In a future Japan reshaped by ecological collapse and runaway technology, the four traditional seasons have vanished. In their place rise new and haunting seasons: Oil Tides, Chemical Clouds, Nuclear Bloom, and other strange cycles of life and decay. Amid the ruins and reinventions of nature, six intelligent species--humans, cyborgs, mutants, robots, AI consciousnesses, and monkeys--turn to haiku to make sense of their fractured world.
This is their saijiki, a compendium of seasonal words and poems, written during the year X9. But the collection is not merely retrospective--it is framed by commentary from a far-future professor of Pre-Interstellar Cyberculture, Waylan West. From a time when Earth is no longer habitable and humanity has scattered into the stars, he looks back on the year X9 not with horror, but with nostalgia. To us in the present day, X9 might feel apocalyptic. To him, it was still beautiful.
Details
The book is written from the perspective of Waylan West, Ph.Z., editor and compiler of more than 270 haiku. Each chapter provides details about one of the seven seasons, followed by season words and example haiku.
Each chapter includes an original, full color ink painting by the author.
The book concludes with an essay, "One the Use of AI in Seven Seasons" which details a nuanced perspective on the incorporation of AI in literature, and offers readers a balanced and reasonable perspective on how authors and AI can collaborate to create stronger works.
AI Usage
This book was entirely drafted and conceived by Dennis Owen Frohlich. AI was used in targeted ways for research assistance, worldbuilding, name generation, and big-picture feedback. AI generated text amounts to 3.9% of the total content, mostly names of the 270+ characters.