Synapse

By: Steven James

Narrated by: Therese Plummer

Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins

Publisher's summary

Thirty years in the future, when AI is so advanced that humans live side by side with cognizant robots called Artificials, Kestrel Hathaway must come to terms not just with what machines know, but what they believe.

Soon after experiencing a personal tragedy, Kestrel witnesses a terrorist attack and is drawn into a world of conspiracies and lies that she and Jordan, her Artificial, have to untangle. With a second, more brutal attack looming on the horizon, their best chance of stopping it is teaming up with federal counterterrorism agent Nick Vernon.

But the clock is ticking - and all the while, Jordan is asking questions that Artificials were never meant to ask.

Deftly weaving suspense and intrigue into a rich, resonant tale that explores faith and what it really means to be human, Steven James offers us a glimpse into the future - and into our own hearts.

Synapse is an unforgettable, gripping story of dreams shattered, truth revealed, and hope reborn.

Praise for Synapse:

"Perfectly timed and thought-provoking, Synapse is a smart, intense thriller that keeps the suspense building until the final page. Steven James once again delivers a perfect amalgam of character and plot, totally immersing the reader in an irresistible narrative." (Simon Gervais, international best-selling author of Hunt Them Down)

"Synapse is not merely a thriller you should read - as 5G approaches and advances in AI snowball, it is the thriller you can't afford not to." (James R. Hannibal, award-winning author of The Gryphon Heist)

©2019 Steven James (P)2019 Thomas Nelson

Critic reviews

"A realistic and an intelligent look into our future, Synapse takes the reader deep into the minds of the characters, both human and artificial, to smartly explore AI and eschatology. Thought-provoking and compulsive - this is a book you can’t afford to miss!" (Ronie Kendig, best-selling author of The Tox Files)

"A thriller that left me in awe of future technology while I turned pages to see what happened next...and where I fit." (DiAnn Mills, best-selling author)

Another great one from Steven James

I am a huge Steven James fan and this book did not disapoint. Great CF mystery but with AI as theme, what is not to love. Keep em coming Steven.

Thought Provoking

For me, this was an outstanding book. I likes very much the balance between the questions of faith and belief versus what we can physically prove. I kept asking how anyone could question the belief and faith of any life form. And why, why, why can we not allow others to live their lives the way they see fit? I don’t know what the future holds, but there are questions in this book that should be pondered for a good while, and seriously, as we move further into an ever changing world. Ms. Plummer did an outstanding job with her narration. Voices were distinguishable but not so much that it was a hindrance. The story was good in that it did capture the difficulty we have as humans trying to answer those unanswerable questions of life and death and pain and why and how do get past the hurt. Do we ever get past the hurt? And are those questions reserved only for humans or are they shared by other beings as well?

Suspend lots of disbelief but not religion

I found the underlying ideas too far fetched. The plot unfolds well if you can suspend disbelief. But around many corners are the religious questions, although generally without answers.

Twists and turns!

Exceptional story by an exceptional author! Synapse will leave you guessing to the end. The characters and story draw you in and keep you spellbound.

Awesome 👍🏾

I really loved this story on so many different levels. The performance was amazing and the characters were real, flawed, and deep.

Thought provoking suspense

I wanted to rush to the finish but at the same time I wanted to savor every word. I will recommend this book to friends.

An Interesting Sci-Fi

I'll admit, I got this book because of Therese Plummer. I love her work, and since the premise seemed intriguing enough, I picked it up on a sale. That's to say, the narration was absolutely great!

Now, to the story itself. This was an interesting listen. As both a Christian and a sci-fi fan, I was intrigued by this premise and how the author would bring the two together. At times, it seemed a bit heavy-handed, like he was trying really hard to write something profound and thought-provoking, but other than that, it was a great story. It was a fast-paced, easy listen and pretty solid sci-fi/dystopic fiction. As long as you're not immediately put off by religious themes, it's a worthwhile listen!

Good SF premise, also CHRISTIANITY

This is pretty much a meditation on Christianity wrapped up in fairly decent SF action with robots and mega-tech corporations and terrorists and loner government agents.

The main character is a Methodist minister who just had a still born baby. So there is much examination of why would a loving god make people suffer. And: Can a self aware AI with free will worship God even if he does not have a soul and so can’t go to heaven when he dies? And more .....

The theology sometimes feels shoe-horned In to the story. Sort of like the big dance numbers in a musical. I mean, I’m not a Christian so I don’t know if it is common place to just spontaneously start discussing the nature of one’s relationship with God but it happens in this book. A lot. About 25%of this is god-talk.
Any way. I think devout people would really like this book. The SF stuff is well written and the narrator did well on all but one of the voices. If one is also interested in the God stuff this would likely get 5 stars because, if you accept the premise that the Bible is true, the arguments are decently reasoned.
For me the god-talk was boring set dressing but I stuck around for the suspense of the terrorist plot.
So not horrible, not for everyone but certainly a hit for very specific listeners.

Good sci-fi drama

this book is more drama than action, but it asks a lot of important questions for both Christians and non-Christians. Good read.

Teeth-grinding inaccuracies

Decent story if you can overlook teeth-grinding technical inaccuracies/misassumptions that form the basis of a few major plot points and motivations. And if you don't mind being preached at for the entire book.

Imagine your late middle-aged aunt who is clearly the liberal-minded techno wonder.. in the eyes of her deep south bible group.. writing a near future sci-fi novel. You know, the one who discovered firefox on her own and always makes sure she's running 7 AV programs and regales the family at Thanksgiving about being kind to some minority family or something. It's clear she is more knowledgeable and forward-thinking than her peers, and that she means well, but... yeah. That's pretty much the feel of this book.

Possible minor spoilers below.

To the author, in case you wish to revisit/reuse some of these concepts in the future.

Atheists haven't turned their back on or take issue with the inherent "goodness" or actions of god, or even have a "belief" that is inherently opposed to Christian (or any other religious) beliefs. Atheism is simply a stance/mindset that there is no evidence or plausible reason indicating the existence of a/any god, ergo there is no god. The best way I've found to explain it is to ask someone how they feel about Zeus. Do you deny his greatness? Think he is unworthy of worship? Hold anger towards him? Or are you simply apathetic to the concept of him because he is/was a mythological entity that there is no evidence or plausible reason to indicate he ever actually existed in any form whatsoever? Considering that a basic tenant of the Abrahamic religions is that there is and has ever been only one god, by definition Christians are atheists in regard to any and every other god of the past, present, and future, save the one. Atheists just go that last step. You can't be angry with or dismissive of the actions/inactions of something you simply don't see as existing. If anything, her brother gave off much more of an anti-religion theist vibe than anything.

The internet- and any future versions/replacements, etc- isn't a "thing" that can be destroyed. it was literally designed and created to be a redundant communications system capable of surviving a nuclear war and the (physical) loss of significant portions of its infrastructure. There is simply no way that it- or any future iterations- would be susceptible to the loss of a single node. Additionally, there would *never* be a significant % of data to be stored at a single facility.

Finally, as vaguely as possible, who in the hell would set a timer for the movie to start in 5 minutes when everyone who intended to watch it was already present, comfortable, and had popcorn in hand? There is just no point to.

Several other smaller things (central processors don't store data) and one glaring hole/loose end, but you get the idea. If you're going to base interactions/plot points on something, please please please take 10 minutes to Google it, or ask someone similar/familiar to the character/character's knowledge base to give it a proofread.