The Kraken Project: A Novel

Douglas Preston

May 2014 · Wyman Ford Series Book 4 · Sold by Forge Books

About this ebook

From celebrated Relic author Douglas Preston, Wyman Ford races to stop a rogue AI in The Kraken Project, a New York Times bestselling thriller “as chilling as it is provocative" (James Rollins)

NASA is building a probe to be splashed down in the Kraken Mare, the largest sea on Saturn's great moon, Titan. It is one of the most promising habitats for extraterrestrial life in the solar system, but the surface is unpredictable and dangerous, requiring the probe to contain artificial intelligence software. To this end, Melissa Shepherd, a brilliant programmer, has developed "Dorothy," a powerful, self-modifying AI whose true potential is both revolutionary and terrifying. When miscalculations lead to a catastrophe during testing, Dorothy flees into the internet.

Former CIA agent Wyman Ford is tapped to track down the rogue AI. As Ford and Shepherd search for Dorothy, they realize that her horrific experiences in the wasteland of the Internet have changed her in ways they can barely imagine. And they're not the only ones looking for the wayward software: the AI is also being pursued by a pair of Wall Street traders, who want to capture her code and turn her into a high-speed trading bot. Traumatized, angry, and relentlessly hunted, Dorothy has an extraordinary revelation—and devises a plan. As the pursuit of Dorothy converges on a deserted house on the coast of Northern California, Ford must face the ultimate question: is rescuing Dorothy the right thing? Is the AI bent on saving the world... or on wiping out the cancer that is humankind?

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Ratings and reviews

All in all, a pretty rousing book! Gloss over the idea of AI being simple, or how someone would create a system (in 2 GB or less!) that turns data into visualizations and sound. The author is, by definition, an author, and used to creating worlds and fully-fleshed people, so it's natural (if silly) that the author would think that creating a fully humanlike AI would be easy and just a matter of a fresh perspective or something. But once you buy in enough to get over those hurdles, it's honestly just a lot of fun. And we see the return of Preston's off fixation on bad people's lips. See them described as "wet" or "rubbery" ding, ding, ding! That's a villain, if it hasn't already been made clear. Weirdly, never seen "adipose" or any related term come up in villainous descriptions in this series, maybe that's more Lincoln Childs' thing. Anyway, it's recommended, another book with a world-shaking conclusion on this fun series.

my favorite Preston novels are the Wyman Ford books. This one, like the good old fashioned science fiction I grew up with, had big, science based ideas, good characters that I could identify with and good action. although it required some suspension of belief, it worked well because of its somewhat whimsical tone. Hope Dorothy comes back in a sequel.

Any book by Robert Preston is worth reading. This one is no exception

About the author

DOUGLAS PRESTON is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Impact, Tyrannosaur Canyon, and Blasphemy. With Lincoln Child, he co-wrote the famed Pendergast novels, including such #1 bestselling titles as Two Graves and White Fire, as well as Relic, which was named by NPR in a reader’s poll as one of the 100 greatest thrillers ever written.