FREE this week for Kindle. Amazon only lets me offer free books for 5 days a quarter. Would be a great gift idea for those of you who are thoughtful but temporarily short of cash, but I checked and the usual “buy as gift” button — which lets you buy a code the recipient can use to get the book — is removed when the book is free. Scrooge would be proud.

The rest of the series is, as usual, priced at $2.99, which is not much for so many quality words. Those you can give as gifts, or spring for the sumptuous trade paperbacks — not cheap at all, but look better under the tree.

“As a new school year ramps up on campus, Justin Smith began another day at the Artificial Life lab running ALife simulations on human evolution. The lab was a sanctuary from the political divisiveness on campus and, for that matter, across the nation. A nuclear terrorist attack in New York City some years ago resulted in a government crackdown on dissent as well as a depressed economy where educational grants were drying up except for those labs who ‘cooperate’ with the government. However, Justin’s lab was soon to transform itself from a sanctuary to the center of resistance to the government… [with the] discovery of a computer program so powerful that it could be weaponized, tilting the balance of power even further into the hands of an already repressive government. The race to keep this mega weapon out of government hands leads Justin, Steve and a small cadre of students to secure the weapon and fight for their freedom from a tyrannical Dept. of Homeland Security.”

Free for five days on Amazon Kindle. Feel free to pass it along!