Chapter 134

February 27th, 2022

By that same evening, Logan was feeling pretty tired. It hadn't been the easiest of weekends, and honestly - he felt like he needed an escape. In part because he'd spent a good part of the day entertaining Em, which while fun was also tiring, something he was only now discovering. However, he knew it was the realistic side of being a parent, and he was fully aware it was probably better to be faced with that reality now rather than later.

On the other hand he had also been on his toes concerning Rory and Gigi. It had been weird seeing Rory in this kind of action mode, as if it was her chance to prove something - to be that maternal figure Gigi didn't really have, a perfect big sister, an aunt possibly even. He also wonder how much of it had been sheer desperation, some of the thought processes she'd mentioned having sounded a bit 'out there' or at the very least ten steps ahead of the game. It was the intensity of it that had made him worry. He knew Rory was still stressing about becoming pregnant, even if she tried to not show it much. He could imagine it was hard with everyone but her experiencing this around her right now. First Paris, then Gigi. He'd felt rather similar when everyone he'd frequently mingled with in London years ago had started having kids. It had made Odette push the topic even more and it had made him think whether there was something wrong with him for not wanting kids. Now he knew the problem wasn't the kids but the partner, at least.

But he definitely wished that he could help Rory somehow. The problem was that he didn't know how. He felt some relief because they had an upcoming therapy session in a couple of days, hoping it'd provide some reflection to the situation.

After Cassandra had dropped off the package that had been delivered to Logan's former apartment by mistake, the parcel having taken a bit of a detour on its way, Logan contemplated what to do. Going through the notebook in his study just somehow didn't seem right - it was too much like work and those note books, while the topic had always been work-related, writing in them had never really felt like work. So since the weather was looking better already, and Loki was due a decent attempt of a walk, he opted for going out instead.

He put on his earphones, like he often did, and tucked the notebook into his pocket, unsure if he'd even get a moment to open it and walked off, deciding to take his familiar route. Loki's stamina was making rapid progress, making this already a pretty realistic idea unless he went anywhere too far.

It was a good hour, hour and a half, until sunset, and his headphones blasted his Discover Weekly playlist, even surprising him by how soundtrack-like the songs were for this activity - Elisapie and Joe Grass' 'Wolves Don't Live by the Rules and Hundreds' 'Ten Headed Beast', making his step a little faster. It reminded him of his evening jogs, but he had never felt further from those intense playlists he'd played on his unhealthy runs in London. But it was different - Loki too was picking up the pace nicely. It felt like having a dog to take with him to these little walks of escape - if one could call them that - he had a guardian by his side, something that would always make sure he would not do it for the wrong reasons, something that made him smile, even if life was a little confusing or complicated.

They had the convenience of having Elizabeth Park Conservancy in walking distance, which most often ended up being the main destination of his walks. He'd definitely been the type of guy back when he'd still lived in West Hartford to never really frequent places like this, hell - his Z3 was probably his most favorite place to be in this entire city and he'd sought to be anywhere but there the entire time he'd been able to drive. Now with a nearly four-month-old puppy in tow, he almost felt old, in the best possible sense of the word, in contrast as he found the bench he'd sat on before and enjoyed the slight burble of the stream, partially still covered in ice, in front of him.

He tied Loki to the bench, allowing the dog some time to explore on his own, while he himself took a seat. The notebook had definitely been burning a hole in his pocket and the walk had only built up his curiosity and a small craving for nostalgia too.

It was a simple black moleskin notebook, size B6 or so. And it certainly looked familiar, it felt familiar too. Logan recognized one of its edges that was a bit worn off, recalling a nervous habit of picking at it when he was reluctant to sit still in certain situations. In those days - a lot of meetings were like that. He was still learning the ropes, and even Mitchum wasn't fully sure what department he wanted to place Logan to work in more permanently, hence he'd gone through most of them, some more boring then the other from Logan's perspective.

The positive side of going through most of the departments was that for the first time he'd truly begun to see the HPG as a very large living organism and not just a stagnated machine of some sort. Not everything that happened was technical, cold and calculated - there were people in this ecosystem of a sort - people who were motivated, inspiring and caring. He'd begun to understand how departments were interconnected, and even some that were placed in different continents. He understood now how decisions happened and who they needed to go through to happen. He knew the people and which one of them were the ones he trusted and knew to keep closer than the others. Thinking back, his father really had known what he was doing, though at the time he'd mostly just felt like he was pushed around like a knight on a chessboard.

As he perused through the notebook, he found several lines which caught his interest. Already back in 2014 he'd been thinking about online author events instead of having the author travel across the country, or worse - continents. There was another idea, that had become reality - user-generated marketing content in form of #Booktok and #bookstragramers, even if his idea had been a little vague back then.

There were some notes from a couple of conferences that were now quite interesting to reflect on. Some researcher named Hitoshi Matsubara… or Matsubora - he couldn't quite make up his own handwriting - had talked with unbelievable enthusiasm about AI being able to write books in the coming years. It had been an incredibly critically met idea at the time, something nobody really believed to become reality. He remembered a few pieces even some of the journalists that worked for HPG papers had written on the topic even ridiculing it and comparing it to computers attempting to make art. Little did they know a book written by an AI created by that same team of researchers had nearly won the Hoshi Shinichi Literary Award a few years ago. The fact that this was a competition that accepted both human and machine written material was a clear sign of a new era in itself. Logan believed there were certain situations AI writing could be useful, no doubt about it - but he personally always wanted to see a character behind the words. It was a valid question whether an AI could have a character - something he didn't have an answer to.

In fact, most of his notes were in one way or another linked to the digital aspects of the publishing industry. He'd focused on e-books and both streaming and downloadable audiobooks. He'd realized before many others why e-books would become an issue to publishing houses when libraries were concerned. Pretty much anywhere except Rhode Island and New York, where there was legislation in place to regulate the pricing of such books, the library-oriented market was a mess. But of course there was the question - what kind of literature really was a public resource, and what was rather a form of entertainment or a possible source of unnessecary conflict or false claims.

Over the years the publishing industry had turned from a well-balanced market with a lot of good players, and even cooperation between these players into something a lot more rigid. The big six, was down to the big 3, at least in the States, and truthfully he knew that the popularity of big publishing houses had never quite been as bad amongst the authors as it was now. Even small places, much like Truncheon, were stealing the really interesting authors, people were also self-publishing more than ever. It was a changed business, one where it was very hard to win and remain ethical at the same time.

There were some more casual scribbles in that notebook of his too - names of people, companies, apps and sites to keep an eye on. Also on occasion - dates. One particular date at the end of 2014 made him think back to the room he'd booked for Rory and himself at Palé Hall for New Years Eve that year but that she'd ended up canceling at the last minute. He'd spent the classically wild Eve alone that year, contemplating what Rory and him were really doing, clearly more disappointed than he should've been had it been just casual. She turned the page, not wanting to dwell on it.

At the word 'Blinkist', which he'd circled, Logan recalled a discussion he'd had with his father during a flight one time - London to Frankfurt Am Main possibly - where they'd discussed the new platform which summarized non-fiction books. His father's opinion had sounded a lot like Dean Eldon's of River's - something along the lines of students becoming dumber by the year and how now there was a platform to support that, ensuring they never read a whole book in their life. Logan had disagreed, finding in his lack of free time how certain summaries could indeed be useful. But he too had agreed that the main question was the quality of the summary. That debate actually made him smile a little. It must've been one of the first times he'd seen his father as someone equal, and vice versa, actually liking that his father could hold up a decent argument and not just shut him down like he used to do.

As Loki was still finding enough to sniff on and explore, the bench itself probably containing the scents of a thousand different dogs, Logan found himself seriously thinking that he had in fact once enjoyed this field. Of course the HPG didn't just begin and end at publishing - it contained all sorts of media outlets, translation and design services, consultancies and so on. And what made it so overwhelming to be tied to as he felt now - it was the vastness of it. It was almost too big to take in at one look, breath, bite… whichever noun worked for a particular person. Whoever got wrapped in it, like his sister had now, it felt like this gigantic weight. He was actually really impressed how well his sister was handling it, having maintained a firm grasp on reality at the same time.

He didn't have answers just yet, but opening this notebook had indeed reminded him what had made him tick. And since the notebook was only about ¾ filled, he made it a point to keep it by his side, hoping he'd think of some ideas that he could use now in this new decade. He wanted to believe there was some way he wouldn't need to hate the company he'd spent all those years making better.