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Intended to contain more scientific and philosophical concepts than any previous novel, Infinite Thunder took almost twenty-five years to write.
It is set during a ten-day period in July 2041 when the world goes through a sudden shift.
The novel is about the most extreme implication of the anthropic principle and how it might be related to quantum physics.
- Blurbs:
July 2041.
A historical era of boring news is about to come to an end.
Artificial intelligence is slowly removing mankind's mental limits, but in this future humans are still smarter than machines.
UN inspector Rick Parkland discovers a plot to conceal scientific knowledge, a serious crime.
He crosses seven countries on an investigation leading through the fringe of science and philosophy.
The evidence exposes mankind's strangest enemy so far, a virtual person said to be fictional who manages to cause extreme damage nonetheless.
Even greater opponents may be rising. The conspiracy is open-ended, and intended to decide the course of history.
- Synopsis (may contain spoilers):
The main character is Rick Parkland, a UN inspector responsible for suppressing dangerous technology, who finds himself caught in a battle between two great forces representing individualism and central control.
In the first chapter, he discovers an unknown group that is illegally testing brain modification methods.
He travels to the 'Depot', a secure region in Russia's far east where people are allowed to experiment with technology under controlled conditions.
Inside a vast warehouse storing millions of obsolete but still running computer chips, he tries to deactivate an unknown computer program using standard UN software tools. Before he can succeed it launches an attack against the Net, mapping and stealing 4.8 exabytes of sensitive data.
He traces the attack program to an online ghost-site where illegal information is exchanged.
A religious cult hungry for more influence believes the site's creator has invented a method to manipulate and control people. The cult shadows Rick, hoping to capture this method. After a chaotic robot battle in a Siberian forest, Rick agrees to cooperate with the cult to find this mystery individual.
As he travels through China, an improvised counterintelligence operation in the world's largest theme park goes wrong.
It becomes clear he is chasing the person known as 'Anonymous', known as mankind's only confirmed supervillain. This female avatar may not really exist, or may be a composite character, but her crimes are real enough. More than ten years ago, Anonymous led the Communist forces during the world's last war, causing global panic after ordering the use of prion weapons.
The trail leads to the fashionable bit over-regulated Chinese town of Qiyuan.
A 'rogue' agent from Millipol, the world police force alliance, gets there first, and single-handedly starts the attack. By the time Rick arrives, the Chinese army has launched its own assault.
After a battle watched worldwide, Anonymous completes her greatest performance.
Suspecting that Millipol has secretly cooperated with Anonymous for years, Rick heads to Bombay to investigate the agency's role in the battle.
He learns Millipol has an independent program not approved by the UN to suppress dangerous technology, using any method they deem necessary.
By making a number of mistakes in his investigation, Rick has inadvertently allowed an unknown enemy to steal Millipol's most dangerous data, thereby threatening mankind. The data was stolen by the same high-tech group responsible for the Depot attack.
After reaching an equatorial spaceport in what used to be Somalia, he investigates a swarm of tiny satellites in Earth orbit and beyond. The group has made an important astronomical discovery, and has developed a long-range plan.
The UN's emergency response is a Total Search: using the combined brainpower of humanity in an open-source effort to solve the case.
In Germany, Rick visits one of the world's leading philosophers, who turns out to be a member of the group: the Starters.
Before his capture, Tarek Golog uses the network created for the Total Search to release a message to the world to counter the work of Anonymous.
Rick learns Millipol's illegal Minus Six division has already formed its own movement to stop the Starters: the Prophets. They are a voluntary totalitarian society that uses a combination of status and pleasure to attract the brightest members.
When the UN belatedly tries to investigate the Prophets, it encounters a series of attacks designed to frighten mankind, including prematurely powerful assault robots.
Rick finally infiltrates their complex as an observer in a high-risk raid, hoping they will find a solution.
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