What a perfect novel to review for my first blog post using Grammarly. I revised my 85,000-word novel with Grammarly, and it’s incredible how much I agreed with the corrections. I averaged ten corrections per page for 280 pages. I need to brush up on my comma usage for sure. I emailed an old writing teacher, and it’s fine to use Grammarly. This may make publishing books even harder because more polished scripts will be submitted to agents and publishers. The book Playground by Richard Powers features AI themes and was published in 2024.
For query letters to agents for publishers, you need to state two comparable successful novels to your own. For me, I’m stumped because I don’t read enough new books to have a clue. So, I looked up five contemporary dystopian novels and requested them through my library. One pick was Playground. Shortly, I realized this is not a dystopian book. It takes place in modern times, and although it covers important topics, it’s not an evil government or other attributes of dystopian worlds. I learned you need to be careful with online book suggestions. My book is nothing like Playground. But I kept reading and enjoyed it. Richard Powers won the Pulitzer for Overstory in 2019, and he’s talented.
I’m going to try not to give spoilers since I’m recommending this book. There are three or four storylines that follow different characters instead of one hero or story. This is popular these days, and Celeste Ng does it well, too. In Playground, one storyline is in first person, and the others are in third. One is a tech expert who became wealthy from an AI data tracking social media platform. Another character is a woman marine biologist who lives for discovering underwater creatures. The third main character is an African-American genius child from the South Side of Chicago.
I like novels that span decades. I read it a long time ago, but I enjoyed Don DeLillo’s Underworld because it spanned from the 1950s to the 1990s. Playground has a broader timeline. The marine biologist’s storyline starts in the 1940s when she found her love for the ocean. And then her career progresses throughout the novel. The tech guy and the South Side of Chicago genius storyline intertwine in the 1980s. Towards the end, I believe the dates it takes place are in the 2010s
For social commentary and themes, Playground is an essential novel on AI, just like The Circle was a critical take on social media. The writing is accessible and feels substantial at the same time. Towards the end, there was one detail I got confused about, but I won’t tell it here since it’ll be a spoiler. When I’m near the end of a book, I sometimes read too quickly. I should have backtracked, but I didn’t. I think my confusion was my own fault, not the book’s.
Except for a clever description of marine animal mating, there is no sex in this book. Thinking over my own work, I may rework and revise with the intention of limiting that stuff. The other books I checked out and plan to read are: The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin, The World Gives Way by Marissa Levian, The Space Between Worlds, by Micaiah Johnson, and Chain Gang All-Stars, by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah.
With more reading of contemporary books, I can figure out how to make my work stronger. I am a little jaded on writing, and now with all the AI that is changing so fast, I’m not sure if writing for years is a good use of time.
If you read this far, read Playground. And let me know if you catch any typos. I’m paying around twelve bucks a month for Grammarly. If no one sees any typos, maybe I’ll revise all my blog posts with Grammarly. Then again, maybe not.
