Reality Mimicking Sci-Fi

I read a story in the Houston Chronicle about film critic Roger Ebert having the ability to speak via a computer generated voice synthesizer ; but for some reason I couldn’t pull the story up on their internet version. I looked some key words up on Yahoo and found basically the same story as told on the BBC internet site. Roger had gone through a battle with cancer with major surgery; his ability to speak was a major loss for someone who made a living in front of a microphone.


I think it's neat, pardon my use of an antiquated phrase; I’m so tired of the word Kool. Maybe somebody at Cereproc read my book, Pecaw’s Gift. It never got published; but might still be accessed through my blogsite; last time I looked only the last half of the book was available on the archives. I still have each chapter’s URL; that should pull it up.

“…after working with hours' worth of recordings of Ebert's film reviews, Cereproc have created a prototype of his voice.


It is the first time the company has rebuilt an actual voice from original recordings.”

A short lead in; the main character was in a coma like condition, able to hear everything around him, yet unable to respond in any way other than to direct his thoughts toward electronic equipment such as blood pressure monitors with digital read outs or computers. During various stages of recovery he learns to control his digital transmissions and has outside help; a sharp young computer repair employee figured out how to open up the world to him, first through the use of a laptop to capture his thoughts and later on with a computer generated voice; I called this chapter, “Mr. C” .


I never got past the rough draft stage, lots of typographical errors and things like that needed to be re-worked to make it publishable. I wrote the story for self entertainment and, once completed, moved on to other interests. If you find you just have to read the whole book I’m sure I could figure a way to make it available via email; drop me a line.


Maybe I can get a piece of the royalties out of Cereproc; I hear J.K. Rowlings get sued all the time, folks claiming her Harry Potter ideas came from some obscure book nobody ever heard of. That’s it, Cereproc must have stolen my idea from twenty or thirty years ago and made it work for real.