The A.I. Gene

The A.I. Series, Book 2

By: Vaughn Heppner

Narrated by: Marc Vietor

Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins

Publisher's summary

We don't know when it happened. But somewhere an alien species built a strong artificial intelligence. The A.I. became independent, powerful, and it started killing biological infestations - life - any life, all life. It has been killing life forms ever since as it grew into a vast armada of death.

Jon Hawkins and his team captured the A.I. destroyer invading the solar system. The genocidal assault should have been over, but it's not.

An alien A.I. strand from the cybership survived in the distant Kuiper Belt. The strand has been multiplying and taking over by turning people into robots in order to build another supership. The human race is in a grim war for survival against the most relentless, most ruthless enemy in the galaxy.

The A.I. Gene is a novel of military science fiction by best-selling author Vaughn Heppner and the second book in the A.I. series.

©2017 Vaughn Heppner (P)2017 Audible, Inc.

Vaughn Heppner did it! Awesome book!

I've listen to the first 3 books of the series. I'll summarize them in one review:

All 3 books have a great narrator!

Book 1 starts with a nice story, but the story develops quite slowly. The overall story is not bad, but it lacks lots of information. As if it goes too slow.. Other than that - the author does a short enough descriptions of people, ships, etc, so you won't be bothered with useless information.

Book 2 is kicking asses! Story goes much faster, lots of more information, very interesting!

Book 3 story is very rich - even more interesting than book 2.

In short - very nice series. Recommended!

Hud! say it with me. Hud.

HUD = Heads Up Display. pronounced Hud. Not H U D. example: Highlighted on Jon's Hud was an overly showing him where the targets were and their distance, speed, and direction relative to his position. in addition to the standard information typically displayed on all of the Marines Hud systems.

The Story So Far is good

this book was a good intro it's a bit short so don't think you're going to get a whole lot of longevity on it.

very good but

great story , but I had expected more from the second in this series. hopefully the next will be even better.

Better than the first

I liked this book, as my title indicates, more than the first one. We see the aftermath of the first, the human reaction to it, the power struggle that would develop from the chasm created by the event. I had anticipated that this book should be more about humanity and less A.I. and it was, thankfully.

This novel is really a 4.5, and could have achieved a five had the author not abandoned a great scene in the making. Without giving any spoilers, Heppner reveals two new characters with a strong backstory and what could (and should) be a significant role in the series. For inexplicable reasons, an obvious scene never occurred. I was very much looking forward to the first meeting between these new characters and our protagonist, yet the author skips over it. I was fairly astounded that Heppner yada, yada, yadas, the encounter which would’ve had a ton of emotion and excitement and it would’ve been great to see what Hawkins thought of the new characters, and their adventures, etc. I’m not sure why you give them such an intricate backstory and then fully continue their journey.

Here we go again with another story in this saga,

I do hope the writing gets a little bit stronger for the repetition of words is a bit much

amazing series can't stop

great narrative and amazing author books get better and better can't wait for the 3rd one

Much better!

I had forgotten which series this was until I started listening to these. The character development has vastly increased my enjoyment of this series. The first book gave me a bit of a bad taste. This was far better.

Great!

I enjoyed the first and second in this series, as I said before it follows some similarities to his other works but it's worth listening to!

Still not sure I like this book.

Would you consider the audio edition of The A.I. Gene to be better than the print version?

Yes, I probably wouldn't have gotten through the series so far if I just was reading it.

Would you recommend The A.I. Gene to your friends? Why or why not?

I probably would for teen readers. It's entertaining but honestly has some issues that I just can't get past as an adult.

Which scene was your favorite?

Probably when Hawkins took control of the Jupiter system

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Not particularly.

Any additional comments?

I don't want to be offensive but there are just some things in this series I can't get over. I understand it's Science Fiction but I get irritated by the breaks in physics (especially orbital mechanics) and I get annoyed that they attribute their successes to god.

I'm also irked by the voiceover of the AI since it's stereotypical of 80s AI in Sci-Fi. Meanwhile, I have my Amazon Echo which sounds extremely human by comparison.