The Basilisk Murders: A Sarah Turner Mystery (The Sarah Turner Mysteries Book 1) Kindle Edition

[bought on the UK Kindle store, you'll see I'm a verified purchase there]

"I was already having a bad week, and then the murders started."

A tech journalist goes to a Singularity conference, full of transhumanists and "techbrolibertarians" -- the people from Silicon Valley who want to rewrite your life and "disrupt" your world. Then they start killing each other off.

As well as a thoroughly readable cosy mystery, the book is a shot aimed pretty directly at the LessWrong "rationalist" subculture and its offshoots. I also know this subculture entirely too well, and cackled my way through.

But you don't need to know the players to recognise the type, nor their big plans for everybody: "the type that doesn't like to believe there's anything that can't be ordered by a rational mind."

The Safe Singularity Foundation is based on the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, whose forum site LessWrong came up with "Roko's Basilisk", the most famous idea to be associated with them (even as MIRI repudiate it) that the "Basilisk" of the title is based on: the idea that the coming Artificial Intelligence to rule humanity will be so good for humanity that it will be ethically obliged to punish those who knew it was possible but did not contribute to its creation.

Andrew did spend some time on LessWrong:

> My period of time there basically went “These are people talking about interesting stuff. Admittedly they have a few odd beliefs like the cryonic thing, but interesting people.” “…apart from this virulent racist who keeps talking about IQ…” “…and all these people who keep talking about being ‘Pick-Up Artists’…” “my God, this place needs to be burned down and the earth salted!”

The ideas are the actual stuff from the subculture - e.g., the weird notions about AI that Elon Musk starts on when he isn't talking about cars or spaceships. And the story leverages them well.

It's a light and enjoyable read, and doesn't get bogged down in the abstruse concepts. You will be able to play detective on the first read, and enjoy the story on the second. I read and commented on an early draft (I'm in the acknowledgements), bought it the moment I saw it was available and am most pleased to have done so. I'm also looking forward to the second Sarah Turner mystery, where she find herself dealing with a reunited rock band who all hate each other ...

A hugely entertaining book with an edge so sharp you could cut yourself with it. Hickey mercilessly skewers the internet's techno-fetishists and neo-libertarians while offering up a rollicking murder mystery with an engaging amateur sleuth in the shape of freelance journalist Sarah Turner.