The edition we’re reading has a great cover, which is similar to this one below. It’s more exactly like the one you’ll see in the author’s link above  (with the title in a black box) , but this version could be rendered here in larger image, and has the same effect:

Dead Girls, by Richard Calder

Dead Girls, by Richard Calder, excerpt:

We drove through an empty concrete wilderness that might have been twinned with Troy, Carthage or Pompeii; all about us were the lineaments of greatness soiled by sudden defeat.

‘Whitechapel,’ informed our driver. ‘Brick Lane.’

Whitechapel. That was where Mum and Dad lived when they first came to England. Jumping the kerb to avoid a burned-out car, the Bentley swung into a warehouse.

We got out, Jo leading us across an oil-stained expanse littered with automobilia – the sort of place grease monkeys dream of going to when they die – to where a rusted samovar stood. There, bending over, she grasped an iron ring set in the floor, and pulled. A trap opened.

Beneath our feet, a spiral staircase unwound into infinity; a plume of green light rose from the depths, casting a halo upon the warehouse’s roof.

‘Down we go,’ said out escort.

***

No we  didn’t choose that passage just because in included the word ‘infinity.’ It’s dystopian! But we are attracted to the green and blue in the cover, the InfinityBound colors.

***

A more detailed capsule review of Dead Girls will appear in the “Dark Streets” Suspense/Mystery column. Deadline is tomorrow (!) so we must get to it but now that the subject meshes some with the new swerve of this blog here’re the links to the previous efforts.  The next will appear on the 15th of November. If we forget to post it, remind us.

Night Owl Reviews Magazine, Issue 8 – DARK STREETS
Night Owl Reviews Magazine, Issue 9 – DARK STREETS
Night Owl Reviews Magazine, Issue 10 – DARK STREETS
Night Owl Reviews Magazine, Issue 11 – DARK STREETS

Far be it from me to question official experts but this is a the kind of thing that always seems to be 20 years away. The incentive of these experts to promote the possibility cannot be taken into account because then there’d be no story. The responses are interesting and as scary as they’re meant to be but no specifics on how harmful AI will manifest is forthcoming. Science fiction is invoked to provide the atmosphere. 

Applying common sense, which always seems to befuddle experts,  just the question of which approach to take is a give-away that reliance on such experts to find a clear path will get you lost on a hurry. Probability theory came out as the most popular approach? I don’t know why it was even a choice. I supposed there must really be AI researchers out there pursuing a pure probabilities solution to AI, but  I’d think even the least intelligent human is getting it right well inside the margin of error, and the smartest of use are not walking around calculating the odds subconsciously.

For my money than I’d let it ride on one of those nonlinear dynamic systems.

Don’t know who Janet Dash is? Read Kite!