Devil's Calling, The

Dive into the second entry in Mike Kelley’s spellbinding trilogy, with freethinking literature professor Sean Byron McQueen returning for another high-stakes adventure in the near future of chat bots, supercomputers and brain computer interface. It’s been nine years since Sean Byron McQueen and quantum physics professor Emily Edens—aka M—discovered his murdered best friend’s Theory of Everything. Now, Sean and M live a near-idyllic life on the campus of a college they’ve established for young women. M’s teaching of the new paradigm-shifting theory of constant creation has made her a rock-star scientist. When Sean’s missing spiritual guide, Juno—believed to have been abducted by aliens that are targeting enlightened beings—sends him a telepathic message that his beloved and illuminated M is also in danger, Sean becomes hypervigilant in order to protect her. Meanwhile, troubling AI-produced literature begins arriving in Sean’s inbox, and the culprit may be an ex-CIA operative with the code name Guru who is intent on revenge. Sean presumes the Guru is also the mastermind behind Genesis, a super-intelligent Russian computer that will connect humans via a network of direct brain-to-brain links. Genesis is seen as the next evolutionary step by the wired-in nation (WiN), a group determined to create a New Society. Are the Guru and WiN after M, who is determined to ensure the ethical rollout of the dangerous “hive-mind” technology, or are the threats figments of Sean’s vivid imagination—his superpower and curse?