Tuesday Tunes: Blade Runner

It must be said that no review of Blade Runner is complete without at least a passing mention of Vangelis and that awesome soundtrack.

And because I love this kind of music, especially for writing to, here's a special extra review for the soundtrack, which was also re-released in 2007, along with the Final Cut movie, in a 3-CD special edition.

Entitled Blade Runner Trilogy, the first CD is the same as the original soundtrack release, the second CD contains previously unreleased music from the movie, and the third CD is new music inspired by the movie.

Of the three, the first disc is still the best; from the fantastically spacey main title, to the chilled out sax of the love theme, to the cool end titles, the best known tracks are all here in full, along with some less well known gems. For me, the best trackshere are those which use smaples from the movie: Blush Response, with its samples about the Voight-Kampff machine, and Tears in Rain, Batty's last words, set to a suitably melancholy piece of music.

Disc two is the usual film score fair, atmospheric pieces with descriptive titles like At Mr Chew's and Deckard and Roy's Duel, but done in a Vangelis way, which is to say, pretty awesome.

Disc three, on the other hand... disc three is where things start to get odd. Good, but odd. Launch Approval and Mail from India are personal favourites for futuristic weirdness alone, but elsewhere the Blade Runner influence comes through in the music - Sweet Solitude has the same chilled sax sound as the original love theme, and Perfume Exotico has the same ethereal vocals as Rachel's Song. It could perhaps be seen as the soundtrack Vanelis would have made had the movie been shot in 2007 rather than just remixed.

For fans of sci-fi music, movie soundtracks, Vangelis, or ambient electronica in general, it's a worthwhile investment.

And for your sci-fi song of the week, you will of course be enjoying the main theme from Ghostbusters.

Monday Review: Blade Runner

So, I just watched the Final Cut of Blade Runner. I don’t suppose there is really any need to review it properly, it is, after all, a classic science fiction movie.

I could join the debate about whether it’s a great movie, or just an over-hyped one, but even that is a bit redundant, because any film fan or science fiction fan really should watch the thing and make their own mind up.

Personally, well, the visuals are great – the imagining and visualisation of the dystopian world, the flying cars (that by rights we should have by now) whose strings are no longer visible on the latest remix, the constant rain…. Not quite sure why rain is so inherently dystopian, but then I’m English.

The thing is, if I didn’t know there was this mystery subtext about Deckard, I don’t think I would have spotted it, the whole origami thing being a bit too small and obscure, at least first time round. That said, the ambiguous ending of the Final Cut is better than the fluffy Hollywood ending version; the tone of Blade Runner doesn’t lend itself to a happy ending.

I’m not sure if it’s ironic or intended, but the only character that really sticks in the mind after watching is Roy Batty, as played by Rutger Hauer. That’s not to say the Harrison Ford, or Sean Young are in any way bad, but Roy’s change from angry, violent replicant-on-a-mission, to abandoned son confronting his father, to the final acceptance of his own death, is the definite stand-out.

Ah yes, the violence. There’s a lot of it in this version, I don’t remember wincing quite so much when I’ve seen earlier cuts. But this is not a happy film; not one you can switch your brain off for a couple of hours and relax with. There is a lot in Blade Runner (some of which I may revisit later) but a lot of it requires thought, and none of it is especially happy.

Perfect for a Monday review then.

More artificially intelligent thoughts

Let us assume, for the moment, the humanity has the foresight to build in some kind fail-safe that prevents Artificial Intelligences from assuming god-like powers. Let us assume that they remain benevolent, helpfully looking after our practical needs, remembering to record Fringe for us, hoovering the lounge while we’re at church, making sure that we can find our way to that meeting on Monday morning, that kind of thing. The devices we need are already here; all we are missing is the home AI to tie it all together. Bring it on, I say – as I mentioned on Friday, time management is not my strong point, and if I could get my PC to help me out in a few practical ways maybe I would get to writing my next book before Bill Myers does. (No, I’m not gonna let that go any time soon.)

The eternal question for AI-related fiction is: at what point does intelligence become consciousness? And at what point does consciousness constitute life? And how do you differentiate between intelligent life with and without a ‘soul’? If Lieutenant Commander Data had decided, for whatever reason, to go to church one Sunday morning, would he have been welcomed? Would he have been able to believe? What difference would it have made if he did?

An artificial intelligence would, of course, have easy access to pretty much everything written on every religion and crack-pot belief system currently circulating the internet; it would, in theory, be able to analyse all the evidence in a completely logical way and arrive at the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything in, I imagine, a shade under seven and a half million years. Is that what we want? Would it affect our beliefs if that did happen? Would a computer arrive at the ‘correct’ answer, or would a logical thought process preclude the existence of what we know to be an emotional God?

I guess Christian science-fiction has a lot to throw in to this debate, if it wants to. And I think it probably should; I don’t suppose churches need to worry about whether or not to baptise androids just yet, but it would be nice to think that the church will, in some form, survive the technological singularity.

Artificially intelligent thoughts

If I was an artificial intelligence, god-like or otherwise, I would probably do something actually intelligent like sit down and work out where I was going with a post before I started. But I'm not, so I'm doing the flawed human thing of throwing myself in at the deep end and probably wibbling on about nothing relevant for half the post.

So, to the point then: AIs as gods. In some ways, the Artificial Intelligences we see in sf are sort of god-like, at least in comparison to our puny human minds. They are, of course, vastly superior in memory and thinking power; not subject to the distractions of the flesh and emotions as we are; and perfectly logical. All good things in a computer, but whether you would want all of them to be qualities of a god is debatable. Good potential story ground though: What would it be like to serve a totally logical god? What kind of universe would such a god create? And, would it be logical to want your creations to worship you?

I'm not sure I buy the computer-as-creator idea though,although you can read about it in Asimov's The Last Question, which is available online. It makes a lot more sense, in reality and story, for AIs to be more akin to false gods - I can see the Old Testament Space Opera version now, SpaceElijah taunting the prophets of the great super-computer Baal...

It's not a massive leap, of course, to imagine that with computers of world-running capability would be likely to remove the need (or at least, the perception of a need) for a real God at all, especially if you run them in combination with a virtual world in which we can all live out an afterlife of sorts. Presumably such a computer would be pretty keen to eliminate the few remaining religious types in its world (in a nice subversion of the 21st Century, they would have to resort to communicating by snail mail to avoid the AI tracking them and shutting them down), and might even turn out to be the anti-Christ in some weird cyberpunk version of Left Behind...

Looks like I need to get writing - I hope Bill Myers isn't reading this...

Artificial Intelligence

Following last week’s little adventures into the world of cyberspace and artificial intelligence, I thought that, this being a sci-fi blog and all, I would attempt to continue that conversation, first with a quick overview of AI as a fictional device and how it could relate to Christianity.

Artificial intelligence in sf started out as the pinnacle of transhuman evolution, notably in Isaac Asimov’s The Last Question, where the final evolution of the man-made multivac AIs ultimately becomes God – a concept which surely requires more attention at a later date.

On a somewhat smaller scale, computers are generally intended to be useful; in sf a good artificial intelligence can conveniently remove the problem of human error in, say, navigating a large space vessel (the Nostromo from Alien, or any number of ships in the Culture novels of Iain M Banks).

However, as the giant supercomputers of 50s and 60s pulp sf gave way to networks of far smaller machines, the combined processing power available led to the idea of such a network achieving consciousness (Skynet, anyone?) and leading a cybernetic revolt, such as led to the slavery of humankind in the world of The Matrix.

Another angle on artificial intelligence, and one which has interesting potential for Christian fiction, is the idea of downloading a human mind into a computer, usually for the purpose of prolonging ‘life’ indefinitely. There are a few alternative directions this could go off in, some of which have already been tackled from a Christian perspective; The Personifid Project allows for human minds to be uploaded into artificial bodies, less prone to the common cold and so on. Alternatively the prospect of a digital afterlife might allow for similar discussion around what happens to the soul of a digitised person, and is explored in Greg Egan’s Permutation City. Expose your digitised minds to a computer virus, on the other hand…

That is far from a comprehensive outline of Artificial Intelligence in fiction, but it’s a few of the ways it has featured, and I’ll come back to some of them and try and find some way of using them in Christian Fiction in future posts.

In the meantime, feel free to chip in with any questions, comments, suggested reading, or anything else you care to add. Especially if you’re a sentient computer program.

Book Review: The God Hater by Bill Myers

In conjunction with the Christian SciFi and Fantasy Blog Tour, I received a free copy of this book from the publisher. And since they bothered to send it half way across the world, it seems only fair that I hold up my end of the bargain, which is to review the thing.

OK, I have to start with this: I wouldn’t have bought The God Hater. Not because it’s bad, but because if I had seen it in a bookshop (I know, but we’re reviewing sci-fi here, suspend your disbelief) there is nothing to tell me I would like it. The vague title and the bloke wandering along a cobbled street give no clues to the sub-cyberpunk action, and there’s no blurb to hint at it, just a bunch of writers saying how great it is. And, assuming I did, for a dare or something, pick the book up, I’d have to get about five chapters in before I figured out it was going to have the whole AI thing going on.

Luckily, however, we have a blog tour, which means that somebody told me what the book was about. Which is, to recap: the story of grouchy atheist Professor Nicholas Mackenzie, who is seconded by his techno-guru brother to provide the philosophical grounding for his huge AI computer program. Against all his better judgement, he does this by getting uploaded in virtual form into the AI computer world to tell its inhabitants about ‘Programmer’.

I’m trying really hard here not to go ‘well I would have done this differently….’ But in fact there were a few things I liked about Myers’ treatment of the whole AI Gospel idea – giving Nicholas a reason to genuinely care about the little computer people, the way strict legalism can distract from the spirit of the law, and Programmer’s virtual disciples, a miscellaneous bunch of prostitutes, thieves and other outcasts I could have lived with getting to know a little more. The crucifixion analogue (oops, was that a spoiler?) was set up nicely from the beginning, although some of its side-effects didn’t make that much sense to me in terms of either the story or the logic of the virtual world. Now, Myers admits that the science (and indeed the theology) of the story may not be 100% accurate, but for me, a few more clues about the internal workings of this world might have made for a more satisfying read.

I seem to say this about a lot of Christian novels, but the story keeps you going at a pretty quick pace, and certainly in this case the action in either the real world or cyberspace doesn’t let up for long. Unfortunately I think characterisation suffers a bit as a result of this, but maybe that’s ok. The God Hater is an ‘idea’ story, and I know from reinventing the Old Testament that a story like this has to get to certain points, so you can’t let characters run away with themselves as much as in a character-led story. Nicholas, in particular, starts out looking like he was just pulled out of a family size bag of Richard Dawkins, but as he gets pulled into his brother’s schemes he gets fleshed out and is real enough to help the idea reach a satisfying conclusion.

There was some good stuff going on in the real world too - a lot of it was fairly unbelievable, but maybe that made the few moments of realistic human interaction on Nicholas’ real life journey more satisfying. His story is, ultimately, a nice parallel to what virtual Nick (who for some reason managed to bypass the bitterness subroutine) is doing in the computer world. Making the protagonist a militant atheist was a good move, not least because not many Christian stories would have done so, but his job as a philosophy professor would have given him enough familiarity with the Bible to go about re-enacting it inside a giant computer game. Even given that assumption, some of the almost verbatim re-enactments of Biblical events stretched credibility a little, especially where they were instigated by the computer people.

In terms of theme and Christian content, well, most of us are at least vaguely familiar with computer games like The Sims these days, and in light of that the story does manage to humanise God's perspective on the Incarnation, as far as that is remotely possible. The Biblical parallel is pretty obvious once the cyber-story kicks in, but the predictable nature of that thread is off-set by some nice twists in the real world.

So is it any good? Well, if, like me, you’ve been reading the latest Iain M Banks or some similarly weighty sci-fi tome, the writing and depth of story is going to fall somewhat short of what you’ve been used to. On the other hand, you won’t be reading it for anything like as long, so it doesn’t really matter. If you like a quick, accessible read, that sheds a little light on the nature of God, then this one might be just what you’re after.

Find out more at thegodhater.com, facebook the author, or visit these blogs:

Red Bissell Thomas Clayton Booher Keanan Brand Kathy Brasby Rachel Briard Beckie Burnham Morgan L. Busse Melissa Carswell Carol Bruce Collett Valerie Comer Karri Compton CSFF Blog Tour Janey DeMeo April Erwin Amber French Andrea Graham Tori Greene Katie Hart Ryan Heart Joleen Howell Bruce Hennigan Becky Jesse Cris Jesse Becca Johnson Jason Joyner Carol Keen Emily LaVigne Shannon McDermott Matt Mikalatos Rebecca LuElla Miller Mirtika MollyBuuklvr81 John W. Otte Sarah Sawyer Chawna Schroeder Andrea Schultz Tammy Shelnut Kathleen Smith Donna Swanson Jessica Thomas Fred Warren Dona Watson Nicole White Dave Wilson

CSFF Blog Tour vs Tuesday Tunes

In honour of this week's featured book on the CSFF Blog Tour, I've gone to the trouble of creating a sentient music selection program, complete with genre recognition subroutines, at least 17 algorithms for defining the 'best' tunes based on various factors (such as tediousness of intro, cheesiness of lyrics and difficulty of air-guitar accompaniment), and filters for relevance and repetition, and then hacking into SETI@home in order to generate the massive processing power required to bring you this, the all time Virtual Top Ten Songs:

10. QFX: Virtual Reality
This was always going to be a list fairly heavy on electronic music, so we'll kick off proceedings with some good old 90s rave. Warning: This song contains some strobe lighting.

9. Toyah: Computer
New wave awesomeness with weirdly relevant lyrics. Plus, how much of a genius do you need to be to name an album Sheep Farming in Barnet?

8. Jean Michel Jarre: Computer Weekend
A jolly little tune from everybody's favourite French electro pioneer.

7. Kraftwerk: Computer World
Naturally, we couldn't have a computer-themed Top Ten without those happy chaps from Düsseldorf.

6. Twilight: Computer Virus
Our odyssey through electronica takes a turn for the ambient here.

5. Operation Ivy: Artificial Life
And a change of pace for some late 80s ska-punk.

4. Ides of Space: Computer World
No, not a Kraftwerk cover - in fact, this mellow indie rock track all the way from Australia is about as far from Kraftwerk as you could get with the same title.

3. Synergy: Artificial Intelligence (Friday, January 25, 1980)
We're into the properly good stuff here, Eno-esque ambient electronica, apparently all written by a computer programme. All sounds a bit science-fiction, no?

2. Sonic Youth: Computer Age
Because every Top Ten needs a weird cover version - this is an alt rock version of a Neil Young song.

1. 35007: Artificial Intelligence
They're Dutch, and their name is Loose in calculator language. And this track is six minutes of instrumental prog-rock in the Porcupine Tree style. Which, for the record, is a good thing.

And of course, for those lucky enough to be reading this in the Spotify-enabled world, here's the link.

Oh yes, the feature book, by the way, is The God Hater by Bill Myers, which, if you've visited elsewhere on the tour you will know, is at least partly about artificial intelligence, virtual worlds and other such techy goodness. You can probably find out about it at some of these blogs:

Red Bissell Thomas Clayton Booher Keanan Brand Kathy Brasby Rachel Briard Beckie Burnham Morgan L. Busse Melissa Carswell Carol Bruce Collett Valerie Comer Karri Compton CSFF Blog Tour Janey DeMeo April Erwin Amber French Andrea Graham Tori Greene Katie Hart Ryan Heart Joleen Howell Bruce Hennigan Becky Jesse Cris Jesse Becca Johnson Jason Joyner Carol Keen Emily LaVigne Shannon McDermott Matt Mikalatos Rebecca LuElla Miller Mirtika MollyBuuklvr81 John W. Otte Sarah Sawyer Chawna Schroeder Andrea Schultz Tammy Shelnut Kathleen Smith Donna Swanson Jessica Thomas Fred Warren Dona Watson Nicole White Dave Wilson

CSFF Blog Tour: The God Hater by Bill Myers

We don't really have Bill Myers in the UK. I thought he was the bloke from Austin Powers until Professor Google put me straight.

A quick look at thegodhater.com told me this about the book we will be featuring on the tour this month:

A cranky, atheist philosophy professor loves to shred incoming freshmen of their faith. He is chosen by a group of scientists to create a philosophy for a computer-generated world exactly like ours.
Much to his frustration every model introduced from Darwinism, to Existentialism, to Eastern beliefs fails. The only way to preserve the computer world is to introduce laws from outside their system through a Law Giver. Of course this goes against everything he believes and he hates it. But even this doesn't completely work because the citizens of that world become legalists and completely miss the spirit behind the Law.
The only way to save them is to create a computer character like himself to personally explain it. He does. So now there are two of him—the one in our world and the one in the computer world. (Sound familiar?)
Unfortunately, a rival has introduced a virus into the computer world. Things grow worse until the professor in that computer world sees the only way to save his world is to personally absorb the virus and the penalty for breaking the Law. Of course it's clear to all, including our real world professor, that this act of selfless love has become a complete reenactment of the Gospel. It is the only possible choice to save the computer world and, as he finally understands, our own.

So, we have a sort of cyberpunk-esque allegory, with the nebulous concept of sin represented by a computer virus... which, by a curious coincidence, is the exact plot of my first novel, penned (literally!) some time in the mid-90s when I first thought about writing fiction. Seriously. That bit about 'a rival has introduced a virus into the computer world'? I did that. Look, you can see it on my WIPlist - I had thought about revisiting it when I was a better writer, but couldn't make the thing stand up properly in a post-Matrix world.

So the question is, has Bill Myers done a better job of it than I did? Well, given that The God Hater is his umpteenth published novel, as opposed to his first left-in-a-desk-drawer novel, I would certainly hope so. In a dramatic break with tradition, I have actually read this book (thanks to the Tour organisers and Howard Books) and will post a proper review on Wednesday.

Interestingly, the idea I once dismissed as cheesy and derivative, that bloke from Left Behind described as the best idea Myers ever had. Make of that what you will: maybe Jerry Jenkins hasn't read that many really good 'idea' stories, or maybe Bill Myers' other ideas really were pants. Maybe Bill and Jerry* will agree that, in fact, this just means that I am a creative genius. If that were the case, I couldn't possibly argue, of course. Especially not with the man who gave us Shrek.

So, now you've read my rant, why not see how many of these bloggers have their own versions of Bill Myers' stories gathering dust a drawer somewhere:

Noah Arsenault Red Bissell Thomas Clayton Booher Keanan Brand Kathy Brasby Rachel Briard Beckie Burnham Morgan L. Busse Carol Bruce Collett Valerie Comer Karri Compton CSFF Blog Tour April Erwin Amber French Andrea Graham Tori Greene Katie Hart Ryan Heart Joleen Howell Bruce Hennigan Becky Jesse Cris Jesse Becca Johnson Jason Joyner Carol Keen Emily LaVigne Shannon McDermott Matt Mikalatos Rebecca LuElla Miller Mirtika MollyBuuklvr81 John W. Otte Sarah Sawyer Chawna Schroeder Andrea Schultz Tammy Shelnut Kathleen Smith James Somers Donna Swanson Jessica Thomas Fred Warren Dona Watson Nicole White Dave Wilson

*don't they have an ice-cream business on the side?

What is the matrix?

It’s been 10 years since we found out what the matrix is. And yet, despite being one of the few movies I can watch repeatedly, it has warranted barely a passing mention on this blog.

Part of the reason for this is that The Matrix trilogy is so chock full of religious and philosophical references that I could be blogging about it for the next ten years if I really put some effort into it.

Now, regular readers will know that I don’t really believe in putting effort into blogging, but it seems about as good a time as any to make some reference to everybody’s favourite cyberpunk movie.

I don’t think I hate the sequels as much as some people, but they do seem somewhat superfluous in many ways. For me, the key thing about The Matrix was the concept, the false reality, the matrix as the world that is pulled over our eyes. The first movie deals with this so well that the sequels were always going to compare badly.

But I don’t need to review the thing, you’ve seen it – more than once if you enjoyed it. And you know all about Neo’s messianic pretentions, about Morpheus paving the way for him and Cyber betraying him. You’ve wondered whether to read anything into Trinity’s name, not to mention Zion or Nebuchadnezzer.

Actually, now I remember why I haven’t blogged about The Matrix before…

(cartoon from The Ongoing Adventures of ASBO Jesus)

The Matrix Trilogy is now also available on Blu-Ray, for those more hi-tech than me.

Friday Review: The Personifid Project by R E Bartlett

As the sometime author of mediocre novels myself, I take little pleasure in making negative comments on a book. (Except if it’s so bad that it deserves everything coming, of course, but I don’t think I’ve even started anything that bad for a while.)

I am going to do so now, however, if for no other reason than to try and avoid similar mistakes myself.

So, on with the review. The Personifid Project takes place at some unspecified future time when the Pacific has started to dry up and the planet’s human population is joined by various robot and android companions. The Project concerns the transference of human souls into artificial bodies, thus prolonging life indefinitely. Which sounds like an interesting enough premise, and a plot dealing with the potential use and abuse of this technology could certainly provide plenty of food for thought, although I’m not sure soul transference really fits in the sci-fi setting.

More of an issue to me, however, was the logical inconsistency of a world where the existence of the human soul has been scientifically proven, yet religion has become redundant to the point that Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and indeed any one of the three, have been re-named ‘the Tri-une Soul’. I think there was one passing use of the word ‘Christian’ to assure the reader that our heroes aren’t members of some wacky cult, but really, it all seems very unlikely to say the least.

OK, let’s accept that it’s science-fantasy and suspend our disbelief accordingly. Now what? Well, I’m afraid I still have one more gripe: info-dumping. Now I’m prepared to accept a degree of this, because we’ve been transported to a distant future world and things are going to need a little explanation. Just where that explanation was used got a bit confused though: our heroine, Aphra Vessey, explains the the imprint system (which I had worked out, and got the 'Mark of the Beast' reference) like someone in a cheesy radio ad, but the we were left to figure out for ourselves what the luminire does. Having finished the book, I think it is what any self-respecting author of Trek fan-fic would refer to as a transporter, or a near approximation thereof.

And why, for no apparent reason, did Lev suddenly decide to read the testimony she prepared for her baptism? And to her husband, as it obviously hadn't come up any earlier in their marriage? Surely people don’t really talk like that, even in weird far-future religious cults?

OK, gripes over, I will have to admit that the author must have got something right, because, despite all the flaws, I kept reading. I actually wanted to know what happened next. On the level of a pacy action adventure story, it works. On the whole, the future was well imagined. And on top of that, Aphra's gradual acceptance of the Tri-une Cult was believable, and there were plenty of interesting ideas brought up by the story's basic premise.

Androids have rights too, you know.

Since I seem to have strayed into artificial intelligence over the last couple of posts, it seems fitting to comment on this item, conveniently posted yesterday.

The author, David Levy, believes that 'within about fifty years there will be almost no limit to the intellectual and creative powers of robots, nor to the sophistication of their electronics and their electromechanical design.' Fifty years is a long time in technology, so he may well be right. But there are more theories presented in this interview which, although pretty far out for actual scientific prediction, make good sf fodder. For instance:

ChessBase: Are you really so sure of your predictions about love, marriage, sex and reproduction with robots? Isn’t this all rather science fiction?
Levy: No, it isn’t science fiction.

Reproduction - why not? Self-replicating nanobots have been an accepted sf device for a while, after all. When you think, as Levy appears to have done, about human-robot relationships, however, I start to shudder. He does, however, make a valid point about same-sex marriages; who'd have thought that would happen, even fifty years ago?

Most interestingly, Levy also speculates on robot rights (which I think led to the world of the Matrix), robot ethics, and even robot religion...

I'm sure some of this has been covered in sf - Asimov's robot stories spring to mind, as does Star Trek's Data; robot religion specifically in The Quest for Saint Aquin (Anthony Boucher), and 'Silicon Heaven' as featured in Red Dwarf:

"...and the iron shall lay down with the lamp..."

This is obviously an idea I'd love to explore from a Christian perspective. Unfortunately I'm not in a position to fork out for a copy of Levy's book, but just reading the interview has left me full of my own series of robot stories...

Virtual Gods

Hot on the heels of my passing mention of my cyberpunk-allegory WIP, I came across this blog post. What interested me here was that, yes, in general, Artificial Intelligences in sf do tend to be portrayed as superior in some way to mankind.

For instance, I recently read The Risen Empire by Scott Westerfeld, in which compound minds - essentially AIs comprising all the computer power of a planet - can behave like gods, and are treated as such by the mechanically-enhanced Rix people.

However, it stands to reason that computer programmers seeking to create artificial intelligence would not be deliberately trying to replace humanity as the dominant species. Logically there would be some form of control built into the little artificial lifeforms (like Asimov's Laws of Robotics, if you like).

My WIP starts along these lines:

ALFs are artificial lifeforms created within a strictly controlled virtual environment, and imbued with a limited degree of intelligence by their creators.

However, following a dispute over how to use the technology, the experiment is corupted when one of the programmers leaves the the project, having first infected the system with a virus.

In an attempt to salvage the project – and save countless artificial ‘lives’ – the creator of the project must enter his virtual world in order to isolate and remove the virus.

Unknown to him, however, his erstwhile colleague, as well as corrupting the project, has found a way to influence the actions of the artificial lives, and a battle to control the world has begun...

OK, so the second half sounds a bit cheesy, and the whole idea as presented here (before Elliot says it ;) ) may be a bit unsubtle. That, combined with the fact that it didn't finish it while cyberpunk was still young, and a major part of the story subsequently appeared in The Matrix, is why I've shifted it onto the backburner. I do have a couple of ideas to breathe new life into it, and may yet be able to make a sufficiently original story from it.

Alternatively, as Elliot suggested, maybe the Christian market is about ready for a Christian Matrix...