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What made you want to write a
book?
As a highly trained
researcher specialized in coral
reef ecology, I have spent many
years doing surveys of coral
reefs and investigating the
ecology of patch reef fishes.
With over 5,000 hours spent
underwater, It has been
heartbreaking to watch the
decline and destruction of these
magnificent ecosystems.
Unfortunately, the
surveys and experimental
artificial reefs that I
conducted and built in the
Hawaiian Islands and Micronesia
haven't done anything to stop
widespread coral bleaching.
So... I have turned to
science fiction to try to reach
a larger audience that may be
inspired to actually do
something about climate change.
Tell
us about you and where you
live.
I live in Aptos,
California near the sunken ship
at the end of the pier in
SeaCliff Beach. I spend most of
my days working out, running,
writing and performing tech
patent research.... quite a leap
from my early days in Western
Kansas where I shared the farm
outhouse with a nest of half
frozen rattlesnakes and learned
to read by the light of a
Coleman lantern!
My marine biology
doctoral studies at Scripps
Institution of Oceanography and
my career as an environmental
consultant has taken me to many
exoreic places--one of which is
now considered on of the most
radioactive islands in the
world--which I describe in my Backstory
Blog.
What
have you written and what are
you working on now?
I have just finished the
second book in the Metamorphosis
Chronicles series entitled Met
Chron New-Humans. Set in
the year 2030, it is a Sci-Fi
Technothriller of a world near
the global warming tipping point
and where humanity’s survival is
threatened
This is a short
description.
Timing is everything. If
the intern at the SpeeZees Lab
hadn’t accidentally selected the
wrong sequence of avatars in a
training program, the world’s
first New-Human would not have
been 3D printed and brought to
life.…and without Chron’s
genius, the strategy of
developing a space elevator to
convey pods of seawater into
space and generate snowfall over
tropical seas, coastal cities
around the world will face
catastrophic flooding.
Furthermore, if Chron had
not assisted her longevity
research, Dr. Astra Sturtevant
would never have made her game
clinging discovery of how to
control the genetic clock and
arrest the aging process.
Meanwhile, the AI androids that
had mutated in the high RAD
zones following the nuclear
detonations in the Bay Area have
launched campaigns to gain their
independence and annihilate all
organic humans.
The innovative pioneers
that operate the Deep Space
Mining Moonbase have a plan that
will solve humanity’s problems.
The question is will anyone out
there listen?
How
do you see technology
evolving?
As robots and androids
become outfitted with
post-singularity Artificial
Intelligence they will be
formidable allies…or
competitors. What jobs can
humans do that robots can’t do
better, more efficiently and
with less time and cost? Will
they have the right to vote, own
property or assume a government
office? Still it seems like
there may be the hope that AI's
and humans will work together to
defend against the threat of a
planet killing asteroid as well
as conduct asteroid mining to
construct colonies in space.
What’s unique is that that
androids will be able to mutate
and test the survival of the
fittest in simulations in
seconds instead of decades.
What
are your thoughts about
prolonged life spans in
humans?
The quest for
immortality is also a major
feature in both Met-Chron
Sanctuary and Met Chron
New-Humans.
With advances in
nano-scale tissue and organ
bioengineering New-Humans will
become more android like and
live longer lives—maybe even for
centuries and beyond. The
problem is limited
resources….and of course we will
have to share those resources
with robots and android
populations.
Will
android’s have feelings and
desires?
If an AI android
studies the concept of love and
how it is manifest and that has
an impact on certain abilities
that are analogous to the
chemistry of emotion, and then
creates an algorithm to mimic
its behavior and ultimately
establish a reward system that
encourages the android to
incorporate that behavior into
its subroutines, it will act as
if it has feelings of love. That
algorithm could then be broadest
to the android population.
An important factor
will be whether AI-Droids have
the right to reproduce. Will
procreation be regulated? Will
they develop the concept of
desire? Will factions with
different and opposing
priorities develop?
In the
Metamorphosis Chronicles
series you portray national
governments as corporations.
How does this relate to your
views on politics?
There are three major
opposing governments in the
story. United States Corporation
(USACO), a joint
Iranian-Venezuela (IRANVEN),
China, Russia and North Korea
(CHIRUS).
As long as
corporations can make campaign
contributions I expect their
power to increase. The problem
with corporations is that they
have no soul and are essentially
immortal—as long as they make a
profit. Much of the goodwill
they disseminate is image
marketing and the human leaders
come and go over time.
The
question is ‘Will AI androids
secure the right to vote and
hold office’? ....Will they
pay taxes?
How do you
market your books and do your
promotion methods work?
I really
just put on my PROMO ball cap
because my strategy has been
to author and publish
three novels in a
chronological series and then
begin marketing. The idea is
that prospective readers will
want to read the other two
books after reading the first.
We’ll see.
Where
can readers find your book
for sale?
The Telepathic
Dolphin Experiment and
Met-Chron Sanctuary are
currently (and
Met Chron
New-Humans will soon
be) available on Amazon,
Google Play, Nook and all of
the retailers serviced by
Smashwords.
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