Intelligent Design

Mad Scientists Galore!

Review by: The Audiobook ReviewAs the title says, there are mad scientists galore in this fun science fiction story by David Spicer of AI gone... well, exactly as you'd expect.

Roscoe, the eccentric CEO of a gigantic robotics manufacturer decides to set up a think-tank in the middle of the desert. No rules, no explanations, just brainiacs allowed a free hit at whatever they want to build. Out of this, there are two successes. One of those bright sparks creates a machine that can beat the Turing Test, while the other... goes through a lot of monkeys to beat death.

Spicer delivers an imaginative world, and what machines can achieve when given free will and the ability to learn from sociopathic humans. Without Asimov's 3 Laws to keep them in check, the pace kicks up a notch as we near the chilling conclusion.

The decision to produce this as "episodes" was a weird choice, especially since they're all back-to-back, so the flow is occasionally interrupted by brief sets of credits and outro/intro music. Why bother, was my first thought. Separating by chapters worked well enough for like... all of written history.

The voice actors were all excellent, and I enjoyed hearing the cockney sounds of Erin Doherty (see my review of Massive). The voice of Roscoe threw me, though. Not in a bad way, I just thought he was somebody else entirely.

All up, a fun romp through the minefield of Artificial Intelligence gone wild. Not the best one out there, but still lots of fun.