THE GOD QUESTION and THE GALAPAGOS COLONY

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Author Stan Freeman presents both an interesting and fascinating read in his book that features two novellas, The God Question and The Galapagos Colony with the tagline “science and religion collide . . .”

Stephen Kendrick and Robert Levin both know they are doing something incredibly wrong with potential devastating ramifications, but they also feel they are doing something unique that could help change the world. They have a computer called IVAN that at the moment is only a class two system, not a class one which is capable of enabling the computer to think for itself like humans do. Recently people at Stanford created a class one using a new and brilliant program called SpecialLearner, making it the most powerful hacking machine on the planet. It soon shut down numerous websites it had deemed harmful all without human intervention. This led to new laws and control and the declaration that class one computers were illegal. But Kendrick has a copy of SpecialLearner, and with Levin’s help, he wants to use IVAN over the weekend when there’s no one at the office and see if they can get the powerful computer to provide an answer to a fundamental question: is there evidence for the existence of God?

In The Galapagos Colony, the reader learns of a colony that has lived on a planet for almost a generation. But when the ship first arrived, there was a strange sickness that soon killed all the adults in the colony leaving only the children. In the short time, the adults taught what they could to the children and gave them the information and books they thought necessary to survive. They did survive, adapting to this new planet and learning of the ways they had been taught, but in so doing, lost the ability and knowledge of the advanced technology they arrived with on the planet. They also developed a unique moral system of belief that they use every day and believe it to be most effective in conflict resolution. Matias Silva has found the colony and will visit them to see if they wish to reconnect with their ancestors. Silva will also learn of the belief system of these people and will have to make a decision whether they should remain hidden and keep their unique ways, or to reconnect with the old world and its beliefs and practices.

Freeman does a great job of telling two concise but interesting stories in about a hundred pages each. In the style of the science fiction greats such as Asimov and Clarke, they’re written with good detail and great storytelling that will keep the reader hooked to the end of each story. Two novellas with very different stories that make one question whether there may be a higher power, but also whether it is our right to know the answer to that question or to ask those who might be able to answer it, whether they be an advanced computer or a lost colony of children.


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Author
Star Count 4.5/5
Format eBook
Page Count 200 pages
Publisher Hampshire House Publishing Co.
Publish Date 01-Oct-2021
ISBN 9781734438444
Bookshop.org Buy this Book
Issue June 2021
Category Science Fiction & Fantasy
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