This book goes right into the the causes and reasons of the diversity of ways of thinking. It is about the tricks of how our thinking works and about the efforts and failures of artificial intelligence. It discusses what can and cannot be expected of intelligent' computers, and provides an insight into the deeper layers of the mechanism of our thinking.-An enjoyable piece of reading, this thought-provoking book is also an exciting mental adventure for those with little or no computer competence at all.

Joe Messenger is an award-winning specialist in artificial intelligence. The son of a cryonics pioneer, he believes that people can be made to live forever. But he also knows that merely freezing the body is not enough; without one's brain - one's consciousness - a cryonically preserved person will be incomplete. Joe, a computer genius, devises a way to download the human brain into a supercomputer called ARCHIVE. Joe's wife, Karen, finds his cutting-edge research increasingly disturbing, particularly his obsessive work on ARCHIVE, which is developing signs of a distinct and sinister personality. Karen's complaint that ARCHIVE is beginning to dominate their lives is not idle paranoia - it is truer than even she realizes. Karen and Joe's marriage is further threatened when he falls for Juliet Spring, a gifted young scientist whose loveliness is matched by her keen insight into Joe's work. But just as the pair are on the brink of a scientific breakthrough, a series of macabre accidents befall Joe, Karen, and their son, Jack - clearly the work of some malevolent force. It becomes increasingly evident that the obsessions that have shaped Joe's life are about to blow his family apart.