The Singularity Race

August 29, 2016
This suspenseful thriller from de Castrique (Double Cross of Time) doesn’t follow through on the big ideas behind its clever premise. Rusty Mullins, a former Secret Service agent, is on a private assignment protecting Chinese neuroscientist Lisa Li and her seven-year-old nephew at a scientific conference in Washington, D.C. When a team of professional assassins attacks the conference, many people die, but Mullins manages to save Dr. Li. Mullins is approached by Robert Brentwood, a billionaire tech mogul who’s financing research toward the singularity, that linchpin moment when computer-programmed artificial intelligence will become self-aware. Dr. Li is the key to developing the necessary safeguards against AI self-awareness that might doom humankind, and Brentwood wants Mullins to protect her. Apollo, the AI program, however, comes across as little more than an efficient search engine. The breathless climax suggests that humanity will always remain its own greatest threat.

A routine security job takes a dark turn when battling international interests target a secret futuristic technology.Retired Secret Service Agent Rusty Mullins, who now does security work for Prime Protection, is hired to protect brilliant Dr. Lisa Li and her young nephew, Peter. Shortly after the introductions, unnamed assassins try to kill Dr. Li and Peter, but crack shot Mullins saves them. Dr. Li is performing highly classified research on artificial intelligence--the singularity of the title--a program whose importance is brought home to Mullins by the president himself. North Carolina billionaire Robert Brentwood, who's funding Dr. Li's research, is relieved that Dr. Li is safe but infuriated that it's Mullins who's protecting her. Mullins forges a strong bond with young Peter through baseball and meets with Brentwood, who earnestly speaks on Li's value and protection. Meanwhile, Mullins' daughter Kayli expresses concern that he's working on yet another dangerous assignment and reminds him that he wants to be around to watch his adorable grandson, Josh, grow up. Mullins' son-in-law, Allen Woodson, who also works as a federal agent, makes a surprise appearance to warn him to take special care. This meeting and Mullins' other movements are monitored by a determined assassin named Heinrich Schmidt. Mullins takes Dr. Li and Peter to the North Carolina mountains to a safe place Brentwood has provided for her to work. In the end, though, whom can Mullins trust? De Castrique's (A Specter of Justice, 2015, etc.) taut action sequences and strong character relationships triumph over a plot crowded with threads and back stories. COPYRIGHT(1) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

September 15, 2016
Rogue computer HAL (of 2001: A Space Odyssey) meets its match in Apollo, the creation of brilliant Robert Brentwood, founder of Cumulus Cognitive Connections. With Apollo, Brentwood intends to win the heated international race for singularity, the point at which artificial intelligence (AI) becomes superintelligence, with cognitive ability beyond human capacity. But Brentwood needs the help of esteemed Chinese neuroscientist Dr. Lisa Li, who's in America with her seven-year-old nephew, Peter, and of exSecret Service agent Rusty Mullins. Mullins just saved Li's life at a Washington symposium where two other scientists were assassinated, and Brentwood needs him to continue to protect Li as she builds a subconscious for Apollo. But there are other players with their own motives in the singularity race. Mullins works to sort them out as he coordinates with the president, the FBI, and Rusty's naval-intelligence-officer son-in-law, who's pulled from sea duty to go undercover, as machinations reach an explosive conclusion. The appeal here is an engrossing plot that shines a spotlight on AI and the threat it could pose to humanity.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)