Icicle: A Tensor Matrix

Praise For Icicle

Praise For

Icicle

In Icicle, author Robert Williscroft imagines a technologically advanced world comprised of interstellar travel at the speed of light, wormholes, and portals. Overlay e-persons, or uploads, allowing a person’s conscious thought to exist in the ether of the GlobalNet, and you have an exciting and fast-paced sci-fi adventure that is sure to entertain and stimulate the reader’s curiosity. Williscroft draws on the fringe of advanced cosmology and physics to extrapolate a framework which is quite plausible, adding to the enjoyment of his suspense-filled plots and rich tapestry of characters. Sprinkle in international tension and an extraterrestrial threat to mankind, and Icicle is guaranteed to keep devotees awake well into the early morning hours.

— Dr. Dave Edlund

USA Today Bestselling Author

The Peter Savage Thrillers

In Icicle, eDaphne, an electronic upload of a flesh-and-blood woman named Daphne, describes certain scientific developments as “the most amazing turn of events in human history.” This is certainly true, beginning with page one. As the novel starts, Braxton Thorpe is dying of prostate cancer that has “metastasized throughout his core.” Though his body is doomed, he stays alive by having his head removed and cryogenically preserved in an electronic matrix. Later his consciousness is transferred to a “massive MIT databank.”

What follows is no less than a detailed How-To Guide for creating Portal Technology that will enable ships to travel quickly across the universe. What’s more, there is also the possibility that human beings will one day live virtually forever and interact with others through their holoimages. Though Thorpe says that “Not having a body has got to be the biggest downside of this electronic existence,” it also provides insurance against death. One’s body may die, but life goes on through periodic uploads, and people may even have backups for their backups. Oh Death, where is thy sting?

While reading the novel, I realized that it not only included the scope of ideas that one finds in the best hard science fiction, but that it was a dandy set-up for a series. Despite the wonderful scientific achievements, there is trouble looming, and more than one threat to humanity’s future.

The novel’s conclusion is riveting and awe-inspiring with a fascinating extrapolation of scientific developments into the future. I look forward eagerly to the next book in the series.

— Professor John B. Rosenman, Norfolk State University

Former Chairman of the Board, Horror Writers Association Author of The Inspector of the Cross Series

Robert G. Williscroft’s Icicle—A Tensor Matrix starts out in a way reminiscent of Larry Niven’s A World Out of Time or Dennis E. Taylor’s We Are Legion (We Are Bob), with the main character dying. Centuries later his mind is uploaded from his frozen body. From there, Icicle takes off in a completely new direction.

Our hero, Braxton Thorpe, is supposedly the first successful such upload…so why is there someone, or something, else here? The action (and there’s plenty of it) takes place in both the virtual and real worlds, with mathematical metaphors that remind me of classic Heinlein. The scale keeps building, from the laboratory on up through something bigger than the Solar System itself. Although not set in the same universe, fans of Williscroft’s Starchild Trilogy will feel right at home here. I’m looking forward to the next one.

– Alastair Mayer

Author of the T-Space Series