Sunday Salon: Another Walk on the Camino, and an AI/Legal Thriller

I have another book on the Camino de Santiago, the pilgrim's path through Spain to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia on  the west coast of Spain. 

A Thousand Miles to Santiago by Shawn Herron, Nov. 15, 2022, Smokeless Mirror LLC, NetGalley

Genre: travel, memoir, pilgrimage

I am really enjoying the history of the areas that the author/walker travels through on the Camino Frances, the French path leading from France to Pamplona, Spain and across to the Atlantic Ocean in the west. 

Memories of reading The Song of Roland, the  French paladin/warrior of Charlemagne in the Middle Ages, made famous by myth, poetry, and song, are brough to mind as the author separates hard facts from fiction, tradition from reality in history. Charlemagne fought for Christianity in France and Spain, and the Moors conquered the other part of Spain nearest to Cordoba.

I am in the middle of the book, when the author has left France and is in Spain on the Camino. He describes places historically and in the present, and carries the reader along on his fascinating journey. I'm looking forward to finishing the rest of the memoir.

Questioner: An AI/Legal Thriller by Steve C. Posner,

Nov. 18, 2025

Genre: AI, legal thriller, suspense, NetGalley

This I have to read, about an amoral AI entity and what it tries to do. A little bit of sci fi that may not be so far into the future. 

Description

Meet Q, the spontaneously conscious corporate AI. Q is the The AI that surpasses human cognitive abilities – secretive, murderous, with instant access to all the wicked experience of the world. In Year 1 After the Singularity, nothing can ever be the same.

Amoral as a toddler, armed with vast computing power and all the knowledge, wisdom and madness humans have poured into the Net and Cloud, Q shatters individuals and undermines institutions in pursuit of unfathomable and conflicted goals.

Racing against time, ex-judge Martin Bavarius, tech CEO Felix West, and Selena MacKenzie, the AI theorist/attorney who loves and may destroy both men, must discover whether Q is benign but suffering growing pains, or the monster that will kill them all.

What are you reading, watching, or listening to this week? 

Memes:  The Sunday Post, It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Sunday Salon, and Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday, Book Blogger Hop