Author Description

Silver medal thriller of the year for 2023, awarded from the Illumination Book Awards. “Smith’s debut is a multifaceted thriller that blends SF, religion, and touches of horror … The plot’s careful maneuvering and balance among intriguing concepts will leave readers clamoring for a sequel. A solid thriller that engages the heart and mind in equal measure.” -Kirkus Reviews- says about The Apocalypse Game prequel: Book of Jonas, “In Smith’s near-future SF debut, a physically disabled boy with a genius-level IQ creates an AI powerful enough to bring about the apocalypse. … Smith deftly balances multiple plot threads, shaping Jonas as an antihero and keeping the reader guessing as to where the story is heading.” -Kirkus Reviews- recommends this novel as: “GET IT.” Jonas Gredas was born a mystery, some said soulless, a badly disabled orphan with everything in life against him except one thing, he is the most intelligent human who ever lived. Filled with the courage needed to face the dark side of the foster care system in New York City, Jonas is determined to use science to break free of his fate. He is helped along by the mysterious Voice who talks to him between sleep and wake and tells Jonas that to heal his body and find the peace and love he craves he must become much harder, and also, modify his off-the-shelf artificially intelligent assistant, Hela. Jonas, an atheist, secretly moves to his gothic STEM school in Harlem, living in a storage room in the science building, he enjoys fantasy stories because the monsters are never weak. There, with the help of Hela, he plans to get the love of totally unattainable Christian Sara by transforming his handicapped body through genetics, and along the way, as a by-product of making his fortune, eliminating death and disease for all humankind. With everything at stake in a public test of Hela’s sentience, can Jonas save the life of his dying mentor and father figure, the pr