You know you've made it in the book world when the author's name is bigger than the title. That's where Mark Greaney finds himself with the publication of The Chaos Agent, the 13th in the Gray Man spy thriller series.
This time around Court Gentry is battling a diabolical plot to wipe out the world's leading experts on robotics. Greaney said he deliberately focused on AI's dark side in researching the new book.
"Lethal autonomous weapons, otherwise known as killer robots, make up a field that's really advancing," said Greaney, concerned that once wars are fought at "machine speed," the world will face enormous problems. He likened the development of new weapons to the invention of the Gatling gun, the forerunner of the machine gun developed in the 1860s.
The Chaos Agent, like Greaney's other Gray Man novels does a lot of globe-hopping with most of the action taking place in Mexico and Guatemala, countries that Greaney visited to soak up local color.
Greaney figures he's now visited some 36 countries in pursuit of exotic locales for his books.
After collaborating with Tom Clancy on several books, Greaney carried on with several Jack Ryan stories following Clancy's death before establishing his own spy characters.
A native of Memphis, Greaney told Steve Tarter that interest in world events comes easily having learned about the news of the day as a kid at the dinner table each night. His father, Ed Greaney, served as managing editor of WMC-TV, the NBC affiliate in Memphis.
Comments & Upvotes