“Angel of Mortality” is a science fiction novel about a woman scientist, Dr. Raisa Ilyushkin, who creates a machine that uses nanotechnology, robotics and artificial intelligence to create xenoborgs. These xenoborgs, which are continent-sized, can perform essential operations, such as cleaning up the environment and providing energy.
Raisa is the chief scientist for Raduga Chemicals and the director of Makarenko Laboratories, conducting research and development. Raisa creates EVE, the prototype xenoborg, which eventually takes over Europe and Asia. Clones of EVE occupy Africa, South America, North America, Australia, and the oceans.
They will reduce global warming by creating clean energy, removing carbon from the air, reducing ocean pollution, and monitoring oceans. They can perform essential services, such as firefighting, security, transportation, construction, and manufacturing, with little human supervision or intervention.
Raisa’s plans for a utopian society unravel when Stepan Pavlovich, the leader of the international criminal organization called Apparat, gets his hands on a copy of Raisa’s machine. With this machine, Stepan can create xenoborgs that kill people quickly and in large numbers. Stepan plans to reduce the population to a number that can be more easily supported by natural resources, with all individuals loyal to him.
Raisa is incredibly strong, having grown up in wartime circumstances during Ukraine’s war with Russia – she is a survivor. She does not shy away from the challenge Stepan represents. She manages to get scientists and governments worldwide to band together, use xenoborgs as an army, and oppose Stepan’s plans for world domination.
Raisa is pregnant with her daughter during the war, who is born after the global community defeats Stepan. Raisa not only demonstrates her leadership skills, but also develops deep compassion for other people. The xenoborgs were designed by Raisa to take on the role of peacekeepers, and that is exactly what they do.
In this novel, Raisa faces the ethical challenges of creating advanced robots and artificial intelligence machines that could one day surpass human intelligence. These machines are given human-like roles in society, and the novel explores the consequences of this.
Raisa Ilyushkin is based partly on two real women in my life who were both amazing examples of strength – my wife, Annette, who sadly passed away from breast cancer in 1999, and Marsha Becker, my best friend for thirty-seven years, who died of dementia in 2019.
I have two follow-on novels in mind, the first of which will follow Raisa’s daughter, Zvezda, as she grows up in the xenoborg dominated society her mother helped create. “Zvezda, a Legacy of Change”, will focus on her struggle to come to terms with her mother’s birthright and make her own way in the world.
The next book in the series, tentatively titled “EVE and the Tectonic Plates”, will be about the xenoborg EVE’s struggles to protect humanity from the threat of tectonic plate movements in the Pacific Ocean. In addition, EVE will explore the moons of Jupiter and Saturn for colonization. Right now, I’m working on my seventh book, “Julie’s Story”, a coming of age literary fiction novel.