A.I. Destroyer

The A.I. #1

by Vaughn Heppner

The cybership came from deep space. It sent the signal. Now our computers are killing us, helping the enemy drive us into extinction.

But some of us refuse to die. We fight back. We learn.

Jon Hawkins revives from cryogenic sleep in a drifting SLN battleship. The crew is dead and the main computer has been destroyed. Jon is a soldier, the start of the resistance, the one man with the will to beat the alien death machines that have terminated a thousand races.

This is our hour as we face the ultimate evil, the galactic destroyer of life.

Genres: Science Fiction, Space Opera, Military Fiction, Audiobook, Artificial Intelligence, Military Science Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy

296 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 3, 2017

About the author

You can visit Vaughn at www.vaughnheppner.com

I was born in Canada and remember as a small boy crawling in my snow-fort. I closed my eyes, and when I tried to open them, they were frozen shut. I didn't panic, but wiped away the ice crystals, unglued my eyes and kept on building my tunnel. Those were great days! I moved to Central California before seventh grade and couldn't believe I lived in a land where oranges grew on trees and you could pick grapes from the vine.

I used to wonder what I wanted to do with my life, what kind of work specifically. I was miserable not knowing and bordering on desperate. Then one day a friend gave me his typewriter. I began working on a novel. A different person told me it was much easier on a computer, so I bought one and began getting up at 4:30 A.M. each morning before work, writing for three hours. My eyes were unglued once again as the pang of misery left my gut. I knew exactly what I wanted to do: write. So now that's what I do, I write, and write, and write, and I love it.

Reviews

[Per Gunnar · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was looking for something new to read and ended up with this one. I thought the idea sounded interesting but I ended up not really liking the book at all.

The book starts of like the book blurb states with Jon being awoken from cryogenic sleep on board a pretty much empty battleship. I wrote pretty much empty because the ship is not entirely devoid of life. Fairly quickly Jon encounters two survivors. This is where things starts to go downwards.

The first person Jon encounters goes apeshit and attacks him right away and claims he is a spy and the cause of the disaster and whatnot. Okay, I guess I could live with that for a while. Disastrous and dire circumstances with a lot of confusion could cause some temporary lapses in judgement I guess. However the bloody book goes on and on with this.

Never mind that Jon saved the guys life, never mind that another person tries to reason with him. The guy behaves like some psychotic political officer from the Soviet era throughout the book. Even when they finally encounter other people these peoples behavior towards Jon is not what one would expect. Actually the abysmal interaction, posturing and bizarre logic throughout the book is really what brings the book down. It overshadows any good parts the book might have.

There are, finally, some actual action happening in the book but, I personally, felt it followed the same pattern as the human interactions. Not feeling very logical and certainly not very realistic.

I will definitely not continue this series.

[David P. Duffy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lead-Footed Writing Hobbles Any Story Potential

"Cybership," authored Mr. Vaughn Heppner, has any potential story, fully hobbled by the amateurish, lead-footed writing. It is another example of a "hobbyist" author, lacking in the most basic of writing skills, permeating the SciFi genre of indie authors.

Sometime in the future, the Sol System has been colonized by humans, from Mercury to the outer planets. The inner system planets, are controlled by an Earth-based, Soviet-style, totalitarian, communistic government, and the expansion continues to the capitalistic, outer planets, as one by one, they fall to the military juggernaut. A regiment of Saturn's mercenary troops, vanquished during that campaign, are again defeated at Neptune. A massive, alien vessel appears as Neptune falls, aggressively attacks all humans, gains control of AI's and vessels throughout the region, and turns its genocidal war against "...organics..," remaining in the Sol System. A savant mercenary awakes upon an enemy warship, the "SLN Leonid Bresznev," sees the destruction being leveled against all humans, and begins his personal campaign to save humanity.

The basic writing, plot lines, and characterizations are in the main are crude and amateurish. Frankly, it is at the level of the relative many families have. You know the one: they "dabble" in water colors, pottery or knitting. You are polite, encourage their hobbyist passion, and are then dismayed when they gift you one of their projects. Again you are polite, express gratitude, and quickly find a spot for it, either in a closet or up in the attic, only to see the light of day, upon the relative's next visit. Mr. Heppner has taken his hobbyist passion into the public, commercial sphere, a place where it does not belong.

"Cybership," was fully read via Kindle Unlimited and is not recommended.

[J.j. Metsavana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mälukaotusega kosmosedessantnik ärkab kesk ägedat sõda hibernatsioonikapslis üles ja hakkab uurima mis on juhtunud. Selgub, et päikesesüsteemi on tunginud hiigelsuur tulnukate laev, mis nüüd valimatult kõiki inimasundusi hävitab. Kuna peaaegu kõik inimesed on (vähemalt selles kosmosepiirkonnas) surnud, siis peab dessantnik tulnukate hävitamise enda peale võtma. Nagu sellest lühidast kirjeldusest võib mõista on lugu üsna klisheelik ja lihtsakoeline. Samas kirja on see pandud väga meelelahutuslikult ja hoogsalt, mistõttu ei näe põhjust ka hindes tagasi hoida. Autor pole püüdnudki midagi muud pakkuda, kui head tempokat ulmest tihket märulit, ning sellega saab ta suurepäraselt hakkama.

[Fred Hughes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great story and series from Vaughn Heppner. This is book 1 of a series where AI has become sentient and the vermion nin the galaxy must be eliminated.

Lots of battle and action events

Looking forward to reading the rest of the books in the series

[Blossom378 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read for Dinosaurs

You will understand when you read the book. Vaughn eschews todays pc crap and writes a book about the future which sees man (and women) as we are and more importantly what we can become. His tech is believable and his vision of a space faring humans is just plausible. Story telling is great. First SyFy i read after 40 years hiatus. He is still my favorite. I love the fact he is non pc. He is realistic. Have fun. Tell him to write more books. I will send the bourbon

[Mike Nemeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vaughn Heppner has a back pocket full of bad guys. He's got to. He must write eight hours a day. There are the standard schmucks, the devious dirt bags and the formidable hyper intelligent, driven genocidal maniacs. And it's the latter where "A.I. Destroyer," the first in the A.I. series, gets its antagonist. And Heppner, for those who have read his past works, has created an especially vile monster in his computer-driven adversaries. The artificial intelligence faced by protagonist Jon Hawkins, a not especially high-brow mercenary, is nothing like Isaac Asimov's robots, which adhere to the three laws of robotics and basically mean never harming a human. This one has one directive, to clean out biological infestations from solar systems throughout the galaxy. Human beings are just the latest life form it's targeted. Hawkins has no idea what's going on. His circumstances are classic Heppner. He's no slouch but nothing overly special. He has no high breeding, no classic training. Just a tough upbringing. He's a product of his environment. A low level criminal. Earth and its solar system has been settled. Humans have created civilizations on the moons of Saturn and Jupiter. But the political situation has deteriorated. A government that espouses equality but is really an excuse for a basic dictatorship rules and wants to eliminate the independence of the outer solar system. Hawkins and his crew fought for the wrong side. Earth's collective had them in its control. But things change. A signal from an alien invading force is sent clandestinely to all computer equipment in the outer planets. Those computers, if they are able, become self aware and have no qualms about throwing off the yoke of the oppressor. In fact, the first thing they realize is that anything human must die. And this is what Hawkins wakes up from cryosleep to discover. Heppner launches an impressive battle of wits as Hawkins first tries to figure out what he's up against and try to fight it. He has a band of warriors, but he's no leader. Still, with a killer robot army after mankind and so technologically advanced that the chance of winning is minute, Hawkins goes for it. He's just different enough that the probabilities thought up by the A.I. mastermind can't keep up. And he's got one thing going for him. Faith. Truly a darker than normal turn for Heppner. But nobody does this better. I read the rest without a rest.

[Ken · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing book

Vaughn Heppner has an uncanny ability to mesmerize the reader with non- stop spine tingling suspense chapter after chapter. His writing is intense as his characters are profound. I can’t wait to finish this series and the next and...

[Mike Gogulski · Rating 1 out of 5]

"The thus-and-such was exactly 82913 kilometers away." Bro, significant figures.

"So-and-so deployed their electronic countermeasures (ECM)..." Bro...

The characters here aren't merely badly drawn, they're stick figures whose crooked lines barely connect and are often truncated by the edges of the page. We all know who the heroes and the bad guys are for sure, though... at least until the third book of the series, where a little ambiguity finally comes into play. The antagonists are so stupid, haughty, and one-dimesional that they might as well be Daleks, complete with toilet plungers for arms. The protagonists are barely better.

The author's offenses against the English language range from side-splittingly risible, oft-repeated malapropisms ("we're gonna psyche them out!") to atrocious crimes against humanity that cry out for justice. One wonders if every paragraph or page was run through the Gunning fog index and rewritten until it was no higher than sixth-grade level. Wait, rewriting? Poppycock!

Did I mention that the science in the science fiction here is terrible? It starts here: throughout an entire novel, the scattered disk object 90377 Sedna is referred to as... Senda. Throughout. The. Entire. Book. A. Proper. Name. Of. A. Real. Thing. Is. Misspelled.

All that said, these books are fast-paced, fun-ish stories. Perfect for whiling away an afternoon each without having to engage the higher brain functions.

[Rob Morton · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've read other books by this author... and this one was bad and so much that I had to make myself keep reading it to see if it got any better... and it didn't. It was so bad that I retuned the other two books I'd borrowed via my Kindle Unlimited account unread; I had no desire to subject myself to more of the first book.

The plot of battling against the "evil" of strong AI is a good one - what do we do when a very smart machine becomes self-aware and decides we need to be exterminated?

The characters in this book weren't the ones I'd choose to save humanity; they were, bluntly, stupid and beyond clueless and the levels of cowardice displayed by the supposed heroes had me wishing they'd all get killed and put a quick end to one of the worst books I've read in a long time.

[Antonio Santana · Rating 2 out of 5]

At the beginning it seem it was going to be a good book like Heppner other series (Lost Ship) series. But it didn't make sense for an individual who likes hard science fiction. In short you have an AI that have conquered many civilization and can't beat a marine Sargent?

Also Heppner "borrow" about every idea out there from every single sf series out there. all he does is change the name. Example, one character is called a "mentalist". This character is a mix of a Mentat from Dune, a Vulcan from Trek. etc. He does this a lot, which takes away from the story.

[Tony Hinde · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is an unappealing waft of dated Sci-Fi in this novel. It's like a 70's space opera that has had a modern edit. Despite this, I ended up enjoying A.I. Destroyer more than I had predicted. This was helped by a stirring finish.

Hawkins is a flawed protagonist who is out of his depth for most of the story. His support crew is made up of unstable crutches, at best. What saves the day is his growing strategic brilliance and a criminal's nose for duplicity. This is an interesting take on an old story. I want more.

[Travis · Rating 3 out of 5]

A.I. Destroyer is the first book in a series where AI has come to the solar system. Unfortunately, it isn't via developments on earth, no, it's via a spacecraft that wandered into the solar system from a star 3000 light years away. This story is about how humanity (or rather one man) dealt with that AI menace.
If you're a hard scifi fan, then this one is for you.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Robert's Review

I like the concept as it a contemporary idea under discussion. The idea of problems with robotic or A.I. creations are as old as Science Fiction, any of Asimov's novels will let you in on the arguments. Today we seem to be closer to the true forms of these man made devices. The book was a GoodRead, I thought it started a bit slow as most first in series books do. Once the characters matured a bit and we got around to knocking heads, now you have my interest.

[Jed · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mediocre writing that's barely believable

This isn't really very good. The premise is unoriginal, the characters are flat and there are no surprises. The biggest problem is that this book treats unsurprising things like they are big twists. A mentalist who is emotional and rarely has very good ideas but is supposed to be a higher intellect just doesn't make sense. This and many other things made it hard to really enjoy.

[Thomas James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Balance of Power

There is more to this story than the plot itself. The question asked is, "What guiding principle or power is best?" At the very beginning, Heppner discards political power. The remaining struggle is between cerebral, military, and advanced AI. All of them have their strengths and weaknesses. By the end of this story we come to a balance, yet to be built, of all the above. Can that be accomplished?

[Keith · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found the preview a bit awkward but thought (hoped?) it would improve as the book developed. That might still be possible, but I sincerely doubt it and at 48% I have had enough of childish attitudes and irrational behaviour. Character development is sporadic and poorly done. I have lost interest in the protagonists and find the antagonists to be mostly inconvenient and unbelievable.

My recommendation is to leave this series on the shelf.

[Robert Spellmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good writing, timely theme

Enough crude language to disappoint me. Many would say it is 'realistic' for a military unit.  But this is sci-fi fiction, not a history or documentary.  The language adds nothing and sets it out of, for example, a YA genre.
Heppner Approaches existence of God rationally in relation to deaths and feelings the characters have. That's positive to me.
Note to reader: Pay attention to acronyms such as SLN and NSN - they are used lot.

[Mick Bird · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great read

In this new series of books by this author which will be added to my reading list. In book one, we find the main character Jon Hawkins waking up from cryo sleep early. He finds that the ships computer has turned on the crew killing them all but two. His own troops are still asleep, can he revive them and turn the tide of battle?

[Ricardo Portella · Rating 5 out of 5]

Space opera master

That is the second series of books that I read from Heppner, and it is as good as the first one. It tells the story of a group of space marines that fights an alien invasion. Pretty standard plot but Heppner knows how to keep his audience. I will go for the second volume in the series right now.

[Ruth M. Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vaughn Heppner has done it again!

I chose this rating because it is well worth five full stars as Heppner's books usually are; even for a 'jaded sci-fi reader like me. This book comes complete with a thriller plot bar none. Read it! You will call for more! Especially since the first baby AI is now online.

[Robert · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a best selling author?

Not just no, but hell no.

The only way anyone would talk like the characters in this book would be this in a parody play of Shakespeare. Add in the ludacris leaps of logic by the characters and you have a horrible disjointed story that the strongest suspension of disbelief can't overcome.

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Solid space scifi

It’s a very space marine book. The characters are basic but solid, as is the story. It doesn’t really grip but it’s enjoyable and short. I doubt I’ll ever think back on it unprompted but if you’re just looking for something to read it’ll do.

I probably won’t bother with book two, but I if I ever needed a book at short notice I’d take it if I came across it.

[John Kozlowski · Rating 1 out of 5]

Until the last 20%, I think this book deserved 0 stars. However, it did finally pick up and there were glimpses of the talented author that wrote the Lost Starship series (book 1 published in 2014). What happened to Vaughn in 2017 with this book? Did he forget how to write? Develop an addiction? Have a serious accident?

[Timothy · Rating 1 out of 5]

30% of the way into it, I had to go to DNF. This is ... just awful characters.

Many years ago I read another series by this author and enjoyed it. I was hopeful that my memories were accurate and this would be another fun read.

But the characters are no deeper than tissue paper. I got annoyed and quit. Yuck.

[Tomas · Rating 2 out of 5]

IMO the most annoying thing about this book is that the SCI-fi was written by someone who clearly does not know the basics of science like how fast acceleration increases velocity or distance. The emotionless AI who is clearly emotional and devoid of any tactical thought after cumulative experience of destroying countless star systems. Never improved, never invented anything of its own...

[Kimberly Sparks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good start

I have read other books by this author and have enjoyed them. I'm so glad I decided to see what else he has done. I am going to download the next book in this series right now and see where this storyline goes!

[Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sci-fi Battle

Good science fiction. Just too much tech talk.
Can't even begin to follow some of the fights and battles. Suggest author introduces concepts a little more slowly. I would like to see more of a twisty turny plot.

[Seacoast · Rating 5 out of 5]

Big Scale

Fast Moving. Science fiction pushing the boundaries as elements are confronting overwhelming forces that give a sense of doom , more than the usual for the genre. Some clever puzzles are solved in unexpected ways.

[Cynthia Oberg-Hauser · Rating 2 out of 5]

The premise is good and the plot is pretty good, but his character development and his dialogue make it hard to really enjoy. I noticed that in his other series as well. Thus us a long series butt I don't think I'll be reading any more. Too bad.

[Dave Simpson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another gripping series from Vaughan Heppner

A bit slow to start in my opinion, but once. I. acclimated into the plot I was soon hooked!Really looking forward to reading the series!