Robert Sawyer isn’t a great writer, but he usually writes about great ideas. His WWW series dealt with an emerging AI, while Flashforward dealt with seeing into the future (and how that affects free will). His newest book, Triggers, deals with memory at the quantum level and an accident that links people’s memories together. It’s an interesting concept inside a mediocre story. So, let’s find out what happens.

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Robert Sawyer has always had interesting ideas. He often does intersections of science and religion, but holds little patience for fools or mysticism. Calculating God is right in Sawyer’s wheelhouse as the book is an interesting mixture of science fiction and religion. However it’s more of a scientific view of religion than a perspective of any religious folks. The story itself is fairly thin and the book is more philosophical than plot focused. But it’s a fun read and an interesting concept. So, let’s see what happens when you try to calclulate God.

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In the third (and hopefully final) book in his WWW trilogy, Robert Sawyer brings us the tale of an artificial intelligence who is now out in the open and recovering from an attack. With WWW: Wonder, Sawyer has created an interesting story about a new frontier. The possibilities are endless for this type of story, but Sawyer has taken up some interesting ideas of what the intelligence will do, but unfortunately left open some huge plot holes. So, let’s go back and visit Webmind and Caitlin to see where they are now.

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WWW: Watch by Robert Sawyer is the middle book in Sawyer’s WWW trilogy. Where the first book was about an emergent intelligence out on the web, this book deals with the consequences of this new life form. Sawyer also uses the book to discuss ethical issues that an emergent intelligence might face. But what is an emergent intelligence interested in?

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WWW:Wake by Robert Sawyer (author of FlashForward whose TV show is probably canceled for good reason) is about an emerging consciousness in the Internet. The main thing it reminded me of was Jane from Orson Scott Card’s Speaker for the Dead. The idea is a network gains enough nodes(the Internet or the ansible) that it starts becoming conscious. Where Jane is a fully formed being, this is the beginning of one and the first part of a trilogy that will follow it.

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