Little Computer People by Galen Surlak-Ramsey

Little Computer People

by Galen Surlak-Ramsey

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GENRE: Sci-Fi

BLURB:   When Gabe created the world’s first sentient program, Pi, he thought things couldn’t get better.
Now he’s pretty sure things couldn’t get worse.
After a colossal error on Gabe’s part, Pi turns into a binary monster along the lines of HAL, GLaDOS, and SHODAN. As she goes on the rampage, the only thing rendering her mostly harmless is the fact that she doesn’t fully understand the physical world...yet
But she’s learning.
And unless Gabe quickly finds a way to rein her in or shut her down, the next time Pi starts a fire, it won’t just be his empty house that goes up in flames.
If you’re a fan of Douglas Adams, Christopher Moore, or Terry Pratchet, then this is a novel for you.

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The first program I ever wrote was called Pussy Cat Divides. It was six lines of Basic goodness I wrote on my Apple IIe that allowed the user to input two numbers and the computer would then divide them, spit out the answer, and say, “How do you like that, Pussy Cat?” Yes, it was a glorified calculator, but since I was five, I was so in awe at what I had done I might as well have parted the Red Sea. From there I went on to program anything and everything I could dream up. Text adventures. Submarine games. Flight sims. You name it. I made it. And I managed to squeeze all of those programming gems in between elementary school, soccer practice, and developing a budding, but dangerous, understanding of chemistry thanks to my PhD-wielding father.

One sunny, summer afternoon, the garage caught fire. As I stood there watching the firemen pour untold gallons of water on the smoldering remains of our house, I had an epiphany. I realized that while I could easily test the stickiness of homemade napalm on the surfaces of garage ceilings, I could not, whatsoever, control the subsequent fire. And that wouldn’t have been too horrible if I could’ve at least erased the results of that minor oversight and kept my little sister, Courtney, quiet. But alas, that too was beyond my powers (and I’ll be damned if the fire marshal wasn’t a better investigator than I’d anticipated). So I had to admit that I didn’t actually own the universe in which I lived. I couldn’t shape its laws or make it conform to my will. I couldn’t add snippets of code to ensure things went my way, or hit that wonderful backspace key to correct a typo, stray pointer, or bug-ridden function call.

But I could do all of that with a computer. Anything I programmed had to obey me, had to follow the laws I set forth. I could make a world where gravity was non-existent and watch virtual objects float about. Or if I felt malicious, I could design a virus that went on its merry way and multiplied like a dozen cocaine-snorting, Viagra-popping rabbits. And if I could do all of that, I could create Life, the Universe, and Everything. All I needed to do was convince my parents not to kill me outright so I could hammer at the keyboard until my fingers bled.

AUTHOR Bio and Links:

When not writing, Galen Surlak-Ramsey has been known to throw himself out of an airplane, teach others how to throw themselves out of an airplane, take pictures of the deep space, and wrangle his four children somewhere in Southwest Florida.

He also manages to pay the bills as a chaplain for a local hospice.

Drop by his website https://galensurlak.com/ to see what other books he has out, what’s coming soon, check out the newsletter (well, sign up for the newsletter and get access to awesome goodies, contests, exclusive content, etc.)

Amazon buy link:

https://www.amazon.com/Little-Computer-People-Galen-Surlak-Ramsey-ebook/dp/B01MS9E18K

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GIVEAWAY INFORMATION:

Galen Surlak-Ramsey will be awarding a $10 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

They say the road to Hell is paved with good intentions - and the hero of this story, Gabe, only wants to do something good. But unleashing a highly intelligent program that has somehow gained sentience, but not emotion or judgement is, well - questionable. Gabe is a geek. He's likeable, absent-minded and single-minded, and dreams of creating a perfect program. His program is not perfect - it's scary. But Gabe is convinced that his creation (his daughter) Pi, is perfect, even though she hates him (sounds like a real life father-daughter relationship, doesn't it?). So when the FBI discover her, he hides her, and all Hell breaks lose. 
It's very funny, very geeky, and a little scary, because face it - it's all too plausible.