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Light Harvesters
There are three bold new ways to be alive in 2089, but Hal’s damaged brain implant has sidelined him in our wireless society. Some have converted themselves to software, redefining Human. Millions more escape climate chaos by living splendid alternate lives in VR. And a controversial few are digitally immortal, inhabiting advanced synthetic bodies. Then Gracie, a striking woman possessing all the world’s knowledge, but no identity, barges into Hal’s life. Smitten, he takes her in---and pays a terrible price.
Scanned into living software, Hal and Gracie pursue each other in sun-scorched L.A., and through a lawless virtual realm. There, Gracie’s hidden link to A.I. Super-Intelligences darkens the mystery of her origin and purpose, branding her an existential threat.
She is powerful, but neither Hal nor Gracie knows if she is here to help us survive the sixth mass extinction, or destroy us. Humanity is at stake then, when the two confront each other, and Hal faces a wrenching decision.No one could have foreseen the consequences.
Scanned into living software, Hal and Gracie pursue each other in sun-scorched L.A., and through a lawless virtual realm. There, Gracie’s hidden link to A.I. Super-Intelligences darkens the mystery of her origin and purpose, branding her an existential threat.
She is powerful, but neither Hal nor Gracie knows if she is here to help us survive the sixth mass extinction, or destroy us. Humanity is at stake then, when the two confront each other, and Hal faces a wrenching decision.No one could have foreseen the consequences.
318 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 29, 2021
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12 people want to read
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April 25, 2022PULLING ON THE YARN: He's written sci-fi film and TV scripts and in the latter has been Emmy-nominated for his work on Max Headroom, Spielberg's Earth 2, and Britain's Space Precinct. So, when I read Facebook friend, Arthur Sellers, recently published novel, Light Harvesters, it was difficult, at first, to read it as a literary work, without filtering the text through a cinematic lens, which limits the books impact, and Seller's achievement.
Not that it couldn't and shouldn't be made into a film or series - it should. The future world he creates in Light Harvesters is vividly limned; his story a perfect one for the movies. And there's the rub: that which can be visualized in a movie, both the setting and the enacted story, must be seen, heard, smelled and felt in a reader's mind through the written word.
Seller's writerly gifts, his use of language, his descriptive powers, the way he conjures characters with the requisite verisimilitude, the fluidity and pace of the story, draw you in, then keep you immersed in this other place he's created.
This "other place" is on the horizon of the now, not over on the other side of it, hidden from view. The evolution of computer technology and engineered products bordering in the miraculous continues apace and so anyone who has even a modest grasp of them can apprehend - I think that's the right word - a far more intricate merging of human life and technology than has been achieved thus far.
Think corneal implants, hip replacements, artificial hearts, synthesized skin, and a host of other technologies that have already become body parts. The implantation into human bodies of all the working components that you now hold in your smartphone-enabled hand is a virtual certainty at the way we're going. Those and much, much more.
But at the same time, computers, software, artificial intelligence, bionics and robots are evolving so a world - the world depicted in Light Harvesters - is foreseeable and may become a world populated by a competing set of "living", self-protecting, self-propogating entities.
There will be, for a time at least, humans as we know us, but who have a dubious future because of the way in which we have fouled our planetary nest and dubious also because our human intelligence will be far less than the computers they have created. There will be hybrid creatures also - an integrated blend of biological humans and computers, and there will be a separate "species" of robotic creatures, both tangible and cloud-based, whose intelligence will be far superior to humans and hybrids without the encumbrances of human emotionally.
But Seller's story also projects the sad and sorry state of our badly conflicted world, it's corruption, rebellious terror, venality and violence into the future. In Light Harvesters, its already crowded complexity will become more profoundly dangerous and deadly because of the incredibly powerful tech available to all those competing for survival.
Indeed, it is the competition among and between the creatures who inhabit Seller's book that is the general thrust of the book's various plotlines, a competition that takes place, therefore, against a dark and distraught background that is all too familiar to those living today but with the odds of success and failure ratcheted up to an apocalyptic level.
There is a love story that runs through the book too. It is a fraught entanglement between the human protagonist, Halo Shephard, and the other-worldy, digital femmebot, Gracie, who can manifest in beautiful female human form (if she wishes). Their story provides a tone of plausible optimism that offsets the pessimistic attitude of the work. It offers the reader a way to become involved in the narrative more emotionally that would otherwise be the case, always the thing the best writers must strive for.
The love between Hal and Gracie is what reconciles the disparities that exist, without love, between entities, organic and digital, and, as any true mating portends, it heralds the birth of an even more evolved creature in the future beyond the last pages of Light Harvesters. It is a fine way to end the book; reflecting Seller's deep insight into what humanity, despite itself, can and probably will do, to save itself.
There are a few shortcomings in Light Harvesters, principally a tendency toward the didactic in the last three chapters which, after the central climax of the narrative is arrived at, prolongs the denouement. It is the result, I think, of Sellers having thought out a few more of the implications of the forces that are at work in the story but not having been able to work them more subtly into the plotting. But, perhaps I quibble.
Not that it couldn't and shouldn't be made into a film or series - it should. The future world he creates in Light Harvesters is vividly limned; his story a perfect one for the movies. And there's the rub: that which can be visualized in a movie, both the setting and the enacted story, must be seen, heard, smelled and felt in a reader's mind through the written word.
Seller's writerly gifts, his use of language, his descriptive powers, the way he conjures characters with the requisite verisimilitude, the fluidity and pace of the story, draw you in, then keep you immersed in this other place he's created.
This "other place" is on the horizon of the now, not over on the other side of it, hidden from view. The evolution of computer technology and engineered products bordering in the miraculous continues apace and so anyone who has even a modest grasp of them can apprehend - I think that's the right word - a far more intricate merging of human life and technology than has been achieved thus far.
Think corneal implants, hip replacements, artificial hearts, synthesized skin, and a host of other technologies that have already become body parts. The implantation into human bodies of all the working components that you now hold in your smartphone-enabled hand is a virtual certainty at the way we're going. Those and much, much more.
But at the same time, computers, software, artificial intelligence, bionics and robots are evolving so a world - the world depicted in Light Harvesters - is foreseeable and may become a world populated by a competing set of "living", self-protecting, self-propogating entities.
There will be, for a time at least, humans as we know us, but who have a dubious future because of the way in which we have fouled our planetary nest and dubious also because our human intelligence will be far less than the computers they have created. There will be hybrid creatures also - an integrated blend of biological humans and computers, and there will be a separate "species" of robotic creatures, both tangible and cloud-based, whose intelligence will be far superior to humans and hybrids without the encumbrances of human emotionally.
But Seller's story also projects the sad and sorry state of our badly conflicted world, it's corruption, rebellious terror, venality and violence into the future. In Light Harvesters, its already crowded complexity will become more profoundly dangerous and deadly because of the incredibly powerful tech available to all those competing for survival.
Indeed, it is the competition among and between the creatures who inhabit Seller's book that is the general thrust of the book's various plotlines, a competition that takes place, therefore, against a dark and distraught background that is all too familiar to those living today but with the odds of success and failure ratcheted up to an apocalyptic level.
There is a love story that runs through the book too. It is a fraught entanglement between the human protagonist, Halo Shephard, and the other-worldy, digital femmebot, Gracie, who can manifest in beautiful female human form (if she wishes). Their story provides a tone of plausible optimism that offsets the pessimistic attitude of the work. It offers the reader a way to become involved in the narrative more emotionally that would otherwise be the case, always the thing the best writers must strive for.
The love between Hal and Gracie is what reconciles the disparities that exist, without love, between entities, organic and digital, and, as any true mating portends, it heralds the birth of an even more evolved creature in the future beyond the last pages of Light Harvesters. It is a fine way to end the book; reflecting Seller's deep insight into what humanity, despite itself, can and probably will do, to save itself.
There are a few shortcomings in Light Harvesters, principally a tendency toward the didactic in the last three chapters which, after the central climax of the narrative is arrived at, prolongs the denouement. It is the result, I think, of Sellers having thought out a few more of the implications of the forces that are at work in the story but not having been able to work them more subtly into the plotting. But, perhaps I quibble.
May 23, 2023
Very insightful
I've read a few books that revolve around the singularity and transhumanism, most art apocalyptic. In this one the apocalypse is mostly human made, global warming, drought, famine, plaque, war... all Four Horsemen. In the beginning AI has been around 40 years, it's not far in the future, and there are 7 superminds that are trying to avert the apocalypse.
They also have the technology to upload human minds to the cloud or into transhuman bodies. Those who get an artificial body are the light harvesters, they run on sunlight, but to be given a transhuman body (Legally) you have to pass very stringent criteria, mostly psychological. Everyone who has been legally uploaded into a robot body is like Ghandi, they work for the betterment of mankind along with the AI. Of course there is a lot of illegal use of the technology, the rich & powerful, warlords, gangsters, etc. are also living beyond their bodies.
I don't think I'm giving much away here, this is just where the story starts. Rather than talk about the plot I wanted to say that I liked the approach to this world. It's not black and white, it's not the Terminator. One thing the author sums up well is something my old anthropology professor used to talk about. Even if you never meet the people who designed a tool, you can learn a lot about them by studying their tools. Like a wheelbarrow, it's made to suit human physiology, perform particular tasks and gives an indication of what people were doing with it. I'm sure that at least once in human history a person picked up a wheelbarrow and beat another human with it, that's human also, but it's not what it was for. The same is going to happen with AI.
In the same way, AI reflect humanity. They were created for human needs and designed to perform for humans. I think this story, overall, is optimistic and after reading a dozen end of the world robot apocalypse stories it was a nice change.
I want to read it again, slower, there is a lot to unpack.
I've read a few books that revolve around the singularity and transhumanism, most art apocalyptic. In this one the apocalypse is mostly human made, global warming, drought, famine, plaque, war... all Four Horsemen. In the beginning AI has been around 40 years, it's not far in the future, and there are 7 superminds that are trying to avert the apocalypse.
They also have the technology to upload human minds to the cloud or into transhuman bodies. Those who get an artificial body are the light harvesters, they run on sunlight, but to be given a transhuman body (Legally) you have to pass very stringent criteria, mostly psychological. Everyone who has been legally uploaded into a robot body is like Ghandi, they work for the betterment of mankind along with the AI. Of course there is a lot of illegal use of the technology, the rich & powerful, warlords, gangsters, etc. are also living beyond their bodies.
I don't think I'm giving much away here, this is just where the story starts. Rather than talk about the plot I wanted to say that I liked the approach to this world. It's not black and white, it's not the Terminator. One thing the author sums up well is something my old anthropology professor used to talk about. Even if you never meet the people who designed a tool, you can learn a lot about them by studying their tools. Like a wheelbarrow, it's made to suit human physiology, perform particular tasks and gives an indication of what people were doing with it. I'm sure that at least once in human history a person picked up a wheelbarrow and beat another human with it, that's human also, but it's not what it was for. The same is going to happen with AI.
In the same way, AI reflect humanity. They were created for human needs and designed to perform for humans. I think this story, overall, is optimistic and after reading a dozen end of the world robot apocalypse stories it was a nice change.
I want to read it again, slower, there is a lot to unpack.
October 29, 2022
Review 5/5 ⭐ | Light Harvesters by Arthur Sellers
A refreshing book in the science fiction genre. Light Harvesters had my attention page after page from one chapter to the next. Set in the not so far off future Authur Sellers takes the readers on a awe-inspiring journey.
Some people live in virtual reality while others have fused life with computer engineering. Another group of people have made themselves immortal through technological advances programmed into artificial intelligence. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
The characters in the book are excellent and intriguing. One of the main characters, Gracie, has the knowledge of all of humanity and if that isn't intense I dont know what is!!! She is surrounded by mystery as well, which makes her hands down my favorite character throughout the story. The dynamics between her and Hal, the other central figure are well done.
There is so many situations in the storyline there isn't a moment where the reader desires more. The author really did a fantastic job intertwining the story with aspects of technology, mystery, suspense, even an underlining tone of romance.
Whether you are a science fiction fan or simply a reader who enjoys a great book; I urge you to get a copy of the Light Harvesters and enjoy. It is a wonderful roller coaster with twist and turns all the way up to the end. There was nothing to disappoint about this novel at all!!!
A refreshing book in the science fiction genre. Light Harvesters had my attention page after page from one chapter to the next. Set in the not so far off future Authur Sellers takes the readers on a awe-inspiring journey.
Some people live in virtual reality while others have fused life with computer engineering. Another group of people have made themselves immortal through technological advances programmed into artificial intelligence. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
The characters in the book are excellent and intriguing. One of the main characters, Gracie, has the knowledge of all of humanity and if that isn't intense I dont know what is!!! She is surrounded by mystery as well, which makes her hands down my favorite character throughout the story. The dynamics between her and Hal, the other central figure are well done.
There is so many situations in the storyline there isn't a moment where the reader desires more. The author really did a fantastic job intertwining the story with aspects of technology, mystery, suspense, even an underlining tone of romance.
Whether you are a science fiction fan or simply a reader who enjoys a great book; I urge you to get a copy of the Light Harvesters and enjoy. It is a wonderful roller coaster with twist and turns all the way up to the end. There was nothing to disappoint about this novel at all!!!
February 22, 2022
Started off interesting, but about three-quarters of the way through, became ridiculously unbelievable as the author apparently decided that one of his characters was the Second Coming. This would have been a much stronger book if it had explored imperfections of people and technology rather than creating one-dimensional characters.
January 31, 2022
A thrilling view of what is entirely possible. The genius of Arthur Sellers gives us a story that will hold its relevance for many years. Light Harvesters is a thrilling futuristic ride into a human initiated evolution. I love sci-fi, and this story has become my favorite.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews