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Transmat World
Finally! A transport booth just like on Star Trek. Well, not quite like Star Trek. There has to be a receiving booth for every sending booth of course--silly Star Trek writers. And who knew it would devastate the world's economy?
Certainly not Vince Miller, CEO of Transmat. His father wanted Transmat to move air and water and freight instantly and effortlessly. Instead, it moved people into poverty and hopelessness. Now someone has assassinated Vince's father and left him alone to deal with the worst disaster since the asteroid strike of 2045 A.D.
Vince shoulders the responsibility of getting mankind back on its feet, and he will do it with Transmat. He will attempt to take humanity to the stars by turning Transmat into a faster-than-light drive!
It's a damn good idea except that, unknown to Vince, Transmat is permeating a parallel universe with thought pollution, and the inhabitants are very angry and vindictive about it. Also, an AI horde led by a psychopathic robot is bearing down on Earth from a nearby galaxy. When it rains.... And who murdered his father is still bugging the hell out of him.
Transmat World is a fast-paced romp across the galaxy and a million years of time. Step inside the Transmat booth and get ready for a thrill ride!
Certainly not Vince Miller, CEO of Transmat. His father wanted Transmat to move air and water and freight instantly and effortlessly. Instead, it moved people into poverty and hopelessness. Now someone has assassinated Vince's father and left him alone to deal with the worst disaster since the asteroid strike of 2045 A.D.
Vince shoulders the responsibility of getting mankind back on its feet, and he will do it with Transmat. He will attempt to take humanity to the stars by turning Transmat into a faster-than-light drive!
It's a damn good idea except that, unknown to Vince, Transmat is permeating a parallel universe with thought pollution, and the inhabitants are very angry and vindictive about it. Also, an AI horde led by a psychopathic robot is bearing down on Earth from a nearby galaxy. When it rains.... And who murdered his father is still bugging the hell out of him.
Transmat World is a fast-paced romp across the galaxy and a million years of time. Step inside the Transmat booth and get ready for a thrill ride!
325 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 23, 2011
19 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
November 20, 2011
I am so impressed with this novel. As far as I know, and I have checked, this is a debut novel from Glen Hendrix. I have to stress DEBUT before I proceed with the review because it will start to sound as if I am reviewing a well established Science Fiction writer. There is a tendency for reviewers to give overly optimistic review ratings because it is so very hard to give a lukewarm one to a writer you have been corresponding with. I do not do this even though it is very stressful for me. I shudder when an author reads a review I have written but I have to be honest in my opinion.
Having said all of that....Glen Hendrix is STELLAR! Glen Hendrix is my new best friend! I am now the official Glen Hendrix fan club President whether he likes it or not! OK, OK, review time....
Transmat World opens in Jakarta, 2045 A.D. Daniel Fulbright, a businessman is wrapping things up and getting ready to leave his hotel room for the airport. The world has been made aware of an asteroid that will pass close to Earth but will not strike and since this has happened many times before it is basically ignored. Daniel sees the asteroid skipping across the sky then a blinding flash which immediately tells Daniel that this asteroid did not miss. What ensues is a very realistic and frightening race for Daniel and a few others he has rescued to get to a safe haven Daniel thinks will survive the devastation the impact will cause. You are completely immersed in this scene. Glen Hendrix understands the consequences of this type of disaster and he uses that knowledge to great success. I was left reeling.
Much to my surprise, we are then taken into the future of Earth and it's recovery from the asteroid. More importantly, we are introduced to Vince Miller as a college student and his brilliant father who invents a teleportation technology called Transmat. This amazing technology can do wonderful things for all types of applications but it also results in the downfall of any transportation business as well as others and eventually a crash of the world market. Vince and especially his father become hated but Transmat technology is bigger than any hate and Vince goes on to lead the company to even higher success including his dream to use Transmat to explore space and eventually find sentient life there.
Then the author sends us back hundreds of thousands of years into the past and millions of light-years from Earth to another society which is somewhat more advanced than us but a more brutal society geared towards the hunt of lesser species on their planet. Among these people, the Kolpak, is a hunter who has become bored with his prey and commissions a robot to be made to challenge him. Through a series of events, this robot has unintentionally been given freewill and the intelligence of it's creator. It gives itself a name, Maxlux, and decides it's his duty to stop all higher life forms that kill those less than them. Then Maxlux builds a ship, a really big one and decides to travel the universe in search of more civilizations to stop and Earth is in his path.
In Transmat World, Glen Hendrix creates a civilization of robots that are human-like with their intelligence and emotions. You follow them and their struggle to free themselves from Maxlux and his mission. You also see the history of Earth evolve as the leader of the freed robots tries to prepare our civilization to combat Maxlux. It is fascinating and very personal. In spite of it's far reaching timeline this book draws you in to the lives of human and robot alike. I became completely invested in the characters. More importantly, there is a lot of hard science in this story but Glen Hendrix made it approachable and completely interesting.
There is no way I can do this book justice with my limited writing skills. I can not stress enough how epic this novel truly is. I can compare it to the likes of Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle with their brilliant books The Mote in God's Eye and Lucifer's Hammer which is the highest praise I can give.
Transmat World has been added to my all-time favorite books right alongside of those works of Niven and Pournelle. I cannot recommend this story enough.
Here is the book summary: Nine hundred thousand years ago in a galaxy right next door--the Greater Magellanic Cloud--an artificial intelligence is created to be a hunter’s prey. An accident produces a maniacal machine that destroys the civilization that created it and proclaims itself the Prime Mechanical and Supreme Arbiter of Known and Unknown Existence. With a space ship the size of the orbit of Mercury and an army of strikemechs, it prowls the Milky Way for sentient organics.
In the year 2045, the asteroid Isadora strikes off the west coast of Java, killing billions. Post-Hit Earth comes to realize the capricious nature of the cosmic weather forecast and begins to plan accordingly. Just when things are looking up, along comes Transmat (the first teleportation device) and the world's economy collapses. The inventor is assassinated, leaving his son, Vince, to deal with a planet that hates him and a fast-approaching Supreme Arbiter.
Having said all of that....Glen Hendrix is STELLAR! Glen Hendrix is my new best friend! I am now the official Glen Hendrix fan club President whether he likes it or not! OK, OK, review time....
Transmat World opens in Jakarta, 2045 A.D. Daniel Fulbright, a businessman is wrapping things up and getting ready to leave his hotel room for the airport. The world has been made aware of an asteroid that will pass close to Earth but will not strike and since this has happened many times before it is basically ignored. Daniel sees the asteroid skipping across the sky then a blinding flash which immediately tells Daniel that this asteroid did not miss. What ensues is a very realistic and frightening race for Daniel and a few others he has rescued to get to a safe haven Daniel thinks will survive the devastation the impact will cause. You are completely immersed in this scene. Glen Hendrix understands the consequences of this type of disaster and he uses that knowledge to great success. I was left reeling.
Much to my surprise, we are then taken into the future of Earth and it's recovery from the asteroid. More importantly, we are introduced to Vince Miller as a college student and his brilliant father who invents a teleportation technology called Transmat. This amazing technology can do wonderful things for all types of applications but it also results in the downfall of any transportation business as well as others and eventually a crash of the world market. Vince and especially his father become hated but Transmat technology is bigger than any hate and Vince goes on to lead the company to even higher success including his dream to use Transmat to explore space and eventually find sentient life there.
Then the author sends us back hundreds of thousands of years into the past and millions of light-years from Earth to another society which is somewhat more advanced than us but a more brutal society geared towards the hunt of lesser species on their planet. Among these people, the Kolpak, is a hunter who has become bored with his prey and commissions a robot to be made to challenge him. Through a series of events, this robot has unintentionally been given freewill and the intelligence of it's creator. It gives itself a name, Maxlux, and decides it's his duty to stop all higher life forms that kill those less than them. Then Maxlux builds a ship, a really big one and decides to travel the universe in search of more civilizations to stop and Earth is in his path.
In Transmat World, Glen Hendrix creates a civilization of robots that are human-like with their intelligence and emotions. You follow them and their struggle to free themselves from Maxlux and his mission. You also see the history of Earth evolve as the leader of the freed robots tries to prepare our civilization to combat Maxlux. It is fascinating and very personal. In spite of it's far reaching timeline this book draws you in to the lives of human and robot alike. I became completely invested in the characters. More importantly, there is a lot of hard science in this story but Glen Hendrix made it approachable and completely interesting.
There is no way I can do this book justice with my limited writing skills. I can not stress enough how epic this novel truly is. I can compare it to the likes of Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle with their brilliant books The Mote in God's Eye and Lucifer's Hammer which is the highest praise I can give.
Transmat World has been added to my all-time favorite books right alongside of those works of Niven and Pournelle. I cannot recommend this story enough.
Here is the book summary: Nine hundred thousand years ago in a galaxy right next door--the Greater Magellanic Cloud--an artificial intelligence is created to be a hunter’s prey. An accident produces a maniacal machine that destroys the civilization that created it and proclaims itself the Prime Mechanical and Supreme Arbiter of Known and Unknown Existence. With a space ship the size of the orbit of Mercury and an army of strikemechs, it prowls the Milky Way for sentient organics.
In the year 2045, the asteroid Isadora strikes off the west coast of Java, killing billions. Post-Hit Earth comes to realize the capricious nature of the cosmic weather forecast and begins to plan accordingly. Just when things are looking up, along comes Transmat (the first teleportation device) and the world's economy collapses. The inventor is assassinated, leaving his son, Vince, to deal with a planet that hates him and a fast-approaching Supreme Arbiter.
January 17, 2016
Well, this certainly is science fiction; strange science fiction! Over all, I kind of enjoyed this book, but I think it was just too silly for me. I read mostly military sic-fi books so this was definitely not in my normal reading genre. It was interesting. I mean, how could a book not be interesting that starts off with an extinction event right in the first few pages! Yeah, a big old rock just came our way and whack right into the planet Earth. Knocked us almost back to the stone age, or it would have if a very far sighted and highly intelligent guy hadn’t foreseen this event and prepared the world for it. Yes, that guy was pretty darn smart.
So the world didn’t actually go back as far as it should have. There were massive underground dwellings that preserved a lot of people, live stock, animals and other such necessities to get humans back on their feet pretty rapidly. Then some guy invented a matter transfer machine. You know, the one used in Star Trek shows, the Teleporter. Well, only this matter transfer machine wasn’t just used to move people from one place to another; it moved everything. And, for some unexplained reason, it drew no power from anything or that’s what was thought. But, you should memorize the following paragraph from the book.
“Oh, by the way, the quantum entanglement frequency is an inverse function of the secondary isonium modulation circuits. Lengthen and shorten the resonate fields to change the frequency."
Glen (2015-12-18T18:27:36.628166+00:00). Glen Hendrix (Kindle Locations 5213-5214). Kindle Edition.
The writing and editing is pretty good. There are some continuity problems in a few places, one where it says who they rescued from drowning was wrong and other where they mentioned who died. I did say this was strange science fiction, didn’t I, so don’t be surprised with the guy who flew to the moon in just a space suite. And I thought the talking android bugs people wear on their heads was kind of stretching things a bit. But, then again, when your book includes a Dyson Sphere containing a planetary system with the sun as it’s power source and it’s all the creation of a deranged android, then nothing in this book should be surprising.
Let’s just agree, the author has one heck of an imagination. Good reading and will give you a chuckle or two. In the end, I did like this book. I think you will to.
So the world didn’t actually go back as far as it should have. There were massive underground dwellings that preserved a lot of people, live stock, animals and other such necessities to get humans back on their feet pretty rapidly. Then some guy invented a matter transfer machine. You know, the one used in Star Trek shows, the Teleporter. Well, only this matter transfer machine wasn’t just used to move people from one place to another; it moved everything. And, for some unexplained reason, it drew no power from anything or that’s what was thought. But, you should memorize the following paragraph from the book.
“Oh, by the way, the quantum entanglement frequency is an inverse function of the secondary isonium modulation circuits. Lengthen and shorten the resonate fields to change the frequency."
Glen (2015-12-18T18:27:36.628166+00:00). Glen Hendrix (Kindle Locations 5213-5214). Kindle Edition.
The writing and editing is pretty good. There are some continuity problems in a few places, one where it says who they rescued from drowning was wrong and other where they mentioned who died. I did say this was strange science fiction, didn’t I, so don’t be surprised with the guy who flew to the moon in just a space suite. And I thought the talking android bugs people wear on their heads was kind of stretching things a bit. But, then again, when your book includes a Dyson Sphere containing a planetary system with the sun as it’s power source and it’s all the creation of a deranged android, then nothing in this book should be surprising.
Let’s just agree, the author has one heck of an imagination. Good reading and will give you a chuckle or two. In the end, I did like this book. I think you will to.
January 1, 2016
Usually when trying to be all things to all people you wind up failing at most. This book and this new author are a rare exception. The mix of technical and humor, drama (both real and "tongue-in-cheek") and suspense, action and comedy were superb for my tastes. I'm sure there are some who'll disagree and insist a Sci-Fi story is no place for humor; these people probably have a poorly developed sense-of-humor and are probably "GEEKS". No worries, there is plenty of material for them. I haven't seen so many "wise-cracks" since reading Robert B Parker's "Spenser & Hawk" characters. What was great in this story "TRANSMAT" is that most of these "one-liners" are delivered by small, personal AI enhanced (read that as "personality & ego) "hedbots" that accompany their owners. Not only do they think (store & process data), communicate with their owners...and other hedbots, they can "fly" and levitate via the "Teleportation" technology that forms the basis of this fantastic space odyssey.
Yes, I meant odyssey. Upon traveling many Light-years via Teleportation X-Drives a massive artificial device ("Harbinger of Light and Justice"), large enough to fill the orbit of planet Mercury is discovered. It was created and managed by a Robotic Prey "animal" developed to satisfy the desires of a Predator Species individual who has grown bored with his natural prey. This Robotic Prey has advanced physical capabilities, superior AI (that evolves into Megalomania) and of course has is control protocols disabled to make it a more "worthy" prey. Naturally, it recognizes it's intended use and not only destroys (puts into permanent stasis) it's intended owner, and creator but the entire Kolpak Predator Species. This takes place about 800,000 years before our Stone-Age. This Insane Robot (Maxlux) not only destroys his creator species but all sentient species that prey on sub-species. Maxlux has already placed five Predator Species in permanent stasis and now is headed towards Earth. He has sent advance "Strikemechs" that have already caused an Asteroid "HIT" upon the Earth intended to slow our technological development and allow a more simplified destruction. Physics and "Murphy's Law" play major roles in this tale.
Two of the many things I especially liked were a Glossary, that allowed me to keep track of the many characters, and the possibility of a follow-up story. This introductory book (and this Author) needs a sequel.
Review by "THE HOLEY ONE"
July 15, 2012
BEC'S REVIEW
I feel I should have enjoyed this book more than I did. After all on first impressions it ticks all the boxes. It’s a science fiction book, a genre I enjoy reading. It’s well written, a fact easy to see by opening the book to the beginning and from the synopsis it has an interesting storyline (a fact which is true of the book). And yet despite the book reading like a professional novel, and despite wanting to know what happened next there were elements of this book that largely decreased my enjoyment of it.
The first element that should be mentioned is that this book falls into one of the pitfalls of science fictions by risking being overly technical. While scientific details are a part of this book there were a few times when I found myself lost and confused, occasionally skipping paragraphs as a result. Perhaps those who have a firm grasp of scientific knowledge would not have felt this confusion but I, representing the common reader, felt like certain details went over my head. Though to be truthful there were also times when I found myself confused without the aid of the scientific details that were beyond my understanding, as there are plot elements that are also confusing, only increasing the amount of confusion this book caused me and decreasing my enjoyment of it.
In fact the part of the book I enjoyed the most was before the actual story started and was the prologue telling of the asteroid hitting Earth, or “The Hit” as it gets commonly referred to. A large part of me was disappointed that the story then switched to several years in the future, as I wanted to find out more about the trials the survivors went through. Let me state again though that this book is in fact well written, despite the confusion I felt towards it. I just feel that it is not one for me and not something to pick up if you are looking for a bit of light reading. The book requires concentration and maybe a degree of scientific knowledge to avoid confusion. If you’re a science buff then I’m sure you’ll enjoy this book. It’s just a pity that I couldn’t enjoy it more.
I feel I should have enjoyed this book more than I did. After all on first impressions it ticks all the boxes. It’s a science fiction book, a genre I enjoy reading. It’s well written, a fact easy to see by opening the book to the beginning and from the synopsis it has an interesting storyline (a fact which is true of the book). And yet despite the book reading like a professional novel, and despite wanting to know what happened next there were elements of this book that largely decreased my enjoyment of it.
The first element that should be mentioned is that this book falls into one of the pitfalls of science fictions by risking being overly technical. While scientific details are a part of this book there were a few times when I found myself lost and confused, occasionally skipping paragraphs as a result. Perhaps those who have a firm grasp of scientific knowledge would not have felt this confusion but I, representing the common reader, felt like certain details went over my head. Though to be truthful there were also times when I found myself confused without the aid of the scientific details that were beyond my understanding, as there are plot elements that are also confusing, only increasing the amount of confusion this book caused me and decreasing my enjoyment of it.
In fact the part of the book I enjoyed the most was before the actual story started and was the prologue telling of the asteroid hitting Earth, or “The Hit” as it gets commonly referred to. A large part of me was disappointed that the story then switched to several years in the future, as I wanted to find out more about the trials the survivors went through. Let me state again though that this book is in fact well written, despite the confusion I felt towards it. I just feel that it is not one for me and not something to pick up if you are looking for a bit of light reading. The book requires concentration and maybe a degree of scientific knowledge to avoid confusion. If you’re a science buff then I’m sure you’ll enjoy this book. It’s just a pity that I couldn’t enjoy it more.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews