The Future of AI, A Psychic Eartheater, and Other New Releases

A trinity of reincarnated souls orbit and interweave with each other in stories told thousands of years apart, but all in the same location — a cave in the jungle of Belize. The main characters include heirs to the throne of the Mayan kingdom, a young American woman who has gone to the jungle to discover herself, and a charismatic but unscrupulous person vying for the leadership of a new religion after Earth has been devastated by climate change.

Kai-Fu Lee is the former president of Google China; he’s teamed up with novelist Chen Quifan to imagine what AI might be like twenty years in the future and how it will have changed our world and society.

In this midwestern gothic, the Lyons family lives and endures in the ruined neighborhood called the Bramble Patch, surviving the privations of poverty, racism, and the literally ghoulish rule of Barghest, the local underworld kingpin. As the neighborhood and its town fall fully into decay, they learn the truth of an old saying: These bones are gonna rise again.

Dare to Know is a company that has invented a unique technology: they can predict anyone’s death accurately down to the second The narrator of the book is the company’s best salesman, and he’s forecasted his own death in violation of ever company rule because his life is in the crapper and he doesn’t care any more. Then he discovers a problem: he was supposed to die 23 minutes ago, and he definitely is still alive.

In an unnamed slum in a city in Argentina, a young woman finds herself compelled to start eating earth, an act that gives her visions of lost lives — including that of her own mother. Horrified by her visions, she keeps her ability to herself…until she befriends a police officer and word of he abilities begins to spread. Soon, many people are coming to her, desperate to learn what has happened to their loved ones.

Mordew is a sea-battered city, and God lays dead in its catacombs, used for sustenance and magical power by the mysterious Master of Mordew. Nathan is a young boy who lives in the slums of the city, until he is one day sold to the Master of Mordew by his desperate mother. But Nathan has a power greater than the God-eating Master, if only he can figure out how to harness it.