The ABACUS Protocol: Sanity Vacuum by Thea Gregory

Time for another stop on the Curiosity Quills' Sci-Fi Tour! Today we will be taking a look at Thea Gregory's Abacus Protocol: Sanity Vacuum. First, let me say that I love that this book is a result of NaNoWriMo! Thea Gregory completed the first draft of this book for National Novel Writing Month in 2011. I love NaNoWriMo and love showing off the wonderful successes people who participate can experience! If you want a chance to win a signed copy of Sanity Vacuum, be sure to enter Curiosity Quills' photo contest. If you are looking to pick up your very own copy, you can find the book on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo or follow Thea on Facebook, Twitter, or Goodreads. I'll be interviewing Thea personally on February 7th, so check back then! For now let's see what Thea cooked up during the month of November!

Vivian Skye just finished university, and landed a dream internship. Not many would consider the distant and isolated Extra-Galactic Observatory cushy, but to Vivian it’s a dream come true. Hailing from the low-tech planet of Aurora, she studied for years to work on advanced quantum supercomputers. This is her chance to start a career and leave her past life behind.

Her assignment is simple: a routine upgrade for the station’s supercomputer, quIRK.

Her reception isn’t a friendly, one, and she finds that her only friend is quIRK. However, the station’s administrator, Bryce Zimmer is obsessed with quIRK—he suspects that the AI may have achieved sentience, something explicitly prohibited by the ABACUS Protocol.

Bryce’s traumatic and privileged past makes him distrust Vivian from the beginning; his jealously compels him to set Vivian and quIRK against each other. Deciding that the ends justify the means, his power-hungry sabotage threatens to consume the entire station and send them into the unknown void of intergalactic space.

Vivian must struggle to survive not only Bryce’s megalomania, but also the emerging artificial super intelligence that is quIRK.