The Spiritual Singularity (The Day Eight Series, Book 3) by Ray Mazza

Published by CreateSpace in 2012.

The action continues in Book 3 of the Day Eight Series. In The Spiritual Singularity the tech company Day Eight is moving forward with their plans to use computerized simulated humans ("simulants") to affect events in the real world in a very dramatic way. Political assassinations, dramatic leap forwards in technology and a physical link between the computer simulant Ezra and the President of the United States make computer programmer Trevor Leighton very worried for the future of humanity itself. Leighton is working as best he can to save himself and possibly even the whole world even though he is running out of money, running out of time and running out of options.

The Spiritual Singularity is full of rich, meaty themes that have been discussed in science fiction and fantasy for decades. In the Lord of the Rings series,Tolkien looks into the idea of what unlimited power does to a human being. In the original Star Trek series, Captain Kirk defuses multiple computers that have taken humanity's choices away from them in order to protect them. Book 3 of this series approaches this theme from the side of the entity that is amassing unlimited power.

I really enjoyed the previous 2 books in The Day Eight Series ( The Reborn and Of Mice and Hitmen ) and gave them both 5 stars. I liked this one a little less, not for the action, which is solid, not for the chase and the mystery for what is going on. Instead, it gets a little too "talky" at times. It's hard not to with all of these big ideas flying around.

Still, this is a very solid book in a very strong series.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Spiritual Singularity (The Day Eight Series, Book 3) by Ray Mazza.

Reviewed on July 17, 2012.

Of Mice and Hitmen (The Day Eight Series, Part 2) by Ray Mazza

Published in 2012 by CreateSpace

Yesterday, I posted a review of Book 1 of this series ( The Reborn ) and I wrote a lengthy rave review. I am not going to go into all of that here. Suffice it to say, I really liked Book 1.

Of Mice and Hitmen is where the series really hits its stride. In Book 1, programmer Trevor Leighton discovers that his employer, a tech firm called Day Eight, has created simulated human life in a computer. Not just Artificial Intelligence, but simulated life write down to the cellular level.  These computerized people are called simulants.

Trevor has already met one fairly simple version of the simulant program, a simulant 1.0 if you will. In Book 2 he meets Ezra, the most updated version of the simulant program. She lives in an accelerated world, programmed to go faster so that she can complete projects in the real world quicker. Her name is Ezra, which is an odd name for a female, but it means "helper" in Hebrew and she is being used to work on any number of projects for Day Eight - new computers, cures for illnesses, etc. She has lived for thousands of years in her simulated world and is far smarter than any human being has ever been in terms of raw knowledge.

But, there is another, darker purpose as well. Leighton senses this and narrowly escapes an attempt on his life. When a series of political assassinations change the results of elections, Leighton works to figure out how Day Eight, Ezra and the political chaos are all tied together while he is on the run.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Of Mice and Hitmen (The Day Eight Series, Part 2) by Ray Mazza.

Reviewed on July 17, 2012.

The Reborn (The Day Eight Series, Part 1) by Ray Mazza

Published in 2012 by CreateSpace

So, I have on the table next to me three books by Ray Mazza. These books make up The Day Eight Series. They are self-published and most experienced readers know that a great number of the self-published are fair to middling and I am usually tempted to grade them on a curve, the thought process being, " Well, it's pretty good considering it's a do-it-yourself job and she did it all herself." This is much the same thought process I have when I do handyman work around the house and I proudly show it off to my wife - it's pretty good but certainly not professional.

I let these three books sit on my to-be-read pile for about a month.

Why?

I was not in the mood for, "Well, it's pretty good, considering..."

So, I pick up book one, The Reborn, and about 15 pages in I am thinking, "Where is he going with this?" I read the back cover a couple of times and decided to give it a few more pages. Where are the human simulations running on computers? Where's the "catastrophic event" coming from?

By page 35 I decide I kind of like the main character, Trevor Leighton, and I'll ride it out a bit more.

On page 71, we hit pay dirt. My mind is blown. We are introduced to the simulations. Most importantly, we are introduced to how they are developed. Such a simple idea (and complex at the same time). Good sci-fi takes you to new places and shows you some new stuff. Great sci-fi takes what you already know and puts a little tilt to it, a twist that makes you see everything in a new way. It's all the same. It's all different.

Mazza's series is about human beings simulated on a computer. I figure he knows something about this since his bio shows that he has worked on several "Sims" projects. If you are not familiar with the Sims games, well they create a little world for you to interact in. In a way, they are very, very, very limited versions of Artificial Intelligence. They also show the glaring deficiencies of trying to develop it the way we have so far. This book shows a new path to achieving that effort and the series makes you question if you really want to.

So, in this book, Leighton, a talented programmer working for a tech company called Day Eight is screwing around with the firewall on his company's servers so he can download movies at work. That firewall breach starts a chain reaction that knocks out much of the internet and fries the computers in his office. On his flash drive, though, is a message from a dead girl that claims she is trapped. Since his office is closed for the time being, Trevor decides to do a little investigating and that is where the trouble starts.

These three books are not "pretty good, considering they're an indie effort." They are good. Period.

I rate book one in this series 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Reborn (The Day Eight Series, Part 1) by Ray Mazza.

Reviewed on July 16, 2012.