Wendell Bryenton has written a three-part series that challenges our perceptions of AI and the struggles it brings
By Anna Borowiecki
Wendell Bryenton has authored the science fiction novel, The Convergence Protocol. It is available on Amazon.SUPPLIED
There is a new science fiction writer asking deep questions about where humanity and AI is heading. He is known to St. Albert locals as Bob Bryenton, a successful IT businessman who retired after 35 years in the business.
He traded a corporate career for a quieter life learning the art of bladesmithing, and currently lives in North Buck Lake where his shop is located.
Always on the lookout for fresh challenges, Bryenton just released his first novel, The Convergence Protocol. The first thing that’s notable on the front cover is the author’s name – Wendell Bryenton.
“Wendell is my legal name. It’s also my grandfather’s and father’s name. I’ve always been called Bob, and I wanted to honour my grandfather and father with this book,” said Bryenton.
Through science fiction writing, the author explores today’s futuristic and scientific explosion of AI and human response to these advances. He asks big philosophical questions similar to Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and Ray Bradberry.
The Convergence Protocol is set in the far future when humans have colonized space. On a quiet agricultural world at the edge of space, Eli Rowan, a farmer lives peacefully until war arrives.
Within a week, he’s pulled into pilot training to fight the Kethari, an invasive machine that destroys everything in its path. Stranded in the wreckage of an obliterated fleet, Eli and a few survivors face destruction at every corner.
But the destruction activates an intelligence. It is not human. It is not a machine. It is an entity the Kethari cannot control, and for a moment there is hope complete annihilation will not happen.
“It’s a contrast between the human race’s adaptability and its imperfections to the Kethari with a hive society. It's a society based on perfection. If you are not perfect, you are culled. They view humans as a consumable labour force. The third entity is a combination of both,” Bryenton said.
The author adds the intelligence is neither good nor evil.
“Imagine a newborn with God-like powers.”
The entity even chooses a name for itself – Aion. It is a Greek Hellenistic deity associated with time and cycles. Aion is usually identified as a nude or semi-nude man inside a circle representing the zodiac or encompassing the universe.
Bryenton, who managed a team scattered across the world during his IT days, leverages the AI knowledge he acquired to produce a knowledge-based, authentic novel. And the plot parallels the struggles people are currently facing with AI threatening their future in unprecedented ways.
Bryenton points out that the novel’s completed work is different from the original outline.
“As I was writing I found a lot of potholes that didn’t lend itself to the story and I had to create this intelligence and what it means.”
In the original drafts, first contact challenged survival, but it grew from that premise. Now at 279 pages, the plot begins with an invasion. But the third entity and how its growth progresses brings the greatest value to the book.
A soft cover copy of The Convergence Protocol is available on Amazon. In addition, Bryenton wrote a song and completed a YouTube video of the novel. It can be viewed at youtube.com@WendellBryenton.
Book II is expected to be released later this year.
Read it Now https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0GS9B3LGZ
