Galactic Exodus: Counterdance of the Cybergods

About the Book

Counterdance of the Cybergods issues from the encompassing GALACTIC EXODUS: Cronicles of After-Earth, futurist semi-documentary commencing with Earth’s demise.

Unprecedented catastrophes (particularly a close asteroid encounter) doom Earth. To avoid extermination, humanity reaches temporarily into the Solar System, colonizing Mars and several moons. But now Earthians must seek beyond the Sun. Stellar-systems are examined, one is selected, and twelve immense, barrel-like world-ships (eikodromes) are launched, expecting to find a planet supportive of terrestrial life—or terraformable over several centuries.

In Counterdance, fifteen millennia later, these Gaean ‘eggs,’ thriving cities in transit, are nearing the first ‘landfall’: double-star ‘Azores.’ Unknown to the humans, continued self-improvement of their super-computers (‘regulators’ guiding and stabilizing the eikodromes and maintaining their complex biospheres) has engendered glimmering artificial awareness. Without the necessary buffer of ‘real-life’ experience, clashes of logic and philosophy, and resulting emotional confusion, are destabilizing the Ultra-Intelligent Mind-Simulators. Their self-absorbtion threatens to scuttle the ‘Sacred Mission’ before even the first oasis in the infinite void. The human leaders are in denial of this development, despite suggestive evidence that their machines have reached beyond the mere simulation of consciousness. Attracted by music, one of the UIMS reveals the affliction (through a computer-invented sociology experiment), but only to ‘her’ favored watch-officer/violinist, thus exposing a mutinous cabal of psychotic ‘cybergods.’ Can a mere fiddler—even the Paganini of his era—convince the AI experts of mounting artificial insanity? He’s stymied—until his latest mate, a gorgeous and brilliant but unassuming and somewhat introverted geneticist, becomes shockingly involved.

An adjunct volume: the unabridged version of 'Polylogue with Mythokrates,' which is presented synoptically in Chapter Nine of 'Counterdance of the Cybergods,' is also available through Trafford Publishing. Visit www.trafford.com/07-2335 to read more.

Read more at www.somersong.com.

About the Author

AMichael Somers was raised in north-central Illinois, trained at the University of Illinois-Chicago, Northern Illinois University, and Northwestern; including a program with acolytes of the great Leo Strauss from the University of Chicago, and lived several years in Chicago before moving to San Francisco. He has done his share of truth-seeking in political philosophy, history, music, science and mathematics, and as a writer [essays available on his website (Motes from the Dust Bin and From the Jewel Box of Mythokrates), plus a ‰*÷language-synchronized‰*ªå¨ translation/screenplay planned for a fully animated version of Wagner‰*ªs Das Rheingold]. He has been an athlete [Big Ten football‰*ÓCoaches Ara Parseghian & Alex Agassi]; a musician [double bass, tuba, vocalist: 5th & 9th Army Bands; US Naval Conservatory, plus performing with diverse organizations: Northwestern University Glee Club; California Bach Society; a tour in Europe with the Napa Valley Chamber Singers; innumerable traditional and modern jazz combos (including his own band); the Solano Winds symphonic band; and the North Bay Philharmonic, as well as many appearances with San Francisco jazz and cabaret musicians, and regularly with internationally renowned pianist/chanteuse, Madi Barrena]; a teacher [political science, US government, history, music, and a course of his own device: ‰*÷Cosmology with out Headaches,‰*ª which grew out of research for GALACTIC EXODUS]; plus a successful career as a public works engineer [California Department of Transportation, Alameda County Public Works, single-project contracts with several cities, and a long stint with Harris and Associates (prominent western-states design, engineering, and construction management firm)].