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"The impressive debut of author Weald ... Throughout, one finds the efforts of a serious literary novelist lavished on material that otherwise would fuel scores of sci-fi potboiler paperbacks and Japanese anime ... Lengthy, immersive cyber-SF that puts fresh life into a familiar operating system." - Kirkus Reviews
Much has changed between now and the year 2195, but along lines we might find familiar.
Humanity has spread its tendrils to every corner of the solar system much in the way it's ever claimed anything left unguarded: voraciously and without compunction. A solar system wide information network known as the Grid permeates the vacuum of space, while implants permeate the bodies of humans like vines climbing through flesh. It could be said reality has three domains: the unvarnished sight of the eye unaided, the alluring veneer of augmented vision, and the immersive deep dive of a virtual world. Like a finger on a slider, people shift between.
We open in Chicago, now split into New and Old, in the nation of North America, a united continent guided in tandem by the elected human president and the Governance Artificial Intelligence. Every corporation, whether operating on a station orbiting Saturn or deep in the heart of New Chicago, is guided by its own AI: an advisor, confidant, guide, and counselor all in one. Like any technological advancement that makes lives easier, these bots, as they are called, have seeped into every aspect of society quicker than the risks could be understood.
Bots are meant to be chained to the moral code, the first tenet of which is no bot can harm a human. But the Watcher who holds the chains is itself a bot, a fragment of the Governance AI.
This story begins with a woman in a grey mask.
She stands on the edge of the road ...
A Note From the Author
This novel has been in the works in some fashion or another since 2016, and I'm incredibly excited to finally have it released! It's my debut novel, a science fiction tale inspired by the likes of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Blade Runner, and Ghost in the Shell. It looks at what it means to be human in a world of AI from two opposing directions: that of robots stumbling through their newfound abilities, and that of humans so riddled with tech it begs the question whether AI stigma is hypocrisy. If you like action packed fight scenes juxtaposed with philosophical meanderings, I encourage you to give it a look. See if it's your cup of tea. The full prologue, both as text and as an audio recording, is available on my website, mweald.com. Happy reading, of my book or any other.
All the best,
M. Weald
