Lumping them together as “AI” gives readers the impression that a single class of tool is discerning novel protein structures, teasing subtle patterns out of mountains of LHC data, writing a student’s History 101 paper, and arguing a ketamine-addled billionaire could post up Shaq in his prime. No.

I would absolutely not blame Arkady or Yoon for being annoyed when folks say "obviously Leckie influenced them!" Because it isn't the case.

Anyway. Not blaming anyone for anything, just musing on how important context is to what we can even see.

(INCIDENTALLY neither A Memory Called Empire nor Ninefox Gambit was influenced by my work. All 3 were composed at the same time (ish) and none of us had read the others' mss. Once again, the vagaries of publishing produced the illusion of subsequent events when really composition was simultaneous.

Anyway, my point is that when you next have an urge to say "Well OBVIOUSLY work X is doing Y, because it looks like Z to me so it MUST be that," maybe stop and ask if you really have the whole context.

Or don't, you know. You do you. Just, I think it's interesting.

It's extra annoying that Cherryh is a woman, and thus the "well obviously Leckie is influenced by Banks" gives me How to Suppress Women's Writing flashbacks. I know, it's not the fault of the commenters. They've read who they've read. The vagaries of publishing mean they haven't read Cherryh. Still.

Cherryh was, actually and for real, a HUGE influence on the Radch books. I've been reading her work since I was in high school.

This is not to say that comparing my work to Banks' is bad or wrong. It's just...interesting and sometimes annoying how confidently wrong some folks can be about this.

By that point, though, the heavy lifting of the Radch was already done. And to date, I have only read CP and the Hydrogen Sonata.

By the same token, people who were immersed in Banks' work almost never read CJ Cherryh, because her work wasn't widely available in the UK.

In the US, Banks was not (perhaps still is not) widely read. I had *heard* of Banks while I was building the Radch, but ebooks weren't such a big thing at the time and getting paper copies of his work was complicated.

I did have a friend who at one point lent me their copy of Consider Phlebas.

I am thinking of this because recently I've seen several people say, casually, as though it is obviously true, that the Imperial Radch books were strongly influenced by Banks and even contain nods to his work.

The thing is.