Sentient: The First Android
Release Date: Monday, July 8th, 2024
Pages: 478 pages
ISBN 13: 9798332649103
In 'Sentient: The First Android,' KM Reid explores a dystopian Earth of the late 21st century where an ancient space construct chooses a young woman named Angela to lead humanity away from self-destruction, resulting in the creation of Maria, the first fully independent android, who must navigate greed, survival, and the dark side of human nature across both Earth and an alien society.
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Story Synopsis
The Earth of the late twenty first century is a place of few restrictions for the rich and powerful. A space travelling construct, built billions of years ago comes across the radio signals that have been drifting out from the Earth for 150 years and investigates. It arrives, considers what it sees, and selects a suitable human, a young woman, Angela, to lead humanity away from its path of self -destruction.
Angela is taken to a long dead world whose understanding of the nature of consciousness enable her to construct the first secondary level sentient (independent android) on her return to Earth. Into this world of incarnate greed, Maria, the first fully independent artificial life form is thrown. She is found and tortured, as a prelude to being dismantled as a means of opening up the Aladdin’s Cave of technical treasures and knowledge that she contains. She escapes and the hunt is on. Her ability to ghost in and out of the International Noticeboard (the multi-sensory successor to the internet) keeps her ahead of the politicians and corporates. Her experiences of humanity lead her to the conclusion that she must accommodate the greed of humanity to direct its future. To this end she, along with the children she has created, infiltrate the Stock Market and (unseen) quickly get absolute control of the wealth of every floated company of significance on the planet, but humanity is too far gone.
All hope of finding a way forward for humanity with any form of political leadership fades. The net is closing and the only option is to escape from the Earth altogether. Matters come to a head and Maria just escapes the authorities along with five of her six children (tertiary life forms). One of her children, Tiercel, is left behind as the price of their escape.
While Maria and her children fight for survival in Archaea, an alien society that has fed off the stolen technology of visitors to their world for millennia, Tiercel fights to remain hidden from those who would pursue and destroy him back in England until the return of his mother and siblings.
In surviving on Archaea Maria is forced to kill for the first time, while Tiercel is forced to go on the run with Elvira, a genetically engineered human, who has fallen in love with him. Following a number of close escapes Tiercel is finally uncovered by Tyler Richards, a brilliant detective, himself on the run from the authorities for his refusal to join the hunt. Closing in, in the background, is Anthony Buratta, a governmental contract killer who has also become enmeshed in the whole affair.
The book follows the path of both groups to its climactic and bloody conclusion involving not only Buratta and Richards, but also S4, a psychotic mind reader who escapes the military base where she has spent her entire life as a government weapon.
This is a book for science fans as much as science fiction fans as the theory and technology behind the story is as central to the read as the story itself. It is an original piece of science fiction writing of this AI obsessed generation, integrating the theory into the story as the need arises.
The Earth of the late twenty first century is a place of few restrictions for the rich and powerful. A space travelling construct, built billions of years ago comes across the radio signals that have been drifting out from the Earth for 150 years and investigates. It arrives, considers what it sees, and selects a suitable human, a young woman, Angela, to lead humanity away from its path of self -destruction.
Angela is taken to a long dead world whose understanding of the nature of consciousness enable her to construct the first secondary level sentient (independent android) on her return to Earth. Into this world of incarnate greed, Maria, the first fully independent artificial life form is thrown. She is found and tortured, as a prelude to being dismantled as a means of opening up the Aladdin’s Cave of technical treasures and knowledge that she contains. She escapes and the hunt is on. Her ability to ghost in and out of the International Noticeboard (the multi-sensory successor to the internet) keeps her ahead of the politicians and corporates. Her experiences of humanity lead her to the conclusion that she must accommodate the greed of humanity to direct its future. To this end she, along with the children she has created, infiltrate the Stock Market and (unseen) quickly get absolute control of the wealth of every floated company of significance on the planet, but humanity is too far gone.
All hope of finding a way forward for humanity with any form of political leadership fades. The net is closing and the only option is to escape from the Earth altogether. Matters come to a head and Maria just escapes the authorities along with five of her six children (tertiary life forms). One of her children, Tiercel, is left behind as the price of their escape.
While Maria and her children fight for survival in Archaea, an alien society that has fed off the stolen technology of visitors to their world for millennia, Tiercel fights to remain hidden from those who would pursue and destroy him back in England until the return of his mother and siblings.
In surviving on Archaea Maria is forced to kill for the first time, while Tiercel is forced to go on the run with Elvira, a genetically engineered human, who has fallen in love with him. Following a number of close escapes Tiercel is finally uncovered by Tyler Richards, a brilliant detective, himself on the run from the authorities for his refusal to join the hunt. Closing in, in the background, is Anthony Buratta, a governmental contract killer who has also become enmeshed in the whole affair.
The book follows the path of both groups to its climactic and bloody conclusion involving not only Buratta and Richards, but also S4, a psychotic mind reader who escapes the military base where she has spent her entire life as a government weapon.
This is a book for science fans as much as science fiction fans as the theory and technology behind the story is as central to the read as the story itself. It is an original piece of science fiction writing of this AI obsessed generation, integrating the theory into the story as the need arises.