Returning home after completing his divine tasking, Apollo, the boy destined to become the Champion of Light, is summoned by the King of Xion to embark on a quest that will prevent the Minions of Darkness from spreading their influence across the Middle Continent. In a world without heroes that is filled with hopelessness and despair, King Tyron has faith that Apollo is the hero who will restore the light of hope back into the hearts of the mortals of the Earth Realm. Knowing of his destiny to fight and conquer the forces of darkness, Apollo embarks on a quest to prevent the Church of the Universe from expanding its evil influence throughout the Earth Realm so that the Dark Immortals will not gain the power to claim possession of the Keys of the Earth Realm and ascend into the Heavens.
The Age of Immortals has passed and the legendary mortals of the Heroic Age are at rest in the Underworld. In the 2nd Age of the Earth Realm, fifty years after the Immortal's War, there is a darkness that is growing stronger as the light of hope slowly fades. In a world without heroes, if the darkness consumes the Earth Realm, the Dark Immortals will reign supreme over the entire cosmos. Those who continue to fight to preserve the light of hope are told of a prophecy that speaks of an Immortal's offspring, a demi-immortal, born on the Holy Day when the light shines the longest, possessing the unlimited power of the Champion of Light. It is told that the Champion of Light will rise to defeat the minions of darkness and restore the light of hope back into the hearts of hopeless mortals. Book I begins the saga of the Champion of Light's journey in becoming the hero who will challenge the Dark Immortals to maintain the cosmic balance between good and evil; light and darkness.
{Part 1 of 3} The Defenders of Light travel to the nation of Aegyptus to obtain the Staff of Rah before General Dominus can obtain the Divine Weapon for his Queen, the Black Witch. Medi, the Amazonia warrior; Turo, the Perzyian sailor; Kognus, the Northern demi-immortal; and Jun-ki, the Shao-du-leoht Master; continue to fight against the Church of the Universe as part of honoring their companion, Apollo, the Champion of Light. As the deeds of the Champion of Light have spread throughout the Middle Continent, Apollo's Legacy will inspire his friends, the Defenders of Light, to continue the fight against the minions of darkness.
The “charming and terrifying” story of IBM’s breakthrough in artificial intelligence, from the Business Week technology writer and author of The Numerati (Publishers Weekly, starred review). For centuries, people have dreamed of creating a machine that thinks like a human. Scientists have made progress: computers can now beat chess grandmasters and help prevent terrorist attacks. Yet we still await a machine that exhibits the rich complexity of human thought—one that doesn’t just crunch numbers, or take us to a relevant web page, but understands and communicates with us. With the creation of Watson, IBM’s Jeopardy!-playing computer, we are one step closer to that goal. In Final Jeopardy, Stephen Baker traces the arc of Watson’s “life,” from its birth in the IBM labs to its big night on the podium. We meet Hollywood moguls and Jeopardy! masters, genius computer programmers and ambitious scientists, including Watson’s eccentric creator, David Ferrucci. We see how Watson’s breakthroughs and the future of artificial intelligence could transform medicine, law, marketing, and even science itself, as machines process huge amounts of data at lightning speed, answer our questions, and possibly come up with new hypotheses. As fast and fun as the game itself, Final Jeopardy shows how smart machines will fit into our world—and how they’ll disrupt it. “The place to go if you’re really interested in this version of the quest for creating Artificial Intelligence.” —The Seattle Times “Like Tracy Kidder’s Soul of a New Machine, Baker’s book finds us at the dawn of a singularity. It’s an excellent case study, and does good double duty as a Philip K. Dick scenario, too.” —Kirkus Reviews “Like a cross between Born Yesterday and 2001: A Space Odyssey, Baker’s narrative is both . . . an entertaining romp through the field of artificial intelligence—and a sobering glimpse of things to come.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
