Editor's Note

Editor’s Note

Storms

William Jensen

Do you ever feel something bad is going to happen? Like a storm is coming. You see it in the distance, but now it’s getting closer. It’s dark and loud and strong, and it is going to destroy everything. Nice knowing you. That’s all, folks. Bye bye.

   Okay, maybe I am being a bit dramatic. But lately, there seems to be a heavy sense of dread in the air as thick as cedar in spring. It’s difficult to articulate. People keep talking about AI and Chat GPT. I hear lots of speculation. Some say AI will be another tool, something helpful. Others believe AI will eliminate various careers, especially those that involve writing. Why pay someone to write a document when a program can do it? Why spend a decade writing a novel when AI can create one in minutes? Maybe not tomorrow, but in a decade or so we’ll probably have streaming services that make full-length feature films customized to our personal preferences.  You want to see Humphrey Bogart fight dinosaurs with a synthesizer score? You got it. You want a romantic western with ninjas? Coming right up. This might sound like science fiction, but I’ve seen enough technological leaps and bounds in the last two decades to believe anything is impossible. Remember when a flip-phone was something out of Star Trek? I once predicted to a friend (long before smart phones) that we’d soon do everything with our phones. He thought I was exaggerating. You may be reading this on your phone now. How’s that for being meta? But the point I’m trying to make is that we are witnessing something akin to the invention of the printing press. Currently, writers across the nation are on strike. Will there still be jobs for them to come back to? Will the next bestseller be written by a computer? Was this editor’s note written by William Jensen or just a program designed to sound like him? I think the future is uncertain, but the end is always near.

   The question about what will happen to books is serious. I have no doubt people will continue to write stories, novels, and memoirs. We crave language and narrative and poetry. Yet, I have fears. Will there still be books? Yes. Will there still be authors? Probably. With people seemingly already reading less than ever before, will books become like opera, esoteric and antiquated?

   Let’s hope not.

   Let’s keep reading. Let’s remember to celebrate books and their authors.

   As long as the Lone Star State is reading, Texas Books in Review will be here. As long as people are reading in the Rio Grande Valley to the Piney Woods and across the Hill Country, we’ll be here. We believe reading is the gateway to ideas and empathy. This issue of Texas Books in Review showcases multiple doors and paths. Former TBR contributors Katie Gutierrez and Kate Boudreaux have their debuts, More Than You’ll Ever Know and Backwater, reviewed here, and we are so proud of both of them. We also have insight into The Last Karankawas by Kimberly Garza. If you are curious about the life and cultural blending on the Texas gulf coast, you should check this review out now. If you like your westerns, this issue also reviews The End of Nowhere by Patrick Dearen. And another former contributor, Dave Oliphant, has the second volume of his memoirs, Travels of a Texas Poet, Volume 2, reviewed, too. Texas letters are still strong, and the stories are as big as Texas itself. We hope you find something good to read. We hope the reviews here give you something to think about. There’s always something happening in Texas. And there’s always good things happening in Texas Books in Review.