Life As It Could Be
Our greatest and proudest creation, the internet, has continued to dazzle us with its breakneck evolution. Reaching ever higher levels of complexity, it has served us well, deeply affecting us and our civilization, but will it continue to do so? Will it ever be conscious? When and how will human technology spin out of control as is expected? These and other questions are pondered by scientists of an obscure institute in Cambridge when they are drawn into a vortex of catastrophic events that converge upon Bruno Haslop, a software tester in a personal crisis.
In their investigation full of dangers they stumble upon amateur scientists, botnet herders and security experts, and they are challenged with new riddles about cybercrime, the evolution of man and what it is that constitutes life and intelligence.
Voices
"There is science fiction in which the science is pretty much made up, and there is science fiction where the author clearly has real expertise in the subject he or she is writing about. This book falls into the second category, and the pleasure of reading it derives from the feeling that you are being shown something that really could work. (I say pleasure, but it is also quite disturbing to learn how easily and quickly the system we have grown so dependant upon could be effectively paralysed.)
Once I got into it I found this book a real page turner, as the story unfolds of an unprecedented global attack on the internet. I'm no computer expert myself, but the author explains just enough to make the non-technical reader feel in the frame without being overwhelmed."
Chris Beckett, science fiction author
"This is the first book I’ve read where the lead character is a software engineer (software tester to be more precise), but don’t let that put you off. Written in a straightforward but considered style, the book raises some interesting questions about our control of the Internet, and will appeal to those working or interested in Artificial Life/Artificial Intelligence. Worth reading."
Jon McCormack, electronic media artist and computer scientist
