Craig W. Stanfill obtained his PhD in artificial intelligence in 1983, and has spent his career doing ground-breaking research in AI and enterprise computing. He has written numerous scientific papers, co-founded a software company and been awarded more than 80 patents. He continues to work in technology as he turns his hand to writing speculative dystopian fiction. Dr. Stanfill lives an active lifestyle, and is an avid bicyclist, skier, sailor, and musician. With his wife, Sharon (herself a software engineer), he has roamed the world, always seeking out new places and cultures to explore. Together they have one son, who has followed in his parent's footsteps as a software professional and now works for a high-profile technology company.
Kim serves well as the reader's tour guide of a world full of AI-controlled commute routes, meals, and weekly fashions... not to mention the universal surveillance and regular crackdowns on any individual who insists on being, well, individual. (It turns out that a human's appreciation for good food, music, and specific other humans is hard to erase... and is therefore dangerous to the shadowy Hierarchy's rules enforcing conformity.) As Kim gradually learns more about the nature of the AIs and their role in a repressive society ultimately run by fear, the reader cannot help but share her final moral and emotional response to a world that has too many aspects in common with our own to be ignored. Imagine if Facebook, Google and the MTA ran the country. That's the feel of Stanfill's Orwellian world. It's a dark reflection of reality; as such its utterly fascinating. Our protagonist is Kim, arguably an alcoholic, unarguably miserable in this world of social cohesion ratings and forbidden ideas about love and gender, about the self, about faith. Craig Stanfill tells a compelling tale in his first novel, doing a great job of building out a vivid - and not just a tiny bit scary - world for his characters. I found myself engrossed in the story and could picture this dystopian future disturbingly well.