Tilt

by Todd Simpson

Ayaka is quite sure that she has created the first true artificial life. But that life is very strange. Very. When a ship full of similar entities arrives in orbit, all of her assumptions are challenged. How could these lifeforms be in outer space, when she had just created them in her lab? What are their intentions, and are they really intelligent enough to challenge the citizens of Tilt? Tilt explores artificial life from a new angle, and challenges our assumptions of what intelligence really is. "Destined to be the next monumental SiFi epic saga everyone will want to read!" "Very interesting concept and great writing." "Tilt is smart, engaging, funny, and timely. It deals with questions around future encounters and conflicts between human and artificial intelligences in a playful, surprising, thought-provoking way." -- Amazon.com reviews.

Genres: Fiction, Science Fiction

252 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 3, 2017

About the author

Tech entrepreneur, executive, investor living in Silicon Valley.

Reviews

[Papaphilly · Rating 5 out of 5]

What happens if "First Contact" is not? What happens if your "reality" is wrong? What happens if what you thought was a truth was anything but? Tilt asks these very questions and does one amazing job of answering in a very entertaining and thought provoking book. Todd Simpson has written one truly original work that competes with the best of the genre produced in many years. Written in an easy to read style, it belies the intensity of the underlying story. A thriving civilization has first contact made and the world turns upside down.

Tilt is a multi-level work. On the surface it is a great first contact story with lots of intrigue. Yet, it is what lies underneath that gives this story its true shine. As in all great novels, there is plenty of social commentary. Tilt explores the Science vs. Creation debate and the disdain felt by all sides for the other along with the willful blindness both posses. There is also commentary about diversity and the lip service that is played by society to the idea when it is really tested. Perhaps the best commentary is reserved for racism and levels of intelligence.

Todd Simpson has written an amazing read and deftly dealt with tough choices in both a refreshing and absorbing read. Tilt builds the drama like a well written mystery. All of the clues are presented and you still miss them, but you can tell something is wrong. This is a thinking novel, but when the action hits, it hits fast and hard.

A great read. Asimov, Heinlein, and Clarke would be proud.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Title: Tilt

Author: Todd Simpson

Publication Date: Jan 2018

Genre: Sci-Fi

Score: 3/5

Tilt is a novel about a society after an event about which they know nothing but is mythologized as The Founding which occurred approximately 530 years prior. They are contacted by beings who say they are returning after having been gone 750 years. The plot is interesting but hard to summarize without giving the twist away and it has a big twist. The twist is not very surprising as the author foreshadows it pretty well and you can see it coming. The subtitle's meaning becomes obvious but is a little too on the nose.

I’m ambivalent about this book. The writing was solid, but there are a few passages of people speaking extensively and generally telling and not showing the plot. These soliloquies are boring and drag the novel down. The story would have been better served to get the action faster. I’m not sure to whom I would recommend this book.

Edit: I wound up finishing this book and the last 30% (that's where I was when I wrote this originally) was definitely better. I would still give it 3 stars, but I think I will give the next book in the series a try. If the action keeps up, it could turn out pretty good.

[Dana Nourie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was great! I enjoyed it from the first page to the last. It’s well-written, the characters are interesting and vibrant, and once I had a sense of what was going on, I felt like WTF! How is this happening, yet it mirrors many of my contemplations on intelligence, what it is, how we as a society tend to view other animals, etc. This was a brilliant story. While some people in the reviews criticized the attention to technical details, as someone from the tech industry I really appreciated it. It was apparent to me this author knows computing. I look forward to reading the next book in this series.

[Don · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tilt -- an exciting ride with surprises and unexpected twists all the way through. This is one of the best SiFi novels I've read since I was a kid. It took me several chapters to catch the "aha" of the genius twist in the story. The ending left me (virtually) spinning in the breeze, very anxious for the next installment of this story. This series is destined to be the next monumental epic saga everyone will want to read. Bring on the next update!

[Silvio · Rating 4 out of 5]

A refreshing back to old classic hard science-fiction. However in the middle of the book the surprise in the plot is clear, you can enjoy reading until the end. Mixing actual discussions about AI, what's intelligence, and the relationship between scientific thoughts and religious zealots, the book has an interesting end with a message: even if you put all safe guards on it, somehow they will escape. That ending and how the story progress towards it has a clear message: any alive/sentient entity will find ways to get out of the cage. In a classical way it is the Frankenstein type of story (put in words of Asimov: the robots as an evil). Here there is an evolution in that path down to the final confrontation. Myself I could not relate or get sympathy for the the intelligence: maybe they are still too human like? and they elaborated in the same thinking traps like re-inventing religion and creationism? However it could be a hard read for new readers, if you have read Fred Foyle's The Black Cloud, the style reminded me of that book.

[C.A. Knutsen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Original, interesting premise

The book was well-written, and had an interesting setting. The main characters were basically scientists and everything they thought and did was written out in extreme detail. For me that meant that I had to skip over page after page of material. I didn't find any interesting action for quite a while. When I did see what was going on I thought it was an interesting structure, but the story wasn't very interesting. The ending is clever and may lead someone who is interested in the story to read the next book.

[Rissa Shuck · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would rate this 2.5 stars if I could. There are a lot of interesting and clever elements to this book, but the protagonists are so mind numbingly dense and self righteous I could barely finish it, and they're no better by the end. I get that it's supposed to be a sort of mirror into how humanity treats the 'other', but the way the robots completely fail, over and over again, to connect the most blindingly obvious dots imaginable with no dissenting voice of reason among them makes them kind of impossible to care about.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Entertaining enough, fairly original, somewhat thought-provoking. Props to the writer to really committing and sticking to such a limited viewpoint. But because of this, the protagonists became more and more unsympathetic as the book progressed; I really was rooting for them to die by the last third.

The book did not really address a fairly central mystery; I assume that's left for the sequel.

[Lynne · Rating 3 out of 5]

The premise was very good. I guessed at the nature of the protagonists about a third of the way through. The technology was a bit over the top, but the occasional grammatical and formatting errors didn't detract too much from the adventure. I look forward to reading more.

[Charles Kensinger · Rating 3 out of 5]

What is intelligence is a difficult question.

The story begins and we readers know about Earth but the citizens of Tilt don't. Follow the learning curve of these people as they discover they are not alone in the universe.

[D. Powell · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book was easy to read but lacked the conflict and adventure for my interpretation of Sci-Fi. For a scientist i.e.. academic perhaps the right stuff. It was imaginative though, and in my opinion, one day could happen. Somewhere in time. I gave it a 3.5 but rounded it off to 4.

[G. Vachon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoughtful and realistically imaginative. Watching the characters gain empathy/awareness was equally cringe-worthy and wonderful.

After readying this trilogy, I understand why Todd is a successful VC at Inovia. He sees the future. :-)