By Thomas R Weaver https://thomasrweaver.com/ @tom_weaver
Published by Chainmaker Press https://www.chainmaker.press/ @chainmakerpress
386 pages ISBN 978173943430
Publication date 5 October 2023
I was sent a hardback copy of the novel to participate in its Blog Tour. Many thanks to the Author and Team LitPR https://www.literallypr.com/ @literallypr for allowing me to participate in the tour.
The cover
A very bold and striking cover. An ancient Greek or Roman bust dissolving in a pixilated way in itself a metaphor for the future of humanity and civilisation.
My thoughts
What an incredibly imaginative, creative and thought-provoking novel this is. It manages to bring together so many different literary genres in a melting pot of a story that is cogent and intelligent when it could so easily have turned into an ambitious mess. The result is an entertaining thriller, that captures the essence of the world today, full of warnings and difficult questions. So just what can the reader expect.
Well, the setting is 2050 and the world is burning up in some post-apocalyptic hell. Population is migrating towards the fewer inhabitable regions of the earth where law and order is struggling. It is not just the heat but the humidity that is the real killer and 10 years ago 400 million people were killed in the Persian Gulf in one extreme weather event, the tabkhir. The result of this was the formation of a Caliphate in the Middle East to isolate and protect those remaining and to give a chance to rebuild. The extremely wealthy have managed to avoid the worst of the weather and disorder by the creation of six man-made island states the size of small cities protected by domes. Strictly controlled these islands named after great ancient city states like Carthage, more around the oceans. So, there are heavy sci-fi futuristic influences present in a vividly imagined world to come with nanobots and augmented virtual reality to name just two. The author’s background helps to bring a feel of authenticity here, it may not be so but it could so easily be spot on.
It is also a political thriller with an election running throughout. It is recognised that the survival of mankind is at a critical point, so bad that there is a need for a world dictator to take control and make the big decisions. Then at some point in the future when there has been a recovery in the climate and environment, the individual states will take back control. The race to be dictator has been reduced to two, a former president of the United States and the Governor of the six Floating States. Expect dark machinations here, with US politicians even less popular than today up against Solomon (think the Wisdom of Solomon) a very different man, is he someone to be trusted and relied upon. A tough choice and a dirty fight.
There is also a strong traditional crime aspect to the novel. The main character Marcus Tully is an investigative journalist, who lost his wife and unborn daughter in the tabkhir and is totally driven to unearth the truth and be damned with the consequences. He finds himself on New Carthage and when there is a murder with a close connection ends up working with the head of security Claudine October to track down the killer. There’s a great rapport that builds up between the two throughout the story and a smidgen of sexual chemistry too. Conventional in creation, but this being 2050 they have different tools at their disposal.
Throughout there are nods to music, film and literature, but at no part does it become derivative. The author has curated a Spotify playlist to accompany the novel, the ending may disappoint the odd reader but has the same kind of impact as the original Planet of the Apes and Tully has one scene very reminiscent of A Christmas Carol.
The plot is very dense, this is not a story to plough through as it requires so much thought but the prose itself remains very accessible. It’s a case of there being so much packed in. The central characters are engaging and develop nicely as the story progresses. The introduction of the huge man off the streets, Haymaker, into Tully’s team brings some welcome light-hearted moments to a serious novel. I loved his “can’t bodyguard while making coffee” as a get out from doing his share of the domestics.
The greatest aspect to the story as it works on so many levels, it succeeds in all the genres above, is very entertaining and at the same time quite terrifying. Not terrifying in the sense of say gothic horror but the fear of the unknown, the fate that is to befall mankind if we continue as we are. This is not climate change cranks (climate hobos in the book) or fearmongering but a sense that what is needed now is world cooperation when there is none, and that technology is developing so rapidly that we are losing control. If that isn’t the zeitgeist of the world of 2023 vintage, then I don’t know what is.
Can man find the wisdom, artificial of otherwise to save humanity and the world? Artificial Wisdom imagines just what may happen and is simply a stunning thriller.
Artificial Wisdom can be purchased from Amazon here and the bookshop.org here
The author
Alongside writing, Thomas is a tech entrepreneur. His last startup was acquired by Just Eat Takeaway. Despite swearing to family and friends (none of whom believed him) that he would never run another startup again, he recently started a new project in stealth backed by Silicon Valley’s largest tech accelerator. The concept is focused on bringing some of the ideas explored in his debut novel, Artificial Wisdom, to life, specifically around communicating in augmented reality.
Don’t forget to check out the other great reviews on this Blog Tour:
Peter turns the page 