The Swallows

See also: NaNoGenLab (2014)
∘ MARYSUE (2015)
∘ 2017 Entries
∘ 2018 Entries
∘ 2019 Entries

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.