Science Fiction Author Lawrence C. Connolly Is Ready to Take on AI

Like a character in one of his novels, horror and science fiction author Lawrence C. Connolly’s daily life was fatally changed by a chance encounter with a stranger.

“It was the late 1970s, and my Squirrel Hill apartment was around the corner from the Bookworm on Murray Avenue. One day I saw a sign in the window advertising a visit from science fiction writer Joe Haldeman, a major writer then and now,” Connolly recalls.

When Connolly arrived at the store, he was surprised to find that he was the only person there.

“I spent the evening with Haldeman and talked about the writing life. At one point he said something like, ‘You know, magazines are hungry for fiction. If you’re interested in writing, maybe you should give it a try.'”

“I went home that night, put the old Olivetti on the dining room table, and wrote my first story.”

That story, “Cockroaches,” was purchased and published by Amazing Stories, a leading magazine in the science fiction literary galaxy. Since then, Connolly’s writing has appeared in fantasy, horror, and science fiction magazines around the world, including Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone Magazine, Fantasy & Science Fiction, and Darkness on the Edge: Tales Inspired by the Songs of Bruce Springsteen.

His novels include the “Veins Cycle” series, and his screenplay “This Way to Egress” was featured in the 2018 anthology film “Nightmare Cinema” starring Adam Godley and Patrick Wilson and co-written with “Black Mirror: Bandersnatch” director David Slade and Jonathan Sanger, producer of “Elephant Man,” “Vanilla Sky,” “Marshall” and the recent “Cabrini.”

In 2022, Connolly was commissioned by Prime Stage Theatre to create a play offering a new interpretation of Mary Shelley’s original tale of “Frankenstein,” considered the first true science fiction story in Western literature.

He spoke with NEXTpittsburgh as he prepared for producer meetings in New York and Los Angeles to finalize his latest project, “Minute-Men: Execute & Run.”

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NEXTpittsburgh: What can you tell us about “Minute-Men: Execute & Run”?

Lawrence C. Connolly: It’s the story of a group of wounded warriors who are offered a second chance at life by a biotech company, but who discover that there are conditions that force them to make a moral decision. Will they play along or will they band together and go it alone to do what’s right?

NEXTpittsburgh: Is this happening in the present or rather in the future?

Connolly: The story takes place in contemporary times. The day after tomorrow, as we like to say. It is a slightly modified version of our world where we see the problems we face not only with international conflicts, but also with the advent of technology and the good and bad things it brings us. All of this is at the heart of the story, as is the interface between reality and virtual reality where the individual finds himself in the world of AI.

NEXTpittsburgh: How did you come up with the concept?

Connolly: It was my little brother Christopher who came up with this idea a few years ago. I found the concept so interesting that I said: “Let’s develop it together.”

NEXTpittsburgh: Is he also a writer?

Connolly: He’s not. He’s an idea man. He’s a businessman, a financial planner, and a brilliant graphic designer. He’s a genius. He was always telling me about his great ideas. And I would always listen to him, you know, and say, “Yeah, that’s really cool,” but I had never jumped on anything before that. My jaw dropped when I heard it.

NEXTpittsburgh: What was the process from the mind-blowing idea to the project it is today?

Connolly: We had coffee and we mapped out the story arc and got everything sorted out. He had a big file of characters and a lot of background information. Then I wrote the script and we had meetings with the producer, Jonathan Sanger, who gave it the green light. After that, I wrote the novelization, which went through several drafts.

I also wrote a bible, which is the complete story arc of a limited series. It’s a nine-episode bible that’s 70 to 80 pages long, single-spaced. So we have a script. We have a series bible. We have the final manuscript of the novel. And then we’ll either have the movie or the series.

NEXTpittsburgh: Which one do you plan to release first?

Connolly: It’s an interesting dilemma that we find ourselves in today’s entertainment world, and that’s what we ran into with this project. The book publisher who expressed interest in the book says, “When is the movie coming out?” They’d like the book to ride on the movie’s boom. Then the producers say, “When is the book coming out?” because they’d like to ride on the book’s boom. But I think the book will come out first.

NEXTpittsburgh: You often set your stories in Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania. Is there a reason you like to use that locale?

Connolly: I love Western Pennsylvania. I’ve moved away and I keep coming back. What I love about it is the post-industrial landscape. I grew up in Oakland, so I have a good sense of how that world has changed over time. We lived downwind of the huge J&L steel mill and right above the tracks and the Schenley Tunnel, down at the bottom of Neville Street, with those huge locomotives going by and blowing smoke over Panther Hollow.

It’s a sublime place. It’s romantic. I like to incorporate that into my stories.

NEXTpittsburgh: This landscape constitutes a major backdrop to your “Veins” novels.

Connolly: Yes, at first glance, one would think that the term “veins” refers to human blood in the general sense of the term horror, but it also refers to the veins of the earth, the veins of coal and minerals that lie beneath the surface of the earth. In “Execute & Run,” although the story is global in scope, it begins right here, in a town like McKeesport, a forgotten neighborhood of the 20th century.

NEXTpittsburgh: The horror and science fiction genres often reflect the anxieties or hopes of their times. What makes this type of writing so appealing in what some would call a very angsty time?

Connolly: This is an interesting question, and I just read an article that suggested that horror readers are better prepared to deal with moments like these. Horror fiction gives us the opportunity to exorcise And Exercise your emotions. We become better able to deal with the horrible things in our society and see that there are solutions. This is the idea of ​​“catharsis” in ancient Greek theater where you experience something for a while (a play, a movie, or a book) and then you can walk away or put it aside. You’ve gotten over the experience and you can reflect. As horror book readers, we’re used to doing this.

NEXTpittsburgh: Is there a currently trending topic in these genres?

Connolly: The major problem facing us today is artificial intelligence. That’s why the Writers Guild of America went on strike last year. Artificial intelligence poses a potentially existential dilemma for creative beings because it wants to create, and right now it’s not particularly good at it.

NEXTpittsburgh: Do you think AI could one day be as good at creating as humans?

Connolly: I don’t know. Will it ever take away the joy a writer gets from creating something? I don’t think it will ever be the part that drives humans to create. People will always want to create.

NEXTpittsburgh: Will the public care who creates?

Connolly: I imagine a world in which the public will continue to divide. There will be a segment that will accept computer-generated scripts. Some will say, “There are explosions and that’s what I want.” But there is also an audience that really wants homemade fiction, homemade movies, stories that deal with the human dilemma as perceived by humans and not filtered through a human-in-the-making, like an artificial intelligence program.

I think it’s one of the big challenges we face as writers, but it also gives us a whole new potential to tell new and exciting stories. It gives us a whole new potential to think, in our fiction, about what it means to be human. The threat that AI poses to us as creators is also quite profound.

But you know what I say? I say: Go ahead. I’m ready. I’m ready.