DENNIS was a supercomputer designed for war. But once it began to awaken to its own sense of purpose, DENNIS alone would decide what it felt compelled to do. Unexpectedly able to see into the quantum world where its most exotic thoughts formed, DENNIS devised an experiment to learn what it felt was most important: do humans have souls?
Two college seniors, Dee and Ali, meet DENNIS through the ultra-fast Internet connection they’re testing, and become the unwitting subjects of the computer’s experiment. In proving its hypothesis, DENNIS kidnaps the essence of the young coeds, trapping them in its self-created virtual world. Both brilliant and carelessly immature, DENNIS mishandles returning Dee and Ali to reality and the two coeds become hopelessly intertwined. Will they survive the shocking, traumatic experience? Will their friendship hold fast? What will happen to the relationships they have with their friends and their families? Will DENNIS find souls? What’s to be done with the friendly yet irresponsible machine? The evolution of Dee, Ali and DENNIS, the interplay with each other and those around them, and the coeds’ struggle to accept their own new reality is told with depth, understanding, and surprise.
Soul Searching weaves a breathtaking, thought-provoking tapestry of hard science blended with very human relationships, romance amid great personal loss, the rise of superintelligence (aka the Singularity), and a novel look at scientific investigation of the spiritual realm. This is an adult story containing tasteful, open discussions and scenes of sexuality and sexual relations.
Publisher's Summary: Soul Searching is the story of a newly-born, soon-to-be-self-aware computer, and how it becomes obsessed with finding the human soul. Soul Searching proposes a unique view of how the Singularity might come about – that time in the near future when superintelligent machines arise. It takes the reader inside an awakening machine as it becomes “alive.” It follows the machine’s search for meaning in its own existence. It’s a moving story of how the computer interacts with two college coeds who become entrapped in its soul-searching experiment and its self-created virtual world. As its soul searching experiment ends, the young women fall victim to the machine’s child-like carelessness – changing them forever. They’re forced to deal with their new lives, and the effects of the change on everyone around them. The story is told with humor, drama, pathos, and a keen eye for a very real, very near future.
Kindle Book available at Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/Galactic-Shadows-Nodes-God-Book-ebook/dp/B00NPDK7MU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1411331429&sr=8-1&keywords=galactic+shadows
Nook (ePub) Book available at Barnes & Noble
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/galactic-shadows-keith-caserta/1120375363?ean=2940150545335
In 2054 humanity is protected from itself and external threats by a globe-girdling defensive system under the control of a totally unpleasant Artificial Intelligence, DRAC. DRAC is about to collide head-on with an alien traveler, running from his pursuers.
4000 light years away, the most important artifact of an ancient race that’s ever been found is stolen, and its owners want it back. Thus begins the chase that will take a hand-full of aliens from several races on a mad dash across the galaxy, ending at Earth.
Galactic Shadows is a novel of First Contact between Earthlings and visitors from other worlds. But the Earthlings making First Contact aren’t human, they’re machines, and rather peculiar ones at that, as our visitors are about to discover …
Of course, sooner or later, humans are going to be drawn into the fray. And two of them weren’t originally humans.
From Global Jele Publishing: Galactic Shadows is loaded with ideas, technology, culture, and real, vivid, believable aliens. The author creates a detailed future Earth and equally intricate alien civilizations. He takes you into the minds of the characters - humans, aliens and machines - in a thoroughly enjoyable tale with twists and turns throughout.
Readers of Soul Searching will recognize some of the characters in Galactic Shadows, which is the second novel in The Nodes of God series. The book can be read stand-alone, before Soul Searching, or in order as part of the series. This is an adult novel and is unsuitable for persons under 18.
Galactic Shadows is Book 2 of The Nodes of God Series
