The Swallows
============

_The Swallows_ is a series of computer-generated novels meta-written for
[NaNoGenMo 2013](https://github.com/dariusk/NaNoGenMo) by
Cat's Eye Technologies.  Our submission issue can be found
[here](https://github.com/dariusk/NaNoGenMo/issues/39).

_The Swallows_ is also the name of the first novel in the series.
It follows the madcap adventures of Alice and Bob as they both try
to acquire the golden falcon, which is priceless, or at the very least
[irrationally desirable by all involved](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MacGuffin).

_The Swallows of Summer_, the sequel to _The Swallows_, revisits
Alice and Bob's life three years later.  They have a much bigger house
now.  They also own more things.

_Swallows and Sorrows_, the third book in the series, shows us another
period in Alice and Bob's life, not much later.  They have taken up drinking —
at least when they are disturbed by things — to calm their nerves.  And then
they start arguing.  Oh, and the narrator knows how to use pronouns now.

The fourth novel, _Dial S for Swallows_, probably takes place shortly
thereafter, or possibly at the same time as _Swallows and Sorrows_ but in an
alternate universe.  Alice and Bob are no longer psychic (although this may
not have been apparent in the previous books, the fact is that they were
easily able tell what the other was thinking.  Now, they only have suspicions.
Also, the previous editor was sacked, and a completely new editor installed
in their place.)

All four novels can be found, in Markdown format, in the `doc` subdirectory
of this distribution.

At 49K words (in 15 chapters of 33 paragraphs each,) _The Swallows_ is not
quite long enough to qualify for NaNoGenMo.  At 53K words,
_The Swallows of Summer_ is.  _Swallows and Sorrows_ is just barely over
50K words.  _Dial S for Swallows_ is over 56K words.

All novels were generated by the Python script `the_swallows.py` in the
`script` directory, at different points in time.  See the repository
history to get the version of the script used for a particular novel.

I invite the reader who is interested in how the script works to read the
source code.  It sometimes even contains comments.