[bksvol-discuss] Re: [bookshare-discuss] Next Meeting of the Science Fiction Club, Thursday, March 12. 2015

  • From: Lelia <leliastruve@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 12 Mar 2015 10:35:31 -0600

So let's try this again, sorry about that everyone, look for the information 
below about time and place of tonight's science fiction book club meeting hope 
to see you all there

Lelia 

Sent from my iPhone

> On Feb 13, 2015, at 7:15 PM, Evan Reese <mentat1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> Hello Folks,
>  
> We continue to have a good showing to discuss our books. All those who read 
> it very much enjoyed The Companions by Sheri S. Tepper. For our next meeting, 
> we’ve chosen a book by someone who isn’t generally considered a Science 
> Fiction writer, but this book certainly is SF. It’s a tale with plenty of 
> action, but which also raises some very thought provoking questions which are 
> beginning to be considered by forward looking thinkers, and will become only 
> more urgent in the next couple decades. We’ve chosen The Kraken Project by 
> Douglas Preston.
>  
> The next meeting of the Science Fiction club will take place on Thursday, 
> March 12, 2015.
>  
> Place, Book Nook at:
>  
> http://conference321.com/masteradmin/room.asp?id=rs7867a2369e0e
>  
> Time: 9 PM Eastern, 8 PM Central, 7 PM Mountain, 6 PM Pacific, and 02:00 UTC.
>  
> Our book, The Kraken Project, is available from both BARD and Bookshare.
>  
> The link to the BARD version is at:
>  
> http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.nls/db.79300
>  
> Here is the NLS annotation:
>  
> NASA is designing an exploratory probe to be dropped into the Titan methane 
> sea, Kraken Mare. But during testing an explosion kills seven scientists and 
> the probe's AI program flees into the Internet. Ex-CIA agent Wyman Ford must 
> track down the rogue software.
>  
> The link to the Bookshare version is at:
>  
> https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/829338
>  
> The Bookshare Long Synopsis reads as follows:
>  
> Wyman Ford is back again in The Kraken Project, the thrilling new novel from 
> New York Times bestselling author Douglas Preston.  NASA is building a probe 
> to be splashed down in the Kraken Mare, the largest sea on Saturn's great 
> moon, Titan. It is one of the most promising habitats for extraterrestrial 
> life in the solar system, but the surface is unpredictable and dangerous, 
> requiring the probe to contain artificial intelligence software.  To this 
> end, Melissa Shepherd, a brilliant programmer, has developed "Dorothy," a 
> powerful, self-modifying AI whose true potential is both revolutionary and 
> terrifying.  When miscalculations lead to a catastrophe during testing, 
> Dorothy flees into the internet. Former CIA agent Wyman Ford is tapped to 
> track down the
> rogue AI. As Ford and Shepherd search for Dorothy, they realize that her 
> horrific experiences in the wasteland of the Internet have changed her in 
> ways they can barely imagine. And they're not the only ones looking for the 
> wayward software: the AI is also being pursued by a pair of Wall Street 
> traders, who want to capture her code and turn her into a high-speed trading 
> bot. Traumatized, angry, and relentlessly hunted, Dorothy has an 
> extraordinary revelation--and devises a plan.  As the pursuit of Dorothy 
> converges on a deserted house on the coast of Northern California, Ford must 
> face the ultimate question: is rescuing Dorothy the right thing? Is the AI 
> bent on saving the world... or on wiping out the cancer that is humankind?
>  
> Finally, here’s a glowing review from Booklist taken from Amazon’s page for 
> The Kraken Project:
>  
> *Starred Review* Preston’s latest solo novel (he’s mostly known as one half 
> of the Preston-Child team who write the Special Agent Pendergast series) 
> takes a wildly implausible premise and turns it into a very entertaining 
> thriller. The Kraken Project is a NASA initiative to send a probe to Titan, a 
> large moon of Saturn. Because of the distance involved, real-time control of 
> the probe is impossible, so NASA decides to make the probe autonomous via 
> cutting-edge artificial-intelligence software. But the software, called 
> Dorothy, malfunctions and escapes into the Internet, where it plans a reign 
> of terror that begins with revenge against its creator and will end with the 
> annihilation of humankind itself. Dorothy’s creator goes on the run; Wyman 
> Ford, ex-CIA agent and star of a few previous novels, is tasked by the 
> president to find the woman (who, most everyone suspects, deliberately 
> unleashed Dorothy).
> Whether or not you buy the premise of sentient software roaming the Internet, 
> you won’t be able to deny that this is an exciting story. Preston sells the 
> premise by sheer force of will: his characters are so compelling, his 
> storytelling so persuasive, that we buy it all completely, at least as long 
> as we’re inside the book. Bravo.
>  
> But there’s a bit more to the book than simply an excellent thriller. Come 
> join us to talk about this one next month.
>  
> Evan

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  • » [bksvol-discuss] Re: [bookshare-discuss] Next Meeting of the Science Fiction Club, Thursday, March 12. 2015 - Lelia