Autokill
About this audiobook
Driverless cars race to kill in a thriller from "Gridlock Sam" Schwartz, who "knows everything about how cars and people don't get along", with Cary Pepper ( The New York Times Book Review ).
"An expert in traffic jams has a scary idea: what if the cars turn on us? Sam Schwartz, a former New York City traffic commissioner, thinks autonomous vehicles are the future. But his book, Autokill , imagines a world where they go very wrong . . . A nail biter . . ." — The New York Times
The year is 2036. CAVs (Connected Autonomous Vehicles) comprise twenty-five percent of the cars on the nation's streets and roads, fleets of robo-cabs crisscross cities, and robos are revolutionizing the country's trucking industry. With new federal regulations in the works, CAVs are about to become an even more integral part of society, which greatly concerns two people, though for vastly different reasons.
Richard Corby, a climate change scientist specializing in artificial intelligence, despairs over Congress and a pro-business president repeating the misguided decisions that put cars over people at the turn of the twentieth century. Jason Bartel―a long-haul trucker who lost both his livelihood and his wife when his best routes were taken over by robo-trucks―believes CAVs will deprive Americans of their fundamental right to drive. Both men set out to change the script.
Meanwhile, federal cybermarshal Dana Grant starts investigating the case of a CAV that blew past a stop sign and killed a woman. Blocked at every turn by her bureaucratic boss, Dana takes matters into her own hands and stumbles on a plot to use CAV technology to kill not one, but thousands of people.
Fast-paced and lucid, Autokill explores themes of technology, capitalism, and politics, and is a must-read for any futuristic thriller fan.
Praise for Sam Schwartz's nonfiction examination of autonomous vehicles, No One Behind the Wheel
A "clearheaded bible for the twenty-first-century road" — The New Yorker
"...breathless and provocative" — Foreign Policy Magazine
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About the author
Sam Schwartz, often referred to by his nom de plume "Gridlock Sam, " is the former NYC Traffic Commissioner and the Chair of the Sam Schwartz Transportation Research Program at Hunter College in New York City. His most recent books include the nonfiction titles No One at the Wheel: Driverless Cars and the Road of the Future (2018) and Street Smart: The Rise of Cities and The Fall of Cars (2015).
Cary Pepper is a novelist, screenwriter, and award-winning playwright whose work has been produced throughout the United States and internationally. He is a four-time contributor to Applause Books' Best American Short Plays series.
