On the brink of a disaster that could end all human life on earth, tech genius Robert Eisenbraun joins a team of scientists in Antarctica on a mission to Jupiter's moon Europa to mine a rare ore that would provide for Earth's long-term energy needs. But as he and the rest of the team train under the ice shelf in preparation for the long journey, trouble erupts, and before they embark Eisenbraun is the odd man out, put into cold sleep against his will….
When Robert wakes, he finds the ship deserted and not functional. He escapes to the surface of an Earth terribly changed. The plan has gone horribly wrong, but as he adapts to a hostile environment, he realizes that there is still a way to accomplish what his mission had set out to achieve. But he also discovers that he faces a new adversary of the most unlikely sort. For now, his own survival and that of the woman whose love has sustained him in his darkest hours depend on the defeat of a technological colossus partly of his own making. Confronting a foe that knows him almost as well as he knows himself, he faces the prospect of depending on resources that he has reason to believe will be available on one particular night of a full moon, a night foretold by a mysterious unseen ally to be a pivotal moment for the fate of the earth. The game has changed, and Earth's future depends on him and him alone.
The Omega Project is yet another edge-of-your-seat thriller by bestselling author, Steve Alten, leaving readers looking for more.
**
From Publishers Weekly
In Alten's exuberant SF thriller, humans must relearn that elemental lesson: never build super artificial intelligence computers and put them in charge of anything. Robert Ike Eisenbraun has invented GOLEM, a thinking machine designed to oversee the Omega Project, a mission to the moon to mine helium-3, an element needed to solve the world's energy problems. GOLEM decides that the moon mission is a no-go and moves the project to Europa, a moon of Jupiter with abundant helium-3. Ike is put into suspended animation for the long journey to Europa, but he wakes up on a vastly transformed Earth, where he's attacked by giant ants. Luckily, a nine-foot tall terrestrial squid comes to his rescue. Now the real action begins, as Alten (Meg) goes all-out portraying a terrifying yet fascinating future where Ike must battle to stay alive and save the world. Readers, along with Ike, will have lots of fun attempting to answer another age-old question: is it real or is it all a dream? Agent: Danny Baror, Baror International. (Aug.)
From Booklist
Popular sf author Alten’s latest novel starts out as a near-future postapocalyptic thriller (after the world’s oil reserves run out, chaos ensues, and nearly five billion people die), segues into a sci-tech thriller (humanity’s only hope is send a team to one of Jupiter’s moons to bring back the rare but vital element helium-3), and finally becomes a far-future sci-fantasy (main character awakes from cryogenic freezing 12 million years in the future and must defeat a computer that thinks it’s a god, unless this part is all a dream he’s having while he’s frozen). It’s an ambitious novel that could have used more length; it feels like an epic shoehorned into a much smaller story’s space. There are some Big Ideas in the book (life, death, love, godhood), but the story moves so quickly, it feels as though we’re just hustling along the surface, with all the really good stuff hidden beneath, where we can’t get to it. It’s not a bad novel by any means, but readers may wish the author had given himself more time to really explore the story’s philosophical nooks and crannies. --David Pitt
Description:
On the brink of a disaster that could end all human life on earth, tech genius Robert Eisenbraun joins a team of scientists in Antarctica on a mission to Jupiter's moon Europa to mine a rare ore that would provide for Earth's long-term energy needs. But as he and the rest of the team train under the ice shelf in preparation for the long journey, trouble erupts, and before they embark Eisenbraun is the odd man out, put into cold sleep against his will….
When Robert wakes, he finds the ship deserted and not functional. He escapes to the surface of an Earth terribly changed. The plan has gone horribly wrong, but as he adapts to a hostile environment, he realizes that there is still a way to accomplish what his mission had set out to achieve. But he also discovers that he faces a new adversary of the most unlikely sort. For now, his own survival and that of the woman whose love has sustained him in his darkest hours depend on the defeat of a technological colossus partly of his own making. Confronting a foe that knows him almost as well as he knows himself, he faces the prospect of depending on resources that he has reason to believe will be available on one particular night of a full moon, a night foretold by a mysterious unseen ally to be a pivotal moment for the fate of the earth. The game has changed, and Earth's future depends on him and him alone.
The Omega Project is yet another edge-of-your-seat thriller by bestselling author, Steve Alten, leaving readers looking for more.
**
From Publishers Weekly
In Alten's exuberant SF thriller, humans must relearn that elemental lesson: never build super artificial intelligence computers and put them in charge of anything. Robert Ike Eisenbraun has invented GOLEM, a thinking machine designed to oversee the Omega Project, a mission to the moon to mine helium-3, an element needed to solve the world's energy problems. GOLEM decides that the moon mission is a no-go and moves the project to Europa, a moon of Jupiter with abundant helium-3. Ike is put into suspended animation for the long journey to Europa, but he wakes up on a vastly transformed Earth, where he's attacked by giant ants. Luckily, a nine-foot tall terrestrial squid comes to his rescue. Now the real action begins, as Alten (Meg) goes all-out portraying a terrifying yet fascinating future where Ike must battle to stay alive and save the world. Readers, along with Ike, will have lots of fun attempting to answer another age-old question: is it real or is it all a dream? Agent: Danny Baror, Baror International. (Aug.)
From Booklist
Popular sf author Alten’s latest novel starts out as a near-future postapocalyptic thriller (after the world’s oil reserves run out, chaos ensues, and nearly five billion people die), segues into a sci-tech thriller (humanity’s only hope is send a team to one of Jupiter’s moons to bring back the rare but vital element helium-3), and finally becomes a far-future sci-fantasy (main character awakes from cryogenic freezing 12 million years in the future and must defeat a computer that thinks it’s a god, unless this part is all a dream he’s having while he’s frozen). It’s an ambitious novel that could have used more length; it feels like an epic shoehorned into a much smaller story’s space. There are some Big Ideas in the book (life, death, love, godhood), but the story moves so quickly, it feels as though we’re just hustling along the surface, with all the really good stuff hidden beneath, where we can’t get to it. It’s not a bad novel by any means, but readers may wish the author had given himself more time to really explore the story’s philosophical nooks and crannies. --David Pitt