Globe - Softcover

Heslop, R.I.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1842940775 ISBN 13: 9781842940778

Publisher: PlaneTree, 2002

Synopsis

The law of unintended consequences warns that an intervention in a complex system invariably creates unanticipated and often undesirable outcomes. Predicting the future is a complex business - digital computers were simply not up to the task. Early in the 21st century a new type of computer was invented - an organic based computer that mimicked the action of neurons. Using massively parallel computing power and goal seeking software - artificial intelligence was no longer a far off dream. Breakthroughs in synthetic DNA construction opened new techniques for building memory, processing, self-repair and self-organisation - a new technology was born. Deep under the surface of the Nevada desert a prototype was being created - GLOBE. Its main architect was Professor Steven Kants, formally of M.I.T. His sudden death has thrown the project director, Peterson, into a panic. He needs a replacement, and fast. Excited by her new job at the Artificial Intelligence Corporation, Dr Fleur Thomas's arrival is dramatic and mysterious. Her car tyres are shot out, she crashes and is escorted at gunpoint into the plant. Changing the entire direction and purpose of the project in an insane gamble to save it, Peterson unleashes a series of events that brings Fleur Thomas and a presidential aide, Jonathan James Cain, together. Cain is forced to use all his strengths to save Fleur when unseen forces attack her. Fleur and Cain are drawn closer and closer together as they are plunged into a world of malevolence as they try to solve the mystery at the heart of the project. Who is controlling GLOBE? What is GLOBE really being used for? GLOBE is an action packed, non-stop contemporary thriller. It features the universal themes of love, power, greed and sex raising disturbing questions about technology and the way we want our lives to develop.

About this title

About the Author

When Jim Dearden met Ian Heslop it set the two of them off on something they had never done before. Ian, an English teacher, had tried his hand at writing a variety of things but had never worked with anyone else on a writing project. Jim, a technology teacher, had never written anything. What sparked them off was a love of ideas and did Jim have an idea! Years before it was written about or discussed Jim had come up with the idea of making a molecular computer, replacing conventional electronics with molecular devices. Out of Jim and Ian's discussions came the novel GLOBE, one, because they had no money to build the computer, and two, because they knew that one day someone would. GLOBE is a story of what might just happen when someone does actually build it.

Edition details

• Publisher: PlaneTree
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1842940775
• ISBN 13: 9781842940778
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 200