New York City, New York Sep 9, 2024 (Issuewire.com) - NPR and Slate wondered, Why Is There No Liberal Ayn Rand? Yale professor Beverly Gage theorized, Liberals look to the future which further begs for speculative fiction to address philosophical concepts from a progressive perspective in an entertaining way. Rand showed her imagined decay of society if billionaires stopped working in ATLAS SHRUGGED, whereas this book from Solstice Publishing presents an opposing view.

AI keeps taking more jobs and faster than new positions can be created. It already beats a sizable percentage of radiologists at identifying cancer. The list of tasks AI can perform only grows. It composes songs (SUNO), makes art (Dall-E), edits video (Capcut), and, terrifyingly, military drones are now capable of deciding when to kill potential targets. Remember, AI neednt be better than every employee, just the ones it replaces.

Set in an all-too-plausible near future, the multi-award-winning, satirical sci-fi/political thriller, IMMORTALITY BYTES: DIGITAL MINDS DONT GET HUNGRY (site) explores heady issues with humor and twisty storytelling. Namely, it illustrates how the so-called end of work and UBI will impact our lives. Then theres the effect of impending digital eternal life thats barely an extrapolation of what Elon Musk is doing with his computer mind-interface company, Neuralink.

In researching the technological subject matter, Daniel Lawrence Abrams consulted with preeminent AI scientists, including David Gelernter, Prof. Computer Science (Yale University), Peter Clark, Senior Research Manager (Allen Institute of Artificial Intelligence), and Dr. Christof Koch, Chief Scientist & President (Allen Institute for Brain Science).

Economically relevant to the 2024 campaign, Democrats are discussing taxing unrealized capital gains of UHNWIs. The reason is that an entrepreneurs company can escalate in value, and today if he doesnt sell his stock, he never pays any capital gains tax. That might make sense, except that billionaires can get loans against the value of their shares, thus making use of the gain without paying taxes. Even worse, when he dies, tax shelters and the step-up basis loophole enable the heirs to perpetually avoid taxes on that investment.

These scientific and economic real-world circumstances extrapolate into the future that Abrams envisions. 

His debut novel recently won Best Science Fiction: Cyberpunk in the 7th Annual American Fiction Awards, won Best Humor/Satire in the Storytrade Awards (a Reedsy Best Writing Contest), and the book has passed the 3rd cut/shortlisted to still be in contention to win Chanticleers Cygnus Award for Best Science Fiction.

Finally, it earned 5-stars from both ReaderViews.com and ReadersFavorite.com.

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The story is a highly original, hyper-twisty plot that ultimately becomes what the author cryptically describes as an inverted heist.

The one-line pitch is: When an idealistic hackers ex-girlfriend nears inventing digital immortality, an indicted tycoon compels him to steal it. Theres no more certainty not even Death & Taxes.

The eclectic cast of characters includes an Asian, gray ace demisexual tech founder, a devout, White, Southern matriarch/titan of industry, an AI programmer/part-time influencer whose girlfriend is a Latina anti-immortality activist, a Black lesbian Navy veteran, Russian operatives/gangsters, and an Italian-American billionaire who is deadly sick by both definitions. How do you arrest and imprison a criminal digital mind?

This future is no utopia, but neither is it a dystopia. Indeed, life in this storys future is better than today, as Harvard professor Steven Pinker argues is the natural progress of humanity.

In IMMORTALITY BYTES, ever-advancing AI and robots have created 40% unemployment. UBI plus Ikea-style sleeping pods in now-deserted parking structures ensured no one lived on the street or begged for food, but no one considered this heaven on earth either. How tragic, given endless leisure, so few kept their ambitious if only I had time promises. The combo of work-free days, food delivery, and limitless streaming and gaming made comfortable hammocks function as veal pens.

The books unconventional format avoids the problems of Rands ever-present, exhausting soapbox blather and pedantic screeds. Instead, hyperlinks (in the eBook) and endnotes (in the printed editions) make its narrative tangents and satirical/progressive rants optional, like the literary version of films bonus featurettes.

The author is a patent-holding inventor, TEDx speaker, award-winning writer/producer/director of films, documentaries & TV, playwright, and former columnist for PRODUCED BY, MENSA, and CARD PLAYER magazines.