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.

See below for synopsis.

You can purchase KiTE at:

Buy Kite at Amazon
Buy Kite at Barnes and Noble
Buy Kite at BooksaMillion
Buy Kite at Booklocker

The image below opens a two-chapter exerpt into a Flash application. You must have a Flash player installed on your computer for it to work. For best results: maximize the new window that will open when you click the link below and put your browser in Full Screen Mode. Press the “1:1″ button for actual size if needed for readability. More detailed reading tips are at the bottom of the cover image.

Kite Free Sample

Kite is available through favorite online outlets.

Earth’s fate is in the balance and only Dash, Sheila, Janet, and Kite, can prevent disaster.

Kite available in these online bookstores, among others:
Buy Kite at Amazon
Buy Kite at Barnes and Noble
Buy Kite at Booklocker

Front Cover of Kite

Kite Synopsis
Mason Dash, operator of Earth Orbit street sweeper Kite, spots movement in a derelict space station where there should be none. Heading Earthward in his shuttle the last day of his three-month shift he detours, closing with the dark station. Something moving in there spooks him.

Dash, with the help of beautiful virtual personality Sheila, creates a plan to expose suspected hijackers. He believes Sheila is his secret but Janet, his brilliant AI expert spouse, informs him that she and Sheila are chums, and she’s even added some experimental “adaptive” modules. While preparing a simulation “scenario” to carry into orbit next shift, Dash dozes off and Sheila stows away in the code, her new adaptive behaviors kicking in. No way she’ll be left behind this trip.

Back in orbit Dash confirms the presence of intruders on the station, while inside the Kite computer systems there’s turmoil. Emerging from deep in the data depths He_Ra has assembled a powerful force to seize control from the old Main Process.

Sheila splits attention between Dash outside and her own adventure inside Kite, getting a taste of romance and revolution. The tyrant He_Ra has taken a fancy to her and wants to expand to other orbital structures, like the nearby space casino, then perhaps to Earth.

Dash sends Sheila to the space station to scout. She finds not hijackers but a team of inept diplomats, preparing to receive humankind’s first unearthly visitor.

Dash, doubtful they’ll survive the encounter, would leave them to their fate when the alien, name of Troy, turns up. Troy’s a working stiff too but is authorized to defend himself. His sensors detect a threat and he’s armed with some powerful planet-busting weapons.

Earth’s fate is in the balance and only Dash, Sheila, Janet, and Kite, can prevent disaster.

Publisher’s Note
Hard science fiction works, whether they keep you on or around Earth or take you to the farthest reaches of the galaxy, are those that adhere more closely to science fact than not. Much dispute and emotional argument can ensue among fans in attempting to nail down any definition, but the term hard should in no way imply that a work takes itself overly seriously. Kite, with its orbitweary workman co-protagonist and its strong women co-protagonists is one of those stories that builds in the humor with the possibilities, that a time will come when humans will utilize Earth orbit in a mundane, everyday fashion, and that going to space in ships will not be as costly and risky as it is now. The inevitability of this is as sure as the inevitability that wherever people go they tend to make a mess, and someone will still have to be out there doing the rough jobs, and the cleaning up.

Author’s Note
Kite is a story that had been latent for a few years before emerging. The amount of debris in orbit has been building up since the days of the Mercury program, and it seems like every shuttle mission these days generates a news story about a debris encounter. Now that the shuttle program is coming to its long-overdue end, if we’re every going to inhabit the space around Earth, and use it as the platform for leaping out, as Carl Sagan put it, into the nearby neighborhood, the next generation of technology would need to do something about all the junk. A ship like Kite is just one projection of how it might be handled. – Bill S.

Folks interested in this topic might also have an interest in a science fiction tale set in Earth porbit. See the synopsis below or click here for an excerpt: KiTE, by Bill Shears. The space elevator’s not in it but there’s another intriguing launch method detailed. Also, check back to the main page for news of an upcoming move project (not based on Kite…yet) and follow on Facebook at BillShears16 or KitetheNovel. On Twitter at Bill Shears 16. Tell them InfinityBound sent you.

Space Elevator

Watch a video showing how it could be done. The wonders of carbon can make it happen. Materials are often the answer and so they are her; and here’s a practical use for solar panels. Vacations in space will be nice, yes, but once it’s up and running then it becomes the “space freight elevator.” No spacecraft need ever again be built on the surface of Earth. This would be taking a big first step.

Side Note: Folks interested in this topic might also have an interest in KiTE: hard science fiction with heart

KiTE, by Bill Shears, is a science fiction novel set in Earth orbit. Mason Dash, operator of Kite, the flagship of Earth Orbit Maintenance Department’s debris sweeper fleet, suspects spacejackers on an abandoned space station may be using it as a platform for a terrorist attack on Earth targets. Sheila, his beautiful virtual companion, has been “enhanced” with an experimental free will module. Inside the computer system of Kite a digital uprising is under way. Sheila goes off on her own adventure and finds she’s forced to split her focus between Dash’s situation in the “real world” and an ambitious virtual tyrant who has also taken a fancy to her, and who wants to expand his empire beyond Kite. Meanwhile Dash finds the spacejackers are not what he suspected, maybe worse. And it’s just then that humankind’s first unearthly visitor appears in Earth orbit, who is none too pleased. Earth’s fate hangs in the balance.

Zombies ahead!

It is not this simple, we’re sure, but if it’s not a step into INFINITY we don’t know what is. Think of everything in the world that runs on silicon chips. Then increase their efficiency a near infinite amount. What will it mean for computing and everything that goes along with it? Think what it’ll mean for communications, for weaponry, for entertainment. Think of all the computing power that currently exists in the word, and then put it all in a device the size of a flash drive that you can buy at Radio Shack. Come to think of it, the people who conjure up how to apply the new technologies to do way with Radio Shacks once and for all will likely be the next generation of Quantum Billionaires. Hey, if you’re out there drop me a line.

We may have been present during the first step to infinity on Earth.

Here’re a couple of other informative links:

Caltech: Alice & Bob
IBM Research

And just for five minutes will you please Stop Making Sense…”Life During Wartime”.