AUTHOR AND CRITIC PETER SWIRSKI JOINS JOHN JARROLD LITERARY AGENCY
The latest author to join the John Jarrold Literary Agency is Peter Swirski. His new book – soon to be submitted to major publishers in the UK and US – is a witty, intelligent SF thriller, Eureka. It’s the first in a series featuring Penser Hasso.
We are in the near future, on the moon. A permanent helium mining colony is on red alert. Even before a couple of miners get crushed in a suspicious landslide, one by one machines have begun to suffer from insanity attacks. This is, of course, absurd. Machines can’t go crazy. You must have a mind before you can lose it. Eureka puts a lie to this premise.
Penser, an expert in behavioural logic, is flown in to get to the bottom of the mystery. As the crisis deepens, he meets an old friend, makes new enemies, investigates Luna Mall and the helium mines, crosses paths and wits with a brilliant mysterious woman, investigates a runaway train crash that costs more lives and stokes more fear of sabotage in the outpost, and becomes a pawn in the local power plays – all while working towards a totally unexpected solution.
Early quotes:
“Fresh, smart, witty, original—sci-fi meets Chandler.” Alistair Beaton, author of Feelgood and Planet for the President
“A joy to read… William Gibson, Michael Crichton, and Groucho Marx combined.” Nicholas Ruddick, Canada’s leading scholar of science fiction
“EUREKA is a voice-driven and character-driven, darkly funny, scientifically grounded mystery set in a very cool place: the Moon. Peter Swirski’s writing is intelligent, funny, and crisp. Reads like a thriller, hits like a runaway train, leaves you aching for a sequel.” Nelson DeMille, perennial New York Times’ fiction best-seller
“Fast, stylish, and rudely funny—a classic space adventure!” Greg Bear, best-selling and award-winning SF novelist
And here is Stanislaw Lem, SF Grandmaster, on Peter Swirski: “Brilliant… deserves wide recognition… warrants complete faith in his work.”
Peter Swirski is a Canadian scholar and literary critic, featured in Canadian Who’s Who. A specialist in American literature and American Studies, he is the author of many books, including the prize-winning Ars Americana, Ars Politica (2010) and the staple of American popular culture studies From Lowbrow to Nobrow (2005). His other studies include American Utopia and Social Engineering (2011), American Political Fictions (2015), American Utopia: Literature, Society, and the Human Use of Human Beings (2020, Routledge textbook), and the digital-futurological bestseller From Literature to Biterature (2013). Among many others, it’s been reviewed by Times Literary Supplement (TLS):
“zigzags across the fields of artificial intelligence, computing history, cognitive science, narrative theory, the evolution of men and machines, and post-Turing attempts to figure out how to identify computer intelligence if (Swirski would say when) it arises… a modern adventure story for the mind”
and by The Montreal Review: “brilliant, cogent, erudite, and articulate… fascinating, unsettling, and profound… I can hardly think of anyone else who could so effortlessly and colorfully integrate philosophy of mind, robotics, literary studies, cultural trends, futurology, evolution and many other areas of intellectual analysis: names like Steven Pinker, Mat Ridley, or Douglas Hofstadter spring to mind.”
His work has been praised by the likes of Jaakko Hintikka, David Attenborough, Stanislaw Lem, E. O. Wilson, Douglas Hoftstader, Christopher Hitchens, Steven Brams and others. He is also the leading scholar on the late writer and philosopher Stanisław Lem.
Eureka is his first novel.