Geminius
About this book
Set in 2041, the novel GEMINIUS revolves around the whole brain emulation (WBE) that Marcus Aurelius McIssac undergoes at the labs of the UPlode Group in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a thriving, for-profit company. The Mellon-Musk Professor of Imagination Studies at Harvard, Marcus is chosen as the prototype for UPlode’s first complete WBE in part because, at the age of 65, reasonably affluent, and a member of the professional class, he fits the company’s ICP -- ideal customer profile. He is also familiar with the project having consulted for the company. And, finally, he is viewed as an effective spokesman in being articulate and engagingly eccentric. The story opens on a warm sunny day in late May when Marcus, relaxing with Lilly Benoit, his wife of many years, at their country place in the Berkshires, receives a communication from the UPlode Group that they are considering him as a candidate for this first WBE. Though Lilly is skeptical, Marcus, at heart a philosopher, is intrigued. Geminoids, copies of people, had existed since the teens, but this was to be the first time a fully emulated brain (produced by a complex technique of self-copying) would be coupled with a look-alike, fully innervated android. Marcus, a large-living character, is highly regarded as a pioneer in his field having made his academic bones some years before with the publication of The Muscle of the The Imagination and How It Works. The interviews with the team at UPlode go very well. They choose Marcus as their prototype. He goes back and forth with Lilly and with himself before making a decision that has profound, fateful, and unexpected consequences.