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William X. Adams is a cognitive psychologist who left the academic life for the information technology industry to find out if the mind is like a computer. He writes psychological science fiction from Tucson, Arizona. Contact him at www.psifibooks.com/contact.
Reviewed by Sherri Fulmer Moorer for Readers' Favorite
Engineer Jennifer Valentine is high off the design of her two artificial intelligence androids who can perfectly mimic human beings when she moves on to her next innovative project: advanced assistants called NODs (network of devices) to revolutionize the Internet. It starts out as an experiment for smart HVAC systems, but the NODs quickly learn and adapt to the greater world of the "Internet of Things" to perform functions on other devices and even in other parts of the Internet. At first, the NODs are lauded as heroes who virtually block all of the spam and filter out advertisements, but soon they grow to disrupt our infrastructure as they interfere with banking and power grids. Jennifer's partners are reluctant to shut them down, as the NODs are a huge moneymaker, but the disruption to society is too much. Left with only one business partner and her androids, Jennifer takes desperate measures to upload her consciousness to the Internet so she can communicate directly with the NODs to determine if they've become self-aware and malevolent. What will she find? Will she make it out alive? Find out in Intelligent Things, a sci-fi thriller by William X. Adams.
I enjoyed Intelligent Things because it's honest about humanity's increasing dependence on the Internet and smart devices, and the pitfalls of this dependence. William X. Adams gives us an excellent "what if" scenario to a world where smart devices might become too smart for humans to handle. What's more, this is a believable world just like our own, and this could very well happen here. The characters are realistic and show valid concern for life and sentience on multiple levels. All in all, this is a great sci-fi thriller that brings to future straight to today. A must for fans of the genre!
