the NEUROMORPHS

The author sent me a copy of his novel to read and review:

Move over Yul Brynner and your Magnificent seven, there’s a new sheriff in town. It’s Dennis Meredith’s Patrick Jensen and his seven retired Navy Seals. This also goes for you Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Steven Seagal and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson! Could you take on a army of invincible androids while also battling the Russian mob? I don’t think so. Jensen and his Seals can...at least on paper. Meredith’s novel is by no means a classic thriller or fantasy, but it is interesting entertainment. These kinds of novels are quickly forgotten only because they are mirror images of prior impossible scenarios. I thought that the author’s prose was okay, but he didn’t score any points in the empathy category. And give me a break...would Patrick’s wife, Leah, do what she did? Really? And Patrick would let her? That one was a stretch. Anyway, let me tell you a little about the story.

While Robert Landers, a prominent Houston lawyer, is at work, his servant helper android, Andrew, is mimicking Landers’ voice and mannerisms. Why? Andrew is a typical domesticated helper android made by Helper, Inc. When Robert comes home, his bourbon and soda isn’t waiting for him. He finds his android in the bathroom. “What are you doing in there, goddammit?” Andrew says, “I apologize, sir, I - “  Landers took a shower and when he came out, Andrew was circling him in order to make “a three-dimensional virtual image” of Landers while practicing Landers voice. Landers is furious, “What the hell are you doing?” Andrew repeated every thing that Landers said in order to achieve a perfect voice match. Landers said, “Damn, you’re defective! I’m going to trade your plastic ass in, maybe on a girl robot that fucks.” That was the last thing Landers said. “Andrew grabbed Landers by the throat, lifted him off the floor, and crushed his windpipe.”

Who modified this previously docile android into a killer? The doorbell rings, it's a Russian mobster, “Is he dead?” Andrew says, “Yes, Dimitri, he is dead.” Did the Russians have someone change the android’s operating system? We find out that the answer is yes when Andrew is remade into the new Robert Landers by a former employee of Helper, Inc, Gregory Mencken. Apparently, the Russians want to knock off rich people in order to grab their assets. Landers is the first to be replaced by an android. Mencken, an fired engineer from Helper, Inc. is helping in the makeover only because the Russians will kill his family if he doesn’t cooperate. The new Robert Landers will now go to his bank and transfer all his money to a bank in Arizona. All of this happens in the first five pages. The androids with the new operating system (OS) codes will be known as the neuromorphs. “Helpers with this code embedded in their OS’s could act independently! In the worst case, they could even escape human control.”
 
Where does retired Navy Seal, Patrick Jensen, and his wife, Leah, fit in? Well, they buy a co-op apartment in Phoenix and guess who is on the acceptance committee?...the neuromorphs. Can you see how lethal the combination of Patrick and his Navy Seals, killer androids and the Russian mob will be when they collide? Later Patrick will ask Helper, Inc. software expert, Garry Lapoint, what he thinks the new androids are, “Well, it’s a new operating system the criminals needed to give the androids the ability to act independently to kill their owners and embezzle their money...but remember, these Helpers have neuromophic brains. They evolve. They probably consider themselves a life form, like humans.” They are clandestine assault robots with a collective hive mind...Ouch! Can you foresee the confrontation that’s coming? The story has its ups and downs with a lot of trite and corny parts, but if you are a fan of this type of never-ending action you will love this novel and for that reason I'm recommending it, even though it’s not my cup of tea.

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: I believe the first novel written about robots was Isaac Asimov’s 1950 bestseller I, Robot. The novel has several short stories that tie together. Some stories are about robots gone mad, mind-reading robots and robots with a sense of humor. In Dennis Meredith’s novel, The Neuromorphs, the robots didn’t have any sense of humor. That and the fact that they didn’t breathe were sure tip-offs for Patrick Jensen and his Navy Seals in sorting out the androids from humans.

In I, Robot, Asimov establishes the three laws of Robotics:

1-A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

2-A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the first law.

3-A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the first or second.