WORDS

You begin to see double, triple meanings in everything he says.
THE MAGUS, John Fowles
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LIGHT

An AI, a virus, a prophecy.
A cryptic novel for the post-truth era

Haunted by a dream of a mystery woman, burned-out contractor Adam Walker joins an obscure government department overseeing a new system managed by AI.

When a message hidden in a junk email possesses his imagination, Walker enters a labyrinth of coincidence and hidden meaning

Summoned Upstairs, intergovernmental mandarin Akbal reveals the real reason for Walker’s hire. Like his predecessor, Mu, he has the illlness [sic], a virus transmitted by words.

Attacking the temporal lobes, it alters human identity. Subjects become invisible to the AI. Mu has gone dark. Walker must find him before he broadcasts a sequence of words, triggering a pandemic.

Light refers to spirituality on the one hand, and digital intelligence on the other.

Set in London and Tokyo, LIGHT is a rollercoaster dive into human identity.

influences

1984 / George Orwell 1949
The Lord of the Rings / JRR Tolkien 1955
The Magus / John Fowles 1965
Gödel, Escher, Bach / Douglas Hofstadter 1979
Simulations / Jean Baudrillard 1981
The Fire from Within / Carlos Castaneda 1985
An Artist of the Floating World / Kazuo Ishiguro 1986
The Windup Bird Chronicle / Haruki Murakami 1995
The Information Bomb / Paul Virilio 1998
Why the Future Doesn't Need Us / Bill Joy 2000
Falling Out of Cars / Jeff Noon 2002
IQ84 / Haruki Murakami 2009

meta

#ArtificialIntelligence #AI #GodlikeAi
#Virus #Psychology #Dejavu #Dystopian
#Identity #Compliance #Defiance #ScienceFiction
#LiteraryThriller
#Shinto #Prophecy #DragonPrincess
#London #Tokyo #TokyoBay

STATUS

WAVE#1 Early adoption in progress

WAVE#1

AUTUMN 2023

Early adoption, organic spreading.

infect +

WAVE#2

TBA

Public platforms, super-spreading.

infect +

WAVE#3

TBA

Mass trigger, mass limbic, everyone zapped.*

infect +

* Kazusa Research Institute

SHARDS of light

The People I Worked With

The people I worked with were in the basement—IT orcs on a grand a day, running process monitors and admin dashboards, terabit USB keys on lanyards round their necks, flipping windows when they thought nobody was looking.

All Part of the Handover

‘All part of the handover,’ said a voice from behind. An enormous man stood there, toying affectionately with the document feed of the printer. So sudden and silent was his arrival, so extraordinary his dimensions that...

A Peculiar Intensity

Her gaze had a peculiar intensity. It must have been a reflection—the plate on the table—but her eyes looked like they were exuding light. For a moment her face was wreathed in vapour—an aura, a cloud.

Aspects of the Moon

One Hundred Aspects of the Moon began with the slant of moonlight on tatami, the breath-taking detail of exotic fabrics, the translucence of rainfall. Print by print, the night of Yoshitoshi’s imagination descended...

Essays + other stuff

COMING SOON

LIGHT EPISODES

LIGHT serialised in words and audio, with the first five chapters for free.

SUBSTACK
Substack blog

GREEN LIGHT  FROM THE OTHER SIDE

Essays on esoteric matters, current affairs, compliance, defiance, viruses and big changes.

EXPIRING

MEDIUM 

Shortish pieces on life, current affairs and writing.

2024
NOISE cover

NOISE

Short stories of transformation from the UK, Peru and Indonesia, connected by the theme of noise. From noisy neighbours in an overcrowded world to the magic of the rainforest and the wrath of the ocean.

from my Substack

Click image for article
The Eclipse of Peace
October 29, 2023

We have been crushed between two eclipses, the lunar eclipse of 14 October and the solar eclipse of yesterday, 28 October. On the eve of All Souls Eve, I write from a personal rather than intellectual point of view...

The Madness of Intellligence
October 28, 2023

Having spent a fortnight in the throes of the Great Game, i.e. on the ethereal fringe that is this Substack, it’s time for something lighter than the bloody mess that is the reality for Palestinians and Israelis...

Ancient Mother, I Hear Your Call
October 24, 2023

Sunday morning I decided to wind myself up to impotent violence watching arch gammon and British TV pundit Piers Morgan goad Palestinian Ambassador to the UK, Husam Zumlot, with the question ‘Do you condemn the Hamas attack?’...