I have a confession to make about my intelligence ... and my lame-brained density. My friend Jo Ann brought both to my attention the other day, although if you asked her, she only would admit to the first, adding that I also have a crystal ball and I can predict the future.

Jo Ann is a star in corporate America’s celestial sky.

With no small pride, I call her the Vice-President of the Universe, as decades ago she worked for me and Charlie organizing our fire scene photos and typing our reports (I taught her how to type!) back when we investigated fires. So Jo was with us when Origin & Cause, my first arson investigation novel was published. She helped me with book promotion, author talks, etc., and stayed with us until college and law school interfered with my plans to keep her as a prisoner in our office for the rest of her life.

However, on the last day that she worked at Charles G. King Associates, I announced with a menacing eye, “You can run, but you can’t hide,” implying that “You may not always work for us, but you will always be our friend.”

And so it has turned out to be. But I never expected my friendship with this beautiful, intelligent, and loyal young woman to evolve into fierce support for my literary achievements, as it did during a recent visit to my home.

This is how our conversation went:

JO ANN: Have you been following the A.I. confrontations in Hollywood over the past month?

SHELLY: You mean about Artificial Intelligence?

JO: Yes.

SHELLY: I have. I’m usually not sympathetic to strikers, but this one seems totally justified. The way I understand it, movie producers are trying to steal the creative processes of...

JO: ...writers.

SHELLY: As well as the images, voices, mannerisms, and creative output of actors, actresses, musicians and...

JO: Exactly.

SHELLY: That’s terrible.

JO: It is. And you wrote the story 30 years ago.

SHELLY: I did?

JO: Of course you did. In your book Origin & Cause, you accurately and exactly predicted events that are happening right now.

I thought for a moment about what Jo Ann was saying. Then it all came back to me. She was right! In 1994 a huge plot element in a crime novel I’d just written included events that are unraveling today.

Let me set the scene:

Stanfield Standish is a very powerful, aggressive, and ruthless Hollywood producer who purchased the entire classic film library of Cinema Select Artists (think Ted Turner buying the MGM archive). At a party mere hours before he is found dead, Standish announces “Our long-range goal is to image-transform all of the Cinema Select Artists movies we have acquired.”

To give you an example from real life, it would be as if using Stanfield Standish’s I.T. – Image Transformer – machine, the faces of Mick Jagger and Madonna (or some other totally inappropriate equivalents) were superimposed over those of Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca ... as undetectably as a skin-tight latex glove being pulled over the fingers of a hand.

In the story line for Origin & Cause, Standish’s body is found in the incinerated remains of his 1930 Duesenberg Arlington sedan, both obviously the victims of arson. However, fire investigator Wylie Nolan, the book’s hero, discovers a bullet wound in Standish’s head, indicating that before the body and car were burned, the media tycoon had been murdered.

Since Stanfield Standish was such a hated individual, suspects abound, including Astrid Scheidler, Standish’s sister; Mark Greenberg, a Cuban refugee journalist he fired; Freddie Eckeles, the mechanic who serviced his classic car collection; and Marguerite Cataliz, his late father’s mistress. Foremost among the suspects, however, are the still-living actors and actresses who originally starred in the Cinema Select Artists films, and whose images he was planning to transform (just in case you missed it, this is the A.I. connection).

At the climax of Origin & Cause, these movie veterans, now in their 70s and 80s, participate in a protest outside Stanfield Standish’s mansion on the day he announces that he is going to replace their faces with those of contemporary rock stars.

Max Bramble, the attorney who had hired Wylie to investigate the Duesenberg fire, observes after that announcement, “...who knows where this new technology would lead to next? ... Images would not be the only things transformed. Standards would be redefined ... smutty hands would leave dirty fingerprints on all of our old heroes’ souls ... and once that got started, if it isn’t already underway, it wouldn’t be long before, instead of seeing old black-and-white newsreels of Auschwitz being liberated by American soldiers, we’d be seeing suntanned guys on vacation marching under the colorized sign of a concentration camp whose letters has been Image Transformed to spell out the words SHANGRA LA.”

My bossy friend Jo Ann, who remembers more about my books and my life than I do, has a plan. First, I was to write this article (Yes, Your Majesty!) telling you about Origin & Cause, and explaining its relevance to some of the scary ways that Artificial Intelligence has entered into our lives.

Then I am supposed to ask all of you to copy and paste the link for this column, and forward it to everyone you know, don’t know, or have briefly seen buying a dozen eggs in the supermarket. You are also to ask them to share this link, and post it on their Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In or other accounts.

I am also supposed to instruct you (are you listening?) to read Origin & Cause, which should be relatively easy, because the digital book is only $2.99 and can be bought from your favorite Internet bookstore. The audio edition is available through Audible, Download, and Blackstone Audio Books. I can’t figure out how much it costs, but if it’s expensive, maybe you can talk your library into getting it for you.

Also, let’s see if we can get a publisher interested in reprinting Origin & Cause, so that it finally gets worldwide distribution. It already got a great New York Times review – “the “characters are so combustible that you keep expecting them to go up in flames” – so that’s a step in the right direction.

Bottom line: if readers want to see how Artificial Intelligence, even though I call it Image Transformation, manifests itself in a fictional setting (of course you do!) that parallels real life today, get your copy NOW. Read it! Tell your friends about it! Share it! Review it!

Give my beautiful friend Jo Ann, who is Vice President of the Universe, the satisfaction of having told the world that 30 years ago, I predicted what is happening today.

Then she will leave me alone, and we can all live Happily Ever After.

And wouldn’t THAT be lovely!

Copyright © Shelly Reuben, 2023. Shelly Reuben’s books have been nominated for Edgar, Prometheus, and Falcon awards. For more about her writing, visit www.shellyreuben.com