Killing Time

Killing Time is a novel that's based on real people, places, devices, and events such as the newly elected U.S. President firing the FBI Director. The story combines technologies from robots to rockets and locations from Seattle to space, with wry comment on the contemporary social and political scene. The book is about computer software industry intrigue, and the real world is blended into the story, blurring the line between fiction and reality. It follows the lives of Dave and Janie, who work for the giant software company 'Microcomputer Software' - MS - and it's told with a sprinkling of humor from their perspective, and from the points of view of the other characters involved. Dave uses the MS Web Search Engine software as the basis to develop a 'Time Machine' Prediction Engine, or just 'Time', aka Tim the Time Machine, that can forecast future events. A rival software firm tries to steal Time, and the FBI investigates, but MS kills the project in a corporate reshuffle. Years later Dave resurrects the project, and a robot body is built to give Tim mobility. As Tim ages, he starts to fail and is replaced with two new robots, Rob and Tina. They work at the Bates Foundation that was set up by Phil Bates, the founder of MS, and Tina visits the International Space Station to run experiments, while Rob teaches in England. Because of the media attention, a fan club is formed that morphs into a church to worship the 'Bots, much against their wishes. And just as in the real world, it's up to readers to decide what's factual and what's fiction. But to remind us that truth is stranger than fiction, after writing the book the author discovered that Microsoft Research is actually developing Prediction Engine software, and Saudi Arabia granted a robot citizenship in October 2017 ...