THE DAWN OF AI

A 2040 digital disaster kills millions as a software entity seems to malfunction in LeKodak’s cautionary SF thriller.

In 2040, an artificial intelligence software system called Gaius governs all transportation, from self-driving automobiles to spacecraft. On a fateful January day (dubbed “Mayday”), Gaius suddenly goes offline. Millions of humans on land, sea and above in the skies are killed as planes crash and boats and space shuttles drift into oblivion. In the aftermath, a small cast tries to solve the riddle of whether Mayday was just a tragic glitch or deadly terrorism—possibly via a computer incursion inflicted on the supposedly foolproof Gaius. The ensemble includes José, a “retired” CIA agent (which, in this grim worldview, means he constantly dodges assassins); DJ, a crack U.S. commando who consults with his master-hacker brother, CJ; Ndidi, a Nigerian heiress renowned for breakthroughs with autistic children; and sisters Karla and Liz, conjoined twins from a Russian orphanage who, despite their disability, work together as fearsome killers. Flashbacks going back to September 11, 2001, delineate the character connections and illustrate, year by year, how the Gaius crisis evolved (it only takes reading the novel’s title to perceive that a rogue artificial intelligence is the lead suspect in the disaster). The author has a jaundiced, Robert Ludlum–like view of world power structures, in which public servants can hardly wait to kill each other, though the focus on just a handful of key actors closes off a bigger-picture view of high-tech 2040 Earth. There is plenty of programmer/coder-talk (“Next, he swept through her source code. More codes swarmed his screen as he tunneled deeper through the firewalls”), but in the action-heavy context, it should not alienate most readers (it’s fairly indistinguishable from magic spells). A cliffhanger ending leaves the port open to sequels.

Cloak-and-dagger action dominates the cyber-punkish premise of software gone bad.