I long planned to end my working years as a writer, but I wanted to do a few other things first. I had two previous careers: First as a designer and master builder for wealthy clients in Vermont and the Adirondacks (1975-1993). Numerous “master of the universe” types were my clients during those years. I quit doing that in 1993 and started what became one of the first successful clinical decision support software company for a doctor named Larry Weed (PKC Corp.). I ran PKC as the CEO for its entire history and I concluded that career in 2017 when PKC was sold to Sharecare Inc. (owned by Jeff Arnold, Dr. Mehmet Oz, and others.)
In 2017, having learned a few things along the way about the dynamics of humans with great financial power, softwareI long planned to end my working years as a writer, but I wanted to do a few other things first. I had two previous careers: First as a designer and master builder for wealthy clients in Vermont and the Adirondacks (1975-1993). Numerous “master of the universe” types were my clients during those years. I quit doing that in 1993 and started what became one of the first successful clinical decision support software company for a doctor named Larry Weed (PKC Corp.). I ran PKC as the CEO for its entire history and I concluded that career in 2017 when PKC was sold to Sharecare Inc. (owned by Jeff Arnold, Dr. Mehmet Oz, and others.)
In 2017, having learned a few things along the way about the dynamics of humans with great financial power, software development, and artificial intelligence, I began writing a trilogy I call “A Sequence of Events”. It is my first book of speculative fiction and it is a meditation on current cosmological science, masquerading as an adventure tale that spans over one thousand years.
The trilogy begins at a near future (2048) where the raw comingling of religion, capitalism, and human nature has dragged a bungling world down into muffled, choking crisis. Fortunately, a handful of clear-brained individuals from various corners of the globe are brought together, either by luck or by a well-meaning algorithm, to become pivotal actors on the fragmented world stage. Driven by a shared sense of the profound inanity of the universe, they cobble together a way forward that is undeniably less bad than what almost was, and which allows human consciousness to live on to fight another day.
The second book (2128) describes the twilight years confronting the enigmatic band’s survivors, as the rhythm of failure is once again accelerating across the globe and humanity itself requires significant upgrades if it is to survive. The reboot scheme that emerges speaks to human creativity in the face of peril and our extravagant will to live. The strategy is less obvious than a spaceship escape to Mars, but far more achievable by a rapidly degrading species stranded on a crumbling world.
The final book (3215) offers a quiet reflection on one life and the spinning universe of universes that contains it. In conversations between Jason, a donkey mystic who comprehends all of human history, and The Methods, the sarcastic and needy manifestation of all the working rules of the cosmos, an imaginative understanding is reached, a shared appreciation between organism and organizer for the aching beauty of the doomed but universal struggle against entropy and the final stillness.
A few years ago I published rough cuts of the first two books of the trilogy. The drafts were called Pavlov's Colon and Macronome, and they have been replaced by the 2048 and 2128 books from this trilogy. They should be ignored.
I have lived in Vermont for the past 50 years with my wife Wendy, who has counseled and supported me with these books and all my work. My daughter, Haleigh, lives in New York City....more
Howard PierceI am currently working on the third book of my Serendipity trilogy. The first book (Pavlov's Colon) is set 40 years in the future and begins with the …moreI am currently working on the third book of my Serendipity trilogy. The first book (Pavlov's Colon) is set 40 years in the future and begins with the president of the United States "rapturing" on prime time news. The second book (Macronome) takes place in the year 2128 and continues the story, as mankind hits the evolutionary wall and begins to decompensate. The third book is set in 3216, with humans no longer the masters of the earth.(less)
Having spent 20 years in the architecture and construction world, and 20 more in the world of software design and production, I seem to notice one striking similarity regarding the trajectory of those two worlds: the fundamental rules for assuring consistent quality are being rapidly degraded.
This leads me to wonder, is this some new form of human progress where the sheer volume of "quick and dirt
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