Tree @1.0 (Download .tar.gz)
The Swallows
The Swallows is a series of computer-generated novels meta-written for NaNoGenMo 2013 by Cat's Eye Technologies. Our submission issue can be found here.
The Swallows is also the name of the first novel in the series. It follows the madcap adventures of Alice and Bob as they both try to acquire the golden falcon, which is priceless, or at the very least irrationally desirable by all involved.
The Swallows of Summer, the sequel to The Swallows, revisits Alice and Bob's life three years later. They have a much bigger house now. They also own more things.
Swallows and Sorrows, the third book in the series, shows us another period in Alice and Bob's life, not much later. They have taken up drinking — at least when they are disturbed by things — to calm their nerves. And then they start arguing. Oh, and the narrator knows how to use pronouns now.
The fourth novel, Dial S for Swallows, probably takes place shortly thereafter, or possibly at the same time as Swallows and Sorrows but in an alternate universe. Alice and Bob are no longer psychic (although this may not have been apparent in the previous books, the fact is that they were easily able tell what the other was thinking. Now, they only have suspicions. Also, the previous editor was sacked, and a completely new editor installed in their place.)
All four novels can be found, in Markdown format, in the doc
subdirectory
of this distribution.
At 49K words (in 15 chapters of 33 paragraphs each,) The Swallows is not quite long enough to qualify for NaNoGenMo. At 53K words, The Swallows of Summer is. Swallows and Sorrows is just barely over 50K words. Dial S for Swallows is over 56K words.
All novels were generated by the Python script the_swallows.py
in the
script
directory, at different points in time. See the repository
history to get the version of the script used for a particular novel.
I invite the reader who is interested in how the script works to read the source code. It sometimes even contains comments.
Commit History
@1.0
git clone https://git.catseye.tc/The-Swallows/
- After much agonizing, apply open-source licenses to the other files. Cat's Eye Technologies 10 years ago
- _Dial S for Swallows_ with the script that generated it. Cat's Eye Technologies 10 years ago
- The return of friffery. Cat's Eye Technologies 10 years ago
- I finally thought of a title for the latest novel in the series. Cat's Eye Technologies 10 years ago
- Report that character had found something, when they were not PoV. Cat's Eye Technologies 10 years ago
- With this one change, "It is in my/your bed" seems to work. Cat's Eye Technologies 10 years ago
- Infrastructural changes to support "It is in your bed", etc. Cat's Eye Technologies 10 years ago
- Eliminate other case of mind-reading with SuspicionOfHiding belief. Cat's Eye Technologies 10 years ago
- Eliminate one case of mind-reading, using beliefs-of-others'-beliefs instead. Cat's Eye Technologies 10 years ago
- Alice wandered around for a bit, and then came back to the shed. Cat's Eye Technologies 10 years ago