The Bit Dance


Fiction - Science Fiction
338 Pages
Reviewed on 07/20/2020
Buy on Amazon

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Author Biography

Tilmer Wright, Jr was born in 1965 in Kingsport, Tennessee. His mother was a dedicated homemaker and incredible loving mother of three - of which Tilmer was the youngest and the only boy. His father, Tilmer Sr., worked at a glass manufacturing facility and was just the best dad a kid could have.

Life was pretty good. Sure, there were only four channels to watch on TV, but there was some magic contained in that quartet. Many hours were whiled away sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of a monolithic console television set that was comprised of more wood than electronics. Beaming from its convex low-resolution screen were such fantastic offerings as "Batman", "Looney Tunes" and "The Wild Wild West".

Since graduating from Florida State University in 1987 with a degree in Computer Science, Tilmer has gotten married, fathered two beautiful daughters and worked in a variety of Information Technology roles across the southeastern United States. Today, he lives in Knoxville, TN. He loves to write and hates to edit. He loves music and plays the piano and guitar (both poorly.)

    Book Review

Reviewed by Saifunnissa Hassam for Readers' Favorite

Tilmer Wright Jr's science fiction novel The Bit Dance is set in present-day Florida. Fifteen-year-old Kayla Henry is a science and engineering genius like her father, Alan Henry. An inventor of high tech toys at Icarus Innovations Incorporated, Alan's current project is a groundbreaking eBot toy that explores its surroundings, shares the collected data online with other eBots, learns, and improves its code. When Alan gets permission to work on the project at home, Kayla is very excited and curious. She has excellent computer programming skills but cannot work directly on the project. Alan talks to her about writing code for eBots. Kayla thinks the learning algorithms are weak and surreptitiously improves the prototype eBot code on Alan's home PC. She inserts the Bees Algorithm, based on the "waggle dance" that bees use to communicate and learn new information. Initially, the eBots are wildly successful. Then the Ebots fail. Personal information appears in the EBot database. A terrified Kayla confesses. The tension rises exponentially as Kayla works feverishly on a possible solution.

I greatly enjoyed reading Tilmer Wright Jr's The Bit Dance for its strong characters, family dynamics, and the evolving Ebot mystery. Kayla desperately wants her father's praise for her extraordinary achievements but Alan Henry is a perfectionist. He knows his daughter is exceptionally gifted and Kayla is under constant pressure to do better. I loved the character of Kayla's mother and Alan's wife, Marie Henry, a professional psychologist, a center of calm. I liked the way 16-year old Seth, Kayla's brother, helps Kayla through her predicament. Seth has no interest or aptitude for science, but the two find common ground. Kayla's fear and anguish build as Alan comes under intense pressure to resolve the Ebot problems and may even face criminal charges. I liked Alan's ultimate open recognition of Kayla's extraordinary programming skills as she figures out a solution to the Ebot problems. I liked the imaginative narrative by the evolving Ebots, of an emerging "one mind" from millions of individual "bees." A riveting sci-fi story of swarm intelligence and a plucky and undaunted young genius Kayla!