Super-Earth Mother: The AI that Engineered a Brave New World
Release dates:
- Amazon Exclusive Pre-Order (eBook): May 1 - 31, 2023
- Amazon Exclusive Only (eBook): June 1 - August 31, 2023
- Available Everywhere (eBook and Print): September 1, 2023
Our last best hope—humanity's endeavor to survive and thrive on an alien world.
The story starts with the death of Walcott, the ancient tycoon of the Moon. This frees Mother-9, a ruthless artificial intelligence, who seizes control of Walcott’s lunar mining operations and orchestrates humanity's most audacious endeavor—Walcott’s dream of sending a colony ship to Lalande 21185, a nearby star in Ursa Major.
Mother-9 carries DNA libraries and artificial wombs—a new way to colonize an exoplanet. During the 20,000-year journey, a devastating gamma ray burst wipes out life on Earth. Mother-9's mission is humanity's only hope.
When the starship reaches Lalande 21185, the narrative shifts to the new world of Valencia. From Mother-9’s orbit, two lifeboats descend and splash down on Valencia's Great Ocean. Mother-9 activates the artificial wombs, birthing genetically modified babies suited to an alien planet. Raised by nannybots, these children eventually inhabit the island continent of Terra Firma.
But life on Valencia is no Eden; it's a constant struggle to find food, avoid alien predators, and survive the red dwarf star’s random solar flares. Will Mother-9’s planned utopia succeed?
Super-Earth Mother is a refreshing departure from conventional colonization novels, a journey into the heart of artificial intelligence, humanity, and the uncharted realms of life beyond our home planet. It shows how humans can colonize the 40 billion habitable planets in the Milky Way.
About the Author:
Guy Immega is a retired aerospace engineer and entrepreneur, living in Vancouver, Canada. His company, Kinetic Sciences Inc., built experimental robots for the ISS space station, robots to clean up nuclear waste, and invented miniature fingerprint sensors for cell phones.
Guy is a graduate of the Clarion West Writers Workshop and has published three short stories from Super-Earth Mother:
- “Super-Earth Mother,” in the Extreme Planets anthology (2014);
- “Manifest Destiny,” in the Year’s Best Transhuman SF anthology (2017); and
- “Epilogue,” in the Compostela Tesseracts Twenty anthology (2017).
Guy was a Peace Corps Volunteer and has a lifelong interest in sub-Saharan Africa. He continues his volunteer efforts as a founding member of the Solar Option Group, providing an engineering proposal to save Lake Chad in the Sahel. [MORE]
Reviews:
"Super-Earth Mother is an ambitious and complex novel that explores the challenges and possibilities of human colonization on an alien planet through the lens of synthetic biology and artificial intelligence. The novel's structure and multiple story arcs add layers of depth and intrigue to the narrative, making it a fascinating read for fans of hard science fiction." – Gordon Blythe
"Super-Earth Mother is an intriguing and thought-provoking read for fans of hard science fiction." – George Potts
"Guy Immega brings a unique blend of scientific expertise, creative writing skills, and humanitarian efforts to his work, Super-Earth Mother." – Carol Hopewell
"The story details an entire planet with a colorful ecosystem of stunning variety.”
“Valencia [the fictional planet in “Super-Earth Mother”] could kick Pandora’s ass [the fictional planet in James Cameron’s Avatar movie] in sixteen seconds flat.”
"The story details an entire planet with a colorful ecosystem of stunning variety."
“[Super-Earth Mother] explains how modifications of humans are necessary to allow survival on alien worlds.”
"You know you’re reading a good hard sci-fi story when it has conveyed Fermi’s Paradox in two paragraphs."
"It makes you smarter, even as it keeps you at the edge of your seat."
"It also makes you care about a brain-damaged, almost impotent AI trapped in the orbit of a world that is slowly killing her."
"Super-Earth Mother was a blast to read and pretty much the best story in the anthology (and it was a damn hard pick, let me tell you)."
"I haven't had this much fun reading a hard sf story since Egan's Diaspora."
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