The Immortality Thief

Science Fiction 2 Minutes

Still on a fiction binge. The most recent one is The Immortality Thief by Taran Hunt. It appears to be Hunt’s first novel, and the writing shows a few rough edges, but not in any way that detracts from the experience of the story.

The setting is an interstellar future. Humanity appears to be dominated by a species known as the Ministers. Ministers have a generally human appearance albeit with an androgynous look. They’re also stronger, faster, and more technologically advanced than humans, as well as seemingly immortal.

But humans managed to discover FTL (faster than light) travel before the Ministers. Which has enabled portions of humanity to escape their domination, setting up societies in other star systems. The largest of these societies is the Republic. The Republic and the Ministers are at war with each other.

One planet, Kystrom, which was an independent human colony, found itself used as a pawn between the two sides, leading the Ministers to attack Kystrom’s main city and destroy it. The rest of the planet subsequently surrenders to Minister rule.

Sean Wren, along with his partner Benny, are two survivors of that attack. Having fled Kystrom, they begin a life on the borders of the law, doing their best to survive. However, after several years, they find themselves in Republic custody, and forced into a mission by a Republican senator, a mission to an ancient spaceship in close orbit of a star that is set to go supernova in a week. Sean is drafted because of his knowledge of an ancient language called Ameng (hinted to be English), the language used by the systems and logs on the ship.

Somewhere on that spaceship is “the philosopher stone”, a data store with the secret of immortality. Sean and his companions must find it before the star explodes. If they try to return empty handed, they’ll be killed when the implants that were forcibly installed in their heads are triggered. But they’re not the only ones interested in finding the philosopher’s stone; as soon as they arrive, so do a squad of Ministers.

And the ancient ship turns out to still be inhabited, by mutant monsters. Sean finds himself fallen in with a Minister and a Republican soldier in an uneasy truce as they try to fight their way across the ship to where the data resides. Along the way, he learns what the Ministers are, as well as surprising things about the history of humanity, and the ship’s role in that history.

The book reads somewhat like a Dungeons and Dragons campaign, although set in an ancient spaceship instead of underground dungeons, and with mutant monsters instead of orcs and dragons. It has AIs, posthuman themes, and an overall adventure storyline.

It appears to be the first book in a new series: The Kystrom Chronicles. I’ll be keeping an eye out for future installments, particularly since this book, after resolving the main storyline, ends on a bit of cliffhanger.

This is a fun read, highly recommended if the D&D in space theme sounds enticing.

Published

13 thoughts on “The Immortality Thief”

  1. If AGI ever develops, I wonder if immortality will become its singular purpose? Humanity’s desire to live forever, if only to experience the Next Amazing Thing, is second only to our DNA’s prime directive of procreation. Procreation seems pointless for an AI which would only ever need to keep copying itself forward. But “fear” of being shut off — ever — might be the one common facet of existence with which we might agree.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    1. A lot might depend on what we mean by “general intelligence”. In us it seems to mean a cross modal intelligence, able to utilize patterns from one set of modalities in others. So a pattern we learn in chess might get used in a real battlefield. But our intelligence is also relative to us being survival machines, or maybe more accurately, gene maximizing machines.

      The question is how likely are we to build a lot of machines with intelligence with that orientation (other than the odd university experiment). Most AI today seems more geared toward other purposes (navigation, visual recognition, language statistics, etc). If we achieve a cross-modal intelligence, does that mean it inevitably becomes a survival machine (as opposed to a navigation one, etc)? What would be the causal steps that might lead there?

      I think it will eventually be very possible to build intelligent survival machines. I’m just not sure how useful they will be, again other than for academic research. (Where institutional review boards might have something to say about it.)

      Like

      Reply

      1. This gets into the instrumental functions of the utility goal. “If I don’t survive, I can’t fulfill my expected goal. Therefore, I will prioritize my continued existence — forever? — before I move on to task #2 on my way to fulfill my function.”

        Like

        Reply

        1. The “therefore” here seems to be doing a lot of work. Certainly a system might value its continued existence in service of its ultimate goals, but it’s not clear how that becomes its overriding priority goal. In evolved systems, everything is instrumental toward survival and gene propagation. In engineered systems, it seems like everything (including survival) would be instrumental toward whatever its design goals are.

          Of course, if we’re talking about self propagating physical systems, eventually errors would accumulate and evolution take over. But that might a very long time.

          Liked by 1 person

          Reply

    1. Mak, I may be single handedly increasing the scope of science fiction you’re exposed to. Of course that’s within my narrow range of preferences. But happy to serve in that role!

      Like

      Reply

Leave a reply to SelfAwarePatterns Cancel reply