Interview with William X. Adams

Published 2019-04-16.
What's the story behind Reluctant Android?
My main character is Andy Bolton, a software engineer in Seattle. He thinks he's just an ordinary guy, but circumstances gradually convince him that he's a robot made of circuit boards instead of organs. His boss, Lucy, finds out. She's skeptical, of course, but the evidence is overwhelming. She wants to take him apart and see how he works. He reluctantly accepts what he is and calls himself a Newcomer, a new life form.

It's hard for us to accept any machine as an ethical being. Why is that? This issue haunted the remake of Blade Runner. So I thought, why not tell the story from the android's point of view? And that's how the Reluctant Android came to be.
Who are your favorite authors?
I enjoy the classic "hard" sci-fi stories from the middle of the twentieth century written by authors such as Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, Theodore Sturgeon, Stanislaw Lem, and Philip K. Dick. In their novels, scientific ideas were in the forefront, reflecting the times. Unlike today's blend of sci-fi and fantasy, nary a dragon was found.

Many of those early authors tried to make the characters psychologically complex. You can hardly beat Asimov's I, Robot series or P.K. Dick's Blade Runner for that. But even going back to Karel Capek's 1920 novel, R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), the androids were psychologically humanoid, setting up the paradox that fascinates me: do we really know what an artificial intelligence is supposed to look like?

I call my work psi-fi, rather than sci-fi, because it's about psychology, artificial and human, in a storytelling context. When I have androids or aliens in my stories, it's to explore psychology. I have little patience with space ships and ray guns, alien empires and talking squid. Well, maybe I care about the squid, because that involves language, which is central to consciousness. I liked the movie, Arrival, for that reason.

More recent authors I've enjoyed include Elizabeth Moon (Remnant Population) and Jaroslav Kalfar (Spaceman of Bohemia). I count them as members of the psi-fi club, writing psychological fiction in a technological context. So many books; so little time. I review psi-fi books at www.psi-fi.net
When you're not writing, how do you spend your time?
Not writing? What's that like? It's hard to pry myself away from the word processor. I try to write every day, though sometimes real life intervenes.

If I manage to get up at dawn, before the temperature becomes prohibitive, I walk a couple of miles in the desert around Tucson. With those big, green saguaro cacti waving me on through the silence, it is one of the most magical places on the planet.

I'm president of the Arizona Mystery Writers (www.arizonamysterywriters.com), and that absorbs some fascinating non-writing hours. I regularly take classes at the University of Arizona extension in a wide range of topics from astronomy to Beethoven. I'm taking a linguistics course now from Noam Chomsky, who recently relocated to U of A.

I enjoy arguing about literary fiction with my writing colleagues. We have a book group and an online discussion group that reads literary fiction. I read three books a month simultaneously, a half hour on each one, ninety minutes a day. I read a literary, a sci-fi, and a nonfiction, so they don't get mixed up in my head. Currently I'm reading Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf, Lagoon, by Nnedi Okorafor, and Deciphering Ancient Minds, by Lewis-Williams and Challis.

What else? I'm trying to teach myself how to play the guitar. I have a Takamine classical that resonates through my chest, and a Fender Squier. Music is its own world, one of infinite depth. If I could live my life again, I might end up as a musician.
What Was Your Motivation for Writing Alien Talk?
Alien Talk is the second in the Newcomers Series. I introduce Robin, a "female" android (gyndroid?). The main idea of the story involves a worldwide language epidemic that strikes people mute and nobody knows why. The Androids figure it out and save the world. What did you expect?

At the simplest level, I just wanted a companion for Andy to talk with. But as soon as I created Robin I realized I was in deep water. What does it mean for a robot to be gendered? Robots are completely outside of biology. So I made Robin and Andy struggle with this question. It's a subtheme.

The main goal of the story is to explore the nature of language. What is it, anyway? How is it connected to thought? Why do we say things we don't mean? Why do we struggle to say what we do mean? And above all, where did language come from? Eight million species on the planet and only one evolves symbolic language? What are the odds? Once you look at language objectively, it seems like an alien force, not of this earth. The working title for the novel was "The Language Alien."
Is "Intelligent Things" the End of the Newcomers Series?
Well, never say never, I guess. I moved from the solitary, first-person consciousness of Andy, the Reluctant Android, to AI social relationships in Alien Talk, and in the third installment, Intelligent Things, I imagine what an AI group-mind would be like in the context of the internet of things (IoT). That circle seems closed for now.

I've been in a nonfiction vortex for a few months, writing a technical manual and a monograph on phenomenology, but my next psychological sci-fi (or "psi-fi") is going to involve an entirely new character, a little green man from outer space. Yes! I have succumbed to the trope.
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Books by This Author

Mind, Body, World
Price: $5.99 USD. Words: 38,060. Language: English. Published: May 1, 2021 . Categories: Nonfiction » Psychology » General, Nonfiction » Philosophy » Movements / Idealism
We are the minds that know themselves. Our minds are connected to our bodies and therefore the world, but how? Science cannot say. Minds are made of non-physical things like thoughts, images, hopes, and feelings. If you dissect a brain, you do not find any thoughts. Where did the mind go? To solve this puzzle, basic assumptions about the mind, the body, and the world must be questioned.
Alien Dream Machine: Third in the Phane Series
Price: $7.99 USD. Words: 83,500. Language: English. Published: April 1, 2021 . Categories: Fiction » Science fiction » Adventure, Fiction » Science fiction » Hard sci-fi
Gunnar is a young Las Vegas PI who struggles with narcolepsy, falling asleep at unpredictable moments. He tracks down a casino cheat, only to learn that the guy is an extraterrestrial. Phane, the gambler, begs Gunnar to help him escape gangsters who want his dice secret but becomes seriously wounded. Gunnar tries to revive the dying alien using focused dreams. But do aliens dream?
Mind Without Brain: A Proposal
Price: $5.99 USD. Words: 42,830. Language: English. Published: January 4, 2021 . Categories: Nonfiction » Psychology » Cognitive psychology, Nonfiction » Philosophy » Mind & Body
The human mind is like a jazz trio. Oddly, two of the three players are not susceptible to introspection, giving the illusion of a singular consciousness. But that model of mind has a lot of problems. This evidence-based cognitive psychology offers a promising explanation for how the mind works, without biological reduction, and resolves many perplexing problems of psychology.
Scientific Introspection: Tools to Reveal the Mind 2/E
Price: $5.99 USD. Words: 45,290. Language: English. Published: September 4, 2020 . Categories: Nonfiction » Psychology » Cognitive psychology, Nonfiction » Philosophy » Epistemology
We have the ability to look inward at our minds with introspection. It is foolish not to use that amazing gift for systematic study. Science cannot observe the mind directly. Psychologists must study the brain and behavior and try to guess what the mind is like. But why guess? Scientific Introspection is presented as a practical tool and demonstrated in a case study.
Alien Panic
Price: $7.99 USD. Words: 87,520. Language: English. Published: October 14, 2020 . Categories: Fiction » Science fiction » General, Fiction » Science fiction » Hard sci-fi
Ex-cop Lou encounters Phane, a man in Reno who claims to be an extraterrestrial. Lou teams up with him to rescue his abducted daughter, Lacey. Phane changes into a green tennis ball and rescues another alien on Earth, Flooma. the humans and aliens become close friends, but how far should humans go to to help a dying alien species on Earth when their commander wants to take over the planet?
Alien Body: First in the Phane Series
Price: $7.99 USD. Words: 81,270. Language: English. Published: September 1, 2019 . Categories: Fiction » Science fiction » Hard sci-fi, Fiction » Science fiction » Adventure
Physician Dave Booker finds an alien living in his summer cabin. Dave is dumbfounded by the alien’s appearance, a large, green tennis ball with eyes on tentacles above his head. What would it be like to have a body like that? Does the body determine how we think about the world? In a wild chase, Phane flees determined pursuers including the military, Can Dave get to him first and help him escape?
Intelligent Things
Price: $7.99 USD. Words: 80,770. Language: English. Published: May 1, 2019 . Categories: Fiction » Science fiction » Hard sci-fi, Fiction » Science fiction » General
Engineer Jennifer Valentine releases advanced AI personal assistants online to revolutionize the internet of things, but her softbots go rogue and she must save the national power grid. Can she bring herself to destroy the entire online world she created?
Alien Talk
Price: $7.99 USD. Words: 82,970. Language: English. Published: January 4, 2019 . Categories: Fiction » Science fiction » Hard sci-fi, Fiction » Science fiction » General
Robin Taylor, android resarcher, discovers that language is an extraterrestrial virus infecting humans. The ET is enraged by the false language of digital assistants and unleashes a pandemic of language disability. How can Robin explain all this to humans?
Reluctant Android: First in the Newcomers Series
Price: $7.99 USD. Words: 81,660. Language: English. Published: September 1, 2018 . Categories: Fiction » Science fiction » Hard sci-fi
Andy is horrified to discover he’s a robot. He tells his boss, who wants to take him apart. On the run, Andy discovers he more than a machine. He reluctantly accepts that he is a sentient AI. But can any person ever believe in a machine with empathy?