It shouldn't be easy to be Risto Mejide and launch into writing a novel. Because everyone expects from him a point of confusion and creative eccentricity. And of course considering a plot with its beginning, its middle and its ending is like thinking about pulling the missionary's position in an orgy.
Of course, as a preamble, Risto had already written other types of books more in line with his profession. But the landing in a novel like this is three universes apart from everything seen before. How could it be otherwise, the author starts from an almost estrangement kafkaesque to provide that novel perspective of the entire plot.
Once we have established that the disconcerting is part of the matter (precisely a creative space where Mejide moves like a pig in its pond), we are advancing step by step in that constant discovery that is to see the world from another focus. And yes, nothing was what it seemed, but that is precisely what happens with life itself and only the wealthiest are carried away by appearances and dictates ...
Synopsis
What would happen if one day we woke up and a voice whispered into our ears what we have to say and do to achieve absolute success in all facets of our lives? Who would refuse to follow his instructions?
If you notice, today we adult humans are surrendered to the empire of images, I am not saying only by Instagram, advertising, the media, also by video, first it was HD, then 4k, then 8k, resolution, resolution , resolution. Now you will see how we will become obsessed with facial recognition and all its possibilities. Meanwhile, the machines are overtaking us on the right with the ear: look at Alexa, Siri, Ok Google, or Echo. While human beings are concerned to see better what we see, machines are concerned to hear better what they hear.
Risto Mejide, who has achieved so many successes with his non-fiction books, is now launching a novel in which he captures from the front line about the limits, paradoxes and servitudes to which the unstoppable advance of Artificial Intelligence leads us . The reader passionately follows the adventures of its protagonist, Diego, to whom someone gives the opportunity that so many of us would dream of, even if for that we had to renounce the truth.
Initiative is the basis of life. Initiative first, and then everything else. Survival, independence and in the end, transcendence. That computer, which does not stop executing lines programmed by Diego, is finally doing something that has not been ordered. Like Stanford's robot Shakey in the 70s, he is capable of reasoning about his own actions. But this one, in addition, turns on and off when it wants, sends messages, recognizes voices, is happy when it sees you. It is the beginning of humanity. It is the beginning of our end ...
A very suspicious death, a media hoax, a journalist on the verge of failure, an unscrupulous multinational, a mysterious winner, in short a novel as brilliant as it is unpredictable and uncomfortable and that from the first lines gets the reader to do something so frowned upon , discouraged and dangerous as THINKING.
You can now buy the novel «El chisme», by Risto Mejide, here: