 |
Earth in the year 2050. Technology, once the servant of man, has now become mankind’s ruler. Artificial Intelligence, witnessing humanity’s history of disregard for each other and everyone’s environment, has taken control in an attempt to provide a collective solution that will stop the degradation of the planet before man totally destroys it. Humans have been divided into four sub-species: leaders, hard-workers, creatives, and the relatively useless. While the planet around them has fallen into a slagheap of disrepair and ruin, people are kept mollified by viewing their world through embedded rose-colored glass technology that makes everything seem far more comforting than it is. However, being human there are still some who refuse to live under a cyber fist, and they are determined to use all the means at their disposal to avoid total capitulation.
Few in previous centuries could have foreseen manned flight, space travel, instantaneous worldwide communication, and more. What seemed impossible then has become commonplace now. Who is to say this author’s techno-nightmare won’t one day exist? Many would say it has already begun. Dröge has created a chillingly plausible future of floating transparent screens, multitudinous manipulations in nanoseconds, and androids who walk among us. His mastery of scientific possibilities delivered via technical jargon threatens to occasionally overwhelm his central story of individuality, rebellion, and the fight for self-determination. Yet he slyly keeps all in perspective by reminding us that AI’s greatest challenge in achieving their machine-driven master plan is their continuing inability to totally decode human emotions and understanding. Science fiction fans will likely be keen to find out if AI’s relentlessness pays off and whether the human FreeHackers’ resistance is indeed futile.