture. That Christmas, 1187868832832.5’s half-completed final novel became the book to purchase for people you were related to who you thought might be occasionally open to the prospect of reading a book.

More and more voices emerged online, claiming that they had in fact always liked 1187868832832.5, going way back to his energetic early work, and wondered why they’d been the only ones clever enough to see his genius from day one. Authors as diverse as Jonathan Franzen, Joyce Carol Oates, 0878364283626.1 and Stephen King came forward to say that it wasn’t so much that they admired 1187868832832.5’s writing; it had completely changed the way they viewed the craft of writing itself. When those reaping the financial rewards from 1187868832832.5’s posthumous success walked into a bookshop or picked up a newspaper to peruse that week’s bestseller list they felt like people standing in a sunny garden in June under a pristine blue sky. The more anxious individuals amongst them looked into the distance, for signs of other kinds of weather, but none was visible.

The other weather did come, though, as it always must. On a flagship TV arts show, an outspoken academic pointed out the lack of agency enjoyed by female characters in 1187868832832.5’s work: the way that all of them seemed to exist solely as objects of the male gaze. Agreeing, one of her peers also added that, during the sci-fi period of 1187868832832.5’s work, not a single one of the 742 robots he’d written about had ever been green. Though minor news, largely limited to the concerns of the intelligentsia, this caused enough of a stir to move other sceptics to air the opinions they had previously been keeping to themselves. A reformed fan of 1187868832832.5 screenshotted a rude autoreply she’d once received from 1187868832832.5’s website in response to a long message she’d sent him about his books. “Is this the cold individual 1187868832832.5 really was, behind the cheerful book covers?” people wondered. “Did he ever genuinely care about the fans who had been responsible for his success?”

Someone else mentioned a plot in one of 1187868832832.5’s early books where a 318-year-old woman dated a 17 year-old-goat and said that it had personally offended them. A scene in his final novel where a duvet cover wanked off a piece of gravel while shouting racist slurs was nominated for a Bad Sex Writing award. Some argued that the scene was there to condemn racist slurs and the very act of sex between bedclothes and rough fragments of stone, but they were fading into the minority. Others asked a pertinent question: How many people actually read 1187868832832.5’s books and how many merely bought them, because that was what insidious cultural pressure had made them feel they were supposed to do? That year - the fourth, after 1187868832832.5’s death - inordinate numbers of his titles began appearing in charity shops. Those formerly loyal to his work felt wronged and were frustrated not to be able to find a venue for their anger. Since 1187868832832.5 was an entirely digitally created being and his demise an abstract metaphysical concept, there was no gravestone to deface, no childhood home to pelt with rotten apples, no commemorative statue to attach ropes to and hurl into a river. People lashed out at friends who’d done nothing wrong, threw cherished pottery against the walls of their beloved homes.

But, simultaneously, time was moving on, new chapters in culture were unfolding. Some argued that the questionable elements of 1187868832832.5’s work were a product of the age he was algorithmically created in, and that it was wrong to judge the artificial intelligence past on the more evolved standards of the artificial intelligence present. Others began to create a counter argument to that, but then realised there were more useful ways to spend their time and went for a nice walk instead. The original arguers started to formulate a response to the part-articulated counter argument then abandoned it and also went for a nice walk. On some of the walks taken, some of the arguers and counter arguers even passed one another on riverbanks and headlands and smiled, blissfully unaware of their faceless earlier encounters in the fetid cloud that was cyberspace. The flowers still grew and the ebullient young lambs in the field still matured into melancholy, suspicious sheep.

Though on its knees by now, the planet kept fighting to survive. Soon - sooner than anyone could have anticipated - the name of 1187868832832.5 was no longer heard, apart from within the boundaries of a couple of misguided contrarian columns printed in reactionary newspapers, and, in not much more time at all, not one person who had read his work was still alive. In the end, it had not been anything offensive or politically problematic or in bad taste which had been responsible for his art not standing the test of time. It was simply that said art had not been created with love or passion, therefore was unable to inspire love and passion in a human being who read it and participate in a grand exchange of energy that had been happening forever. However, it could be said that the fact his name was not particularly memorable didn’t do him many favours, either.