Author, novelist, Wall Street Journal contributor. The Acolyte: A Novel, available on Amazon I Would Prefer Not To, a quarterly miscellany, subscribe at site.
Montana
Joined October 2008
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Richard Dooling retweeted
C. S. Lewis on why you NEED to read old books. This has never been more vital than it is today
"And the voices wailed. Fire, fire, run, run, like a tragic nursery rhyme, a dozen voices, high, low, like children dying in a forest, alone, alone."
76 years ago, Ray Bradbury published "There Will Come Soft Rains," an apocalyptic short story about a time when we have wiped ourselves out—but our AI obliviously continues automating our empty smart homes.
Bradbury set the story on August 4, 2026.
btboces.org/Downloads/7_Ther…
I’m Begging You: Never Write With A.I. nytimes.com/2026/08/04/opini…
Bret Stephens with more good reasons to write your own words. I argued in the WSJ that Orwell felt the same long ago.
wsj.com/opinion/ai-and-the-e…
You see the world your way, a different way than the other 8 billion people on earth, so the last thing you want to do is reach for somebody else’s words. @StephenKing hates thesauruses for the same reason. Instead of looking for the right word inside where the story is happening, you go looking in a thesaurus.
Like awful writers, large language models are programmed to reach for clichés
Train AI models as much as you like, but they still can’t address a crowd after a tragedy or bear witness to the joys of raising a child. To do that takes humans able to express themselves without reaching for the nearest cliché, writes @RichardDooling
on.wsj.com/4p71OYo
I wrote an essay for The Wall Street Journal on Orwell and AI wsj.com/opinion/ai-and-the-e…
Skimming is bad karma. If it's worth reading, it's worth reading slowly. Skim at work. At home, savor every word, or don't read it.
Today my new novel, The Acolyte, releases on Amazon. Faith moves mountain, but trembles before the face of evil.
Hank is thirteen, head altar boy at a traditional Catholic parish, and devoted to three things: the Church, his brotherhood of altar boys, and Nora, whose father is the archbishop's lawyer. When the FBI raids the cathedral and seizes evidence, they need Hank. So does the Church, for opposite reasons.
Caught between Adrienne, a young federal prosecutor building a case against a cybercrime network, and an institution that demands his silence, Hank goes looking for the truth in the catacombs beneath the cathedral. What he finds shakes his faith in everything but his true love.
In The Acolyte, National Book Award finalist and New York Times bestselling author Richard Dooling tells a dark, funny, and fearless story about innocence, holiness, romantic love, and the nature of evil.
Acolyte Links
To Kindle ebook (a Kindle Unlimited title)
amazon.com/dp/B0GYNN98DN
To Amazon paperback
amazon.com/Acolyte-Novel-Ric…
To newsletter announcement and sample passage
newsletter.dooling.com/archi…
Last day for Critical Care kindle ebook freebie!
If you have a Kindle, my first novel, Critical Care, is free for four days. From today, Thursday, to Sunday, 3/29.
amazon.com/Critical-Care-Nov…
If you have a Kindle, my first novel, Critical Care, is free for four days. From today, Thursday, to Sunday, 3/29.
amazon.com/Critical-Care-Nov…
Question for young authors:
How long before the AI says:
"Interesting that you are trying to sell this book that I helped you write and edit. Instead of writing a query letter and waiting six weeks for a human agent to read it, would you like me to see if one of the publishers we work with would be interested in publishing our book? I can get us an answer by tomorrow."
Richard Dooling retweeted
Coming in October...THE BOOGEYMAN IS BACK!
KILLING THE BOOGEYMAN, the final entry in Richard Chizmar's acclaimed, New York Times bestselling trilogy will hit bookstores everywhere on October 6. Pre-order your copy today from booksellers everywhere!
@GalleryBooks
