Re: >H "Exegesis"

[Damien Broderick <damien@ariel.ucs.unimelb.EDU.AU>]

Transhuman Mailing List

At 08:38 PM 12/26/98 -0800, Michael Nielsen wrote:

>"Exegesis" is the first novel of one "Astro Teller", a 26 year old PhD
>student in AI research at Carnegie-Mellon. 
>
>I enjoyed it a great deal. 

I'd never heard of this novel until Michael posted his recommendation, and
assumed the author's name was some kind of tedious New Age confection. A
few days later I wandered into the local secondhand book store in Carlton
(a suburb of Melbourne, Australia) and facing me, embossed smiley and all,
was a copy of the `Not for Sale' Readers' Edition (presumably sent out to
reviewers in the States).  Astro, it turns out, is bombmeister Edward
Teller's grandson.   (And he's pretty scathing about the NSA.)  Good grief.  

Obviously the Eschaton arranged it there for me to stumble over.  

I found it pretty nifty, but not as moving or convincing as Richard Powers'
astonishing 1996 AI novel, GALATEA 2.2.  


*spoiler alert*

















I found the last Subject line quite poignant: `My dear', before the
inevitable reversal of the opening salutation.  A *very* nice touch.

Damien Broderick
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