Innerspace: A Cosmic Odyssey — a novel by Michael Simon Bodner.
A physicist, an astronaut-engineer, an AI creator and an industrialist join an undertaking that will outlast its founders: a self-sustaining settlement on the asteroid Lutetia.
They bring engineering, resources and the intelligence of MAX. As the settlement grows across generations, its discoveries draw the mission into questions nobody expected. What is consciousness? How would humanity recognize another kind of intelligence? And why does the universe seem so quiet?
For readers who enjoy space exploration, thoughtful technical detail and big philosophical questions, Innerspace combines the practical challenges of building beyond Earth with a speculative mystery about mind and existence.
Michael Simon Bodner is a physicist, technology executive and science-fiction author based in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
In Innerspace: A Cosmic Odyssey, he brings a fascination with artificial intelligence, consciousness and humanity’s future to a story that reaches from the engineering of an asteroid settlement to the largest questions about existence.
Explore the ideas behind the novel in the blog, or get in touch about reader questions, book-club conversations and interviews.