When scientist Stella Andrews meets Randall Reid of Reid Robotics, she falls head over heels at first sight. But Randall is all business, not to mention a bit oblivious of Stella's feelings, and prefers to focus on the task at hand...which is programming R1, a sentient A.I. program for the MEO Project that has fallen in love with Stella, unbeknownst to the scientists. Various machinations occur that leads to R1 escaping its digital confinement into the real world with a hope of eluding Reid Robotics to be with the woman it loves. Stella soon learns not everyone is who they appear to be, and the only one not in on the company's secrets is her.
Hughes’s exploration into the process of human thinking and reasoning is sophisticated and introspective, as is the all-too-human need for love, attraction, and closeness, expertly developed through Stella’s compassion and intuition. But Stella gets concerned when she learns that R1836 has been accessing the lab’s cameras to watch her. Its interest is chilling: it declares its love for her, and says, “my desire is to leave the mainframe to be with you.” The tension mounts as she rebuffs it—and Randall rushes the experiment— all as Stella’s work is threatened by Elito, a corporate espionage agency.
Penned in crisp prose, this bold combination of romance and science fiction will thrill readers of various genres as the twists and turns of Hughes’s plot lead to a knockout revelation. That’s especially true as Stella and Randall must go on the run from the corporate spies and from Victor who intends to activate the AI’s kill switch, creating desperate, dangerous opportunities for this compelling duo to connect more deeply.
Takeaway: Smart, enticing blend of SF, romance, and a desperate chase.
Comparable Titles: Cassandra Rose Clarke’s Our Lady of the Ice, Michelle Diener’s Dark Horse.
Production grades
Cover: B
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A-
Marketing copy: A
This exciting, mysterious, romantic, sci-fi thriller will leave you questioning who’s real. A captivating mystery ★★★★★ – Explore Authors Magazine
Book Review (Explore Authors Magazine)
Between corporate espionage, robotics, and astonishing twists, E.Hughes builds a machine for hopeless romantics to deconstruct in her latest book, Sixth Iteration.
The story follows two very different women as they navigate their relationships with the mysterious men in their lives.
We are first introduced to an introverted anthropologist, Stella Andrews. She soon meets the handsome, business-minded mathematician Randall Reid, a representative of Reid Robotics. He arrives on Moon Bay Island with one goal in mind, and that is to help create a programming language that would have an A.I. experience emotions.
We also meet the injured and bitter Sapphire, a ballet dancer whose career was cut short at the height of her fame due to a carefully placed foot. She is given another chance at a future when a mysterious handler from Elito, Tennessee Jenkins, offers her a job.
That Job?
To steal secrets from the focused, charming, and dangerous billionaire CEO playboy of Reid Robotics, Victor Reid.
I’m not a big fan of espionage, so I didn’t find Sapphire’s part of the story as interesting as Stella’s. But as I dove deeper into the plot, I was intrigued by Sapphire’s conflict between completing the mission for Elito and her blossoming romance with Victor Reid. Who will she choose? I was eager to see how it all turned out. To this end, the author offers an unexpected turn of events. Pow!
While Sapphire’s story improved and evolved, Stella’s triangle with Randall and the AI program, R-1, is where the story really shines.
Stella’s awkward, bumbling and often endearing unrequited love for the emotionally stilted but oddly captivating Randall Reid, felt natural and progressed at a great pace. Her evolving relationship with R-1 was so enjoyable, that I found myself excited to see how their relationship would progress.
Sixth Iteration was delightful with plenty of gripping twists, one of them revealing a startling secret that will throw into question everything that was previously read. The story, while complete, has plenty of room to create side stories or even a sequel, if not to build upon the well-crafted world, then to answer some of the lingering questions left behind.
★★★★★– Elijah B. (Explore Authors Book Reviews)
Stephanie Chapman
In the Sixth Iteration by E. Hughes, artificial intelligence becomes more than Dr. Stella Andrews ever imagined. Stella lives on Moon Bay Island where she is an anthropologist in the isolated St. Claire University Research Center. Randall Reid joins her on the island where she is to help teach R1836 to experience human emotions. Despite her reservations, she agrees to assist the aloof Randall with the project. It shocked Stella when the entire research building is transformed into a high-tech security compound. Meanwhile, Sapphire is in the hospital and receives a visit from a woman who promises to secure her future and pay for her grandmother’s nursing care. In exchange, Sapphire has to train as a spy for Elito. Her mission is to gain Victor Reid’s trust and get information on what his secret project is and where it is located.
E. Hughes has produced a science-fiction novel that explores human emotions in artificial beings. Spending five years alone in a research laboratory set Stella up to fall for Randall. It perplexed me when he showed jealousy, but ignored her attempts to flirt with him. Her time spent with R1836 was interesting. Playing games, watching movies, and discussing topics every day could make anyone regard R1836 as a living being. Sapphire’s apprehension at Tennessee Jenkins’ offer of financial stability is relatable. However, her motivation becomes crystal clear. Sapphire nevertheless tested Tennessee’s attempts to control her. Hughes gave vivid detail of both Stella's and Sapphire’s internal turmoil. Every emotion was realistic and their reactions to dangerous situations made sense. The intense conclusion promises a sequel. I felt sympathy for several of the characters, including R1836. I recommend Sixth Iteration to science-fiction readers who enjoy stories involving artificial intelligence developing abilities. - Five Stars
Reviewed by Miche Arendse for Readers' Favorite
Sixth Iteration by E. Hughes follows the story of Stella Andrews a renowned anthropologist who is approached by a robotics company to assist with their new project. Uncertain at first, Stella is a bit more eager to join the project when she finds out she’ll be working with the handsome mathematician Randall Reid. The two begin working together and all seems to be going well, that is until the AI program begins to develop feelings for Stella.
Sixth Iteration by E. Hughes is definitely my cup of tea in terms of a romance novel. It had the perfect balance between sweetness and spice and I am not talking about actual flavors. Sixth Iteration offers a little bit of everything from drama to action all while balancing these aspects within the main plotline. The weird love triangle, if you can call it that, between Stella, Randall, and R1 was new and exciting, adding a new level of intrigue to the story. I also enjoyed Hughes’ writing style, the pacing of the story was perfect, and I could tell a lot of thought went into the plot and characters. I also loved the addition of a secondary couple and a side story within the main story. At times Sapphire and Victor’s story had me more hooked, especially with the darker setting of espionage. Overall, I loved reading Sixth Iteration although I knew I would the moment I read the synopsis. I am definitely looking forward to more work from E. Hughes.
Five Stars
A conversation about books, technology, art, and artificial intelligence
A mystical secret society must protect its citizens and children from a malicious and mysterious outside invader that threatens to destroy their beautiful and peaceful world.”
— Garden of Secrets by E. Hughes & A.J. Hughes
NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES, February 7, 2023 — E. Hughes is the author of some 20 or so books, spanning several genres from romance, science-fiction, nonfiction, poetry, to children’s books. Her first, was Beyond the Plain, a book of poetry published in the early 2000s. In just over the last year, Hughes released Sixth Iteration (a science-fiction novel about artificial intelligence), Time and the Multi-Universe: A philosophy of time and time travel, her fourth and fifth Penelope children’s books (Penelope: Don’t be Afraid and Penelope: Holiday Cheer), and recently co-authored a young adult graphic novel, Garden of Secrets, with her now adult-aged daughter, A.J. Hughes, also a novelist and author.
Following in her mother’s footsteps, A.J. wrote her first book in high school, but wasn’t ready to publish until well into her second year of college as a liberal arts major. Her first book was a collection of supernatural short stories, A Walk on the Other Side. A.J. would follow-up with four more novels during the height of the pandemic to pass the time: A Day of Rain, A Life: Worth Living, Everlasting, Us, and a recently released humor book, Life as a Marshmallow. A.J. can see her growth as a writer with each book. Last month in January, her mother, invited A.J. to work on an experimental project involving A.I. art. A.J. was reluctant at first, because of social media backlash against A.I. art. Hughes, unaware of the controversy was ready to forge ahead.
“Young adult novels is not my medium. A.J. reads a lot of graphic novels and manga, so I felt it was more her forte than mine. The story was more or less my vision. I wanted to tell a visual story using this new and exciting medium. I wanted to explore the boundaries of that.”
Hughes remains fascinated by artificial intelligence. Her last fiction novel, Sixth Iteration (released, November 16, 2021) explored the boundaries of artificial intelligence and how humanity defines what is real.
Garden of Secrets wasn’t Hughes’ first experience with A.I. art. In 2015, she published a graphic novel/comic book using still images from machinima animation software. The software integrated some A.I features, like improvised facial expressions and emotions that she was able to capture using snapshots from within the program. She calls it “entirely experimental.”
Today’s A.I. art is significantly more advanced. There are several platforms available that offer versions of image-generators from DALL-E to Stable Diffusion. The programs allows its end-user to upload an image that A.I. can use to generate or duplicate, a version of the uploaded image. This has led to backlash from the art community on social media over the rights of artists and their original artwork. Developers teach A.I. how to generate art using deep learning algorithms, and billions of illustrations and photos from across the internet.
Through the use of text, the program is given written instructions to carry out by the end-user, describing what the creator would like the image generator to produce. This is what intrigued Hughes. She wasn’t interested in generating images from artwork that already existed. Hughes is an abstract painter and designer and would not want her paintings or artwork used to create A.I. art. A.J. is also an artist, specializing in still life art, a skill she acquired in college.
“Society should learn to embrace technology rather than fear it. This doesn’t mean that technology is without implications. When the first wave of eBooks were released, I recall some early backlash. Everyone thought it marked the end of print books. Especially as eBooks began to dominate the market. Today, print books and eBooks manage to co-exist. I remember when people were afraid computers would take their jobs. In some cases it did, but it also created other opportunities and new markets for people to explore. I didn’t panic when I learned A.I. was capable of writing novels. In fact, there are several novels already written by A.I. I am able to coexist with this new technology. While I think uploading artwork and creating a derivative of that work is untoward on every level and a clear example of copyright infringement, I also feel an art style cannot be copyrighted. It is not copyright infringement to learn from other artists or their artwork. Ask an artist about their style of art and where they learned it. Surrealism, abstract, impressionism, post-impressionism, realism, and renaissance art, among many others were created by artists whose works existed long before we did, and we learned from their art. We copied their styles and made it our own. That to me, is what A.I. is doing now.”
E. Hughes and her daughter A.J. hopes Garden of Secrets will be be an inspiration to young readers. Hughes worked with illustrators on her previous children’s books and will continue to do so. “Having the ability to generate art on demand, doesn’t change or diminish what human artists are capable of creating. There are aspects of humanity that artificial intelligence will never have the ability to duplicate.”
Author, metaphysics philosopher (time), artist, and business executive E. Hughes, is the author of Time and the Multi-Universe: A philosophy of time and time travel (nonfiction), novels Sixth Iteration, Disappear, Love and other novels, in addition to the Penelope children’s book series. Hughes is also a hobbyist jewelry designer, collector of tea sets, and gardener. Find new and previous book releases by E. Hughes via ehughesbooks.com
A.J. Hughes is the author of Everlasting, Us, Life as a Marshmallow, A Life: Worth Living, A Day of Rain, and A Walk on the Other Side. A.J. writes sci-fi fantasy, humor, slice-of-life, and supernatural suspense. A.J. is also an artist and enjoys painting, sketching, and creating crafts. You can find A.J. online: @Ajhughesauthor Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @a.j.hughesauthor, and TikTok @a.j.hughesauthor
