a + enovel by Kevin Closs
August 1, 2022
— contents —
~ novel
~ press
~ story
~ praise
~ music
book title: Omagee
genre: science fiction
author: by Kevin Closs
date: 2018
This book is available at quality book-sellers.
Amazon | Barnes + Nobel | Books-a-Million | IndieBound
press | about the novel
publication: the Sudbury Star
story title: The author, singer + song-writer Kevin Closs explores high cost of immortality
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story |
An introduction.
After 6 years, famed singer + song-writer Kevin Closs released his first novel. He’s best known as a talented musician.
Since 1988 he’s released 11 albums — and toured widely. Now he’s applying his creativity to writing.
His debut fiction is titled Omagee. The story is about a character named Lia, who’s 72 years-old — and learning about life for the first time.
After decades spent dreaming in the care of an artificially intelligent computer program called iLIFE — Lia has un-docked.
But then something happens while she’s disconnected from the network. The nano-bot colony that keeps her alive fails. She’s stranded in a world she’s never known.
images | above + below
Portraits of Kevin Closs.
credit: Stacey Lalande for Kevin Closs | visit
The choice.
Now Lia must make a choice — find a way to re-boot her immortal iLIFE existence. Or stay in real life called bioLIFE — and discover if she has what it takes to become truly human.
Kevin Closs said:
The story’s about trying to imagine an immortal existence of desire without limits. I’ve borrowed ideas from my favorite sci-fi stories and tropes. But I hope I’ve managed to carry my question through to the end.
Inspiration from futurist Ray Kurzweil.
Closs said the inspiration for his novel came from reading the non-fiction book titled the Singularity Is Near — by Ray Kurzweil. In his many books and talks, Kurzweil promotes the theoretical event called technological singularity — a time in the future when computer software advances in intelligence to the point of matching + surpassing human ability.
Kurzweil is a futurist, inventor, entrepreneur, and best-selling author. He argues that in the near future — he suggests year 2045 — computers could perhaps become sentient. Beyond this singularity, Kurzweil says it’s impossible to predict anything. But he imagines a world where people no longer need their biological bodies — and can live forever as minds inside virtual worlds of their own imagining.
Having grown-up in the Roman Catholic christian religion — Closs said he’s mused about immortality. But it always strikes him as being impossible to comprehend a thing beyond reality as we know it.
Kevin Closs said:
But the book the Singularity Is Near was compelling. It suggested a technological immortality. Rather than living a mortal life, dying, then passing into an unknowable spiritual realm. Kurzweil says we’ll simply transfer our minds + personalities into powerful computers. And create our own deathless — but intelligible — realities.
Ray Kurzweil’s post-singularity world implies an immortal realm still fettered by mortal desires. Paradise, Nirvana, Tian, Moksha — whatever you call it — has always been described as being beyond desire. But Kurzweil suggests that — instead of leaving our mortal desires behind — we’ll fulfill them, multiply, and expand them. Riding the might of infinitely powerful computers.
The idea that we’ll soon be able to trade a mundane existence — along with disease, suffering, death — for a new, unlimited life of desire brings-up many incredible questions.
Will we have access to our friends + families in this new reality? Will we be alone? Will there be an age of consent for immortality? Or will newborn babies be transferred directly to iLIFE?
Thinking about biological + non-biological immortality.
Ray Kurzweil’s book challenged an idea Kevin Closs had always held dear — life, including death, is meaningful. Our mortality somehow defines us — or at least places us in a comprehensible universe.
Kevin Closs said:
Will we need biological life experience to imagine this new death-less reality? Or will we borrow other life experiences? Or will our experiences be constructed for us? Will we move back + forth between worlds — or will we have to leave our bodies behind?
If everything I ever desired could soon be only a thought away, I realized that Kurzweil’s book was about choice. Do we roll the dice — and live the brief lives the universe gives us? Or do we leave our flesh behind, and live forever in a dream world of our own choosing — where anything is possible? What is the ultimate meaning of bioLIFE — and what is the cost of iLIFE?
— end —
praise | for the novel
From the opening line — to the opening of the dock’s door into bioLIFE — the novel Omagee directs the reader’s attention inward + outward. The book is a meditation on our connected lives, and the speculative future of AI + bio-tech.
Author Kevin Closs has created a unique + interesting window into human life. He raises questions about personal identity, the environment, and innovation. The story is a fresh look at who we are — and what we might become. A compelling take on tech, climate change, and personal struggle.
— Emmett Turkington
name: Emmett Turkington
bio: writer
bio: teacher | Laurentian Univ.
bio: founder | Sulphur
Sulphur | home
tag line: poetry + prose
— about —
Sulphur is the literary journal of Laurentian Univ.
listening
music | by Kevin Closs
1. |
song: A blue whale’s lament.
album: in Deep | visit
written + performed: by Kevin Closs
2. |
song: The song of Svalbard.
album: in Deep | visit
written + performed: by Kevin Closs
webpages
name: Kevin Closs
bio: singer + song-writer + musician
bio: novelist
web: home ~ channel ~ novel ~ music
— notes —
a + e = arts + entertainment
AI = artificial intelligence
feat. = featuring
univ. = university