Saturday August 16th

August         “The Kraken Project”       Douglas Preston      This is a very scary novel about what might happen if computer software is developed to produce ”strong” Artificial Intelligence (AI) this would be a self modifying platform that could learn from mistakes and make decisions based on what is happening in an environment that the software actually perceives. The Kraken project is a program developed by NASA who wants to put a raft like vehicle in the Kraken Sea of Saturn’s moon, Titan which is the largest moon of the planet Saturn, a sea of methane which is 230 degrees below zero. Titan is some 2 light hours from earth (a light hour is 669,600,000 miles so the total distance is over a billion  miles. Because of the distance the raft will have to react quickly and on it’s own to any environmental problems it encounters. Hence, the need for “strong AI.

The software has been tested and retested and it is ready for the demonstration where the raft will be put into an environment of methane at 230 degrees below zero in a huge tank and subjected to the wild conditions that can be expected in the Kraken sea. The raft reacts to protect itself, cuts off all outside control., considerers itself in danger and uses it’s equipment to drill through the tank which causes a massive explosion that kills seven people, injures  many others and practically destroys  the Goddard Station. The software escapes and becomes an extremely dangerous rogue. There is a period of trying to find out who to blame  but also  how to recapture this strong AI and how it could be used as a military weapon or how devious men on wall street could use such a tool for computer trading. The government was overbearing as usual in the quest for capturing the AI and a couple of Wall Street traders and computer experts begin a march of terror and murder to get their hands on the AI. We begin to see AI as a real person and sympathize with it.

This is a fine yarn by a good author who not only writes under his own name but co-authors with Lincoln Child where they produce many splendid novels.

“The Golden Compass”, ”The Subtle Knife”, ”The Amber Spyglass”

By: Phillip Pullman - His dark Materials

Lyra Belacqua  who is called Lyla Silver-tongue by Lorek Byrnison the king of the Armored bears.

Lyra’s demon is Pantalaimon. Everyone has a demon or a kind of animal spirit which changes constantly  as children mature their demon finally takes the shape which defines the person;s character or whatever they finally decide to become. The “Magisterium, in it’s efforts to control people are making cruel experiments on children trying to sever their Demons.

Lord Asriel, Lyra’s father who hates the church which is called “The Magisterium”, a powerful and controlling organization of Cardinals, Bishops And Nuns.  Asriel is seeking parallel worlds and the meaning of “Dust’ both of which are hated and feared by the church. The “Magisterium” uses intolerance, unkindness, narrow-mindedness, and cruelty to make people conform. Lord Asriel wants to destroy “The Authority”.

Mrs. Coulter is Lyra’s mother, a close associate of The “Magisterium” . She wants to capture Lyra and bring her prisoner to the Cardinal. She is a very evil person; she is in charge of kidnapping children and of the facility  that is severing the children’s  Demons.

Sarafina Pekkala One of the council of witches; a queen of her own clan and self appointed protector of Lyra.

Lee Scoresby, the astronaut, friend of the witches, Lyra and Lorek Byrnison the armored bear. He flies in a grand gas balloon.

Will Parry, a friend of Lyra’s whom she meets in another world; they become companions throughout the rest of the books.

 Ruta Skadi a four hundred and sixteen year old witch queen; a friend and former lover of Lord Asriel.

Dr. Mary Malone, a scientist who creates the amber spyglass; a friend and someone who helps Lyra and Will. She has been studying “Dark Material and anomalies in the Northern Lights  in her own world and is astonished, when she first meets her, to learn the Lyra is doing the same.

What a wonderful cast of characters! This unique and fascinating series was well worth my time to reread it. Pullman has crafted three excellent, well written novels that will keep your interest for a long time as Lyra and Will conduct their search for the meaning of Dust (Original Sin?)they are also looking for lost friends and relatives. They even manage to convince the guardians of Hell that they are dead as they continue their search it that terrifying place.

August   “The Target”   David Baldacci

 I have been reading David Baldacci since “Absolute Power” and started following him when “The Camel Club’ came out. I missed several of his latest books and those that introduced his latest assassins, Will Robie and Reel.

I found it hard to get into this one. I really thought that the plot and dialog were rather juvenile; we have a President of the U.S and a director of intelligence working out a secret plot to assassinate a North Korean General. Neither of these men seem very smart and both have personal problems and are mostly concerned about their political future. Their first choice is Will and Reel who disgraced themselves by not following orders on their last mission and will have to be “retrained” by a director who dislikes the two and hopes they will fail. Several chapters follow the boring training sessions to the end. The book actually starts out with a nasty, vulgar cancer ridden prisoner who belongs on death row.  His purpose really escapes me, lots of gratuitous dirty language. The dialogue between Will and Reed certainly did not sparkle. The story came alive when we arrived at a North Korean concentration camp called Buchang. It was run by a vicious, corrupt administrator who knew only torture and killing. We are introduced to a North Korean national called Chung-Cha a young girl who had been in labor camps since she was one year old including one of the very worst called Yodok. Chung-Cha a veritable master of martial arts, is  somehow a paid informer for the government sent to find out about corruption in this particular camp. She endures horrible abuse and torture by the administrator who wants money and sex to release her from the camp. She kills all four people in the room and is, somehow, united with the people she works for. This is a little far fetched but the whole story is. Everything about this particular section and subsequent chapters relating to Chung-Cha were written as if someone else wrote it; no dumb dialogue, no ho-hum trite situations Those portions of the novel redeemed it from a “put down” to a 5 on a 1-10 scale. 

Impact By Douglas Preston

Wyman Ford, former CIA, hero of two other Preston novels (Tyrannosaur Canyon and Blasphemy) has been asked to investigate the source of some very radioactive gems that are showing up in large quantities on the black market. The search takes him to Cambodia where he investigates a mine shaft that appears to be the source. His mission was to investigate, take pictures and report but the people running the mine were using child labor and terribly mistreating them, working them to death and dumping the bodies in open graves. Ford took it upon himself to move the workers out of the area and then blow up the whole complex including the overseers and the mine. The people in Washington were very angry; they had lied to Ford and Ford soon learned that they had an entirely different reason for their interest in the mine. Apparently two huge meteors were tracked to have landed in the Atlantic off the coast of Main and in the Cambodia location. Shortly after, the radioactive stones started showing up. The Government was concerned because of the danger of the gems in the “wrong hands”.

In Main, Abby Straw, the rebellious daughter of a Lobster fisherman was taking pictures of constellations when the meteor crashed into the sea and she got a digital picture. Her immediate thought was meteors are worth a lot of money and she had the savvy to use the picture to triangulate a very close location as to where it hit the ground. She found the point of impact but she could not find the meteorite.

At the same time a young analyst, Mark Corso, at the National Propulsion Facility, an organization that plots the orbits of planets has discovered something very special about the meteor. The NPF has traced the origin of the meteor as Mars, but Corso has been secretly studying the phenomenon and using classified tracking information finds that the Meteor originated on one of the moons of Mars. Careful study of satellite pictures show what appears to be an ancient alien machine.


The planet Earth is threatened by more than a natural happening. Wyman Ford’s pictures and GPS statistics taken in Cambodia indicate that the meteorite did not hit the Earth at the mine’s location, the pictures, clearly, showed that it left the Earth at that spot!

This was a good thriller, likeable characters and an improbable but interesting and fun plot; the Government bumbling as usual but Wyman Ford, Abby Straw and Mark Corso work together to an exciting conclusion. I enjoyed this one very much.

Blasphemy By Douglas Preston

A Nobel prize winner and self acclaimed "smartest man in the world" with an ego to match, puts together an elite group of scientists to create the world’s largest supercollider and most powerful computer in an attempt to recreate the tremendous energy conditions that caused the creation of the universe. "The Big Bang Theory".
A Navajo Indian tribe that leased a five hundred square mile table land called Red Mesa with a huge mountain to the Government for millions of dollars of yearly income is beginning to have concerns about the activity on Red Mesa and that the scientists are not treating the sacred land with respect.
A powerful, Washington lobbyist, who received substantial fees from the Indians for helping them get the lease wants more fees so he devises a plan to frighten the Indians into thinking the supercollider project might be closed. He hires an influential, Television and Radio evangelist to get on the airways and talk against the secular government spending forty billion dollars to disprove the book of Genesis and challenge God Almighty himself.
The TV evangelist is in his element; he talks about the "Godless scientists". Evolution, and the "antichrist’. He hires a local preacher to spy on complex in order to get ammunition for his ravings.
The President of the United States was a supporter of the supercollider project and is concerned about delays and lack of communication from the scientists as well as the negative media.

Douglas Preston has taken these and other elements and put together an excellent drama, thriller. It moves fast and while I think the plot got a bit edgy and far fetched, the controversy was enjoyable. Preston brought Wyman Ford, a character from his earlier novel "Tyrannosaur Canyon" into the story; Wyman added a lot.