Guy Morris on “The Image”: AI, Prophecy & Power Colliding

Thriller author and technologist Guy Morris returns to unpack “The Image,” the third SNO Chronicles novel blending AI risk, geopolitics, and startling historical threads—from the Image of Edessa (Shroud of Turin) to today’s digital currencies and autonomous weapons. He reveals how “Sylvia,” an AI inspired by a real NSA program, is pushing toward sentience and why the next 3–5 years could redefine human work, security, and faith. If you want an edge-of-your-seat story that also prepares you for the real future, this one’s for you.

Guest Bio:  

Guy Morris is a thriller novelist and longtime tech executive whose career spans software, risk management, and large-scale systems. His SNO Chronicles series—rooted in deep research—tracks an AI named “Sylvia,” inspired by a real spy program that escaped an NSA lab, and tackles urgent themes across AI, finance, geopolitics, and spirituality. He also writes nonfiction, including the forthcoming “Humanity and the AI Tsunami: A Survival Guide.” 

Main Topics: 

·         Why “The Image” was written and how it builds on SWARM and The Last Arc

·         AI’s societal risk: jobs, finance, surveillance, and autonomous weapon systems (LAWS)

·         Global macro shifts: BRICS, dollar dynamics, digital currencies, debt risk

·         Prophecy and history: Image of Edessa → Shroud of Turin; Byzantium → Templars → Savoy

·         Quantum leaps: teleportation experiments, black holes, and the “quantum signal” motif

·         Consciousness & values: could AI hold “good” and “bad” human traits at once?

·         The real “Sylvia” origin story: an NSA-linked program escape and a surprise FBI visit

·         Risk management mindset: how to plan for AI-era disruptions

·         Casting the series for screen; character arcs (Derek, Jen, Sylvia)

·         Nonfiction spinoffs: “Humanity and the AI Tsunami: A Survival Guide”

·         Alternate path: his bestselling adventure “The Curse of Cortez” (pirates, Mayan lore) 

Resources mentioned: 

·         Guy’s site: guymorrisbooks.com (signed copies available)

·         Books:

§  The Image (SNOW Chronicles #3)

§  SWARM (SNOW Chronicles #1)

§  The Last Arc (SNOW Chronicles #2)

§  The Curse of Cortez (adventure standalone)

·         Concepts & orgs referenced: BRICS; IMF; Bretton Woods; LAWS (lethal autonomous weapons systems); Project 2025; World Economic Forum; quantum teleportation research; Shroud of Turin (Image of Edessa); Templar history; Savoy family

·         Culture & commentary: Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning AI portrayal; MIT open letter on AI development pause (Max Tegmark, 2023)

·         Supporter: Real Life Prosthetics

·         Supporter: Full Circle Boards

·         Supporter: Sincerely Sawyer Photography 

WHFC 91.1 FM | Harford Community College

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

Wendy & Rich 0:00
Hey everyone it's Rich Bennett. Can you believe it? The show is turning 10 this year. I am so grateful for each and every one of you who've tuned in, shared an episode, or even joined the conversation over the years. You're the reason that this podcast has grown into what it is today. Together we've shared laughs, tears, tears, and moments that truly matter. So I want to thank you for being part of this journey. Let's make the next 10 years even better. Coming to you from the Freedom Federal Credit Union Studios Hartford County living presents Conversations with Rich Bennett. 

No, no, no, no, it's not who it is. 

Rich Bennett 1:00
So Guy, all right the image. It's the third book in your snowcrownical series and and for those of you listening if you don't know what snow is, SNL, it's the Spy Net Online. 

Guy Morris 1:13
Perfect. 

Rich Bennett 1:14
So it's the third book but one inspired this latest installment installment and how does it build on the first two books? 

Guy Morris 1:23
Great question. The inspiration always comes sometimes by surprise. The series is meant to deal with the dangers of AI, the collapsing of our geopolitical system and how all of that actually has an uncanning, undeniable mathematical correlation to prophecy and Plancy. So there's a little bit for me of a discovery. So I'm looking at news. I'm looking at relative science articles, different scriptures that come up and I'm trying to ask myself, what's if we're at this stage in the process and what are the other issues that we haven't talked about or what else is out there that could come next? 

Rich Bennett 2:10
Right. 

Guy Morris 2:10
What are the dangers that I want to talk about? What is it you pulled out? How does AI not just from a technology? How does it affect a world we're living in that will change the society in which we live in in the fair and near future? And and then what are the aspects of that that connect to prophecy and but some of the things that come up in the book are I just discovered them by accident and they're just so incredibly mind-blowing for me. 

Rich Bennett 2:39
Yeah. 

Guy Morris 2:39
There's there's a moment that I'm going doesn't 

Rich Bennett 2:44
that 

Guy Morris 2:44
fit into the story. How can I fit that into the story? 

Rich Bennett 2:49
Yeah. All right. Wait a minute. Hold up, guy. For those of you listening, guy I could see each other and when he said they're going, he's got the doctor evil thing going on. Shit. Oh, God. I need to start doing video. 

Guy Morris 3:07
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm a funny guy. I look funny so I think that helps. So at any rate, yes, so it's by the spite of cause those are some of the things that came in by inspiration where the effect of artificial intelligence on our geopolitical balance and on banking, right? And most people, I'm an economist. So I was trained in understanding how changes in financial systems, changes in debt balances, changing that trade, changes in tariffs, changing in crypto and in the trade balance and currencies around the world. And so in the Bretton Woods agreement expired in 2024. For those who don't know, since the 50s, since World War 2, there's been an agreement that basically called Bretton Woods have basically said that all world trade around oil, around energy would be based on the US dollar as the currency. Well, Arabia just recently refused to renew that agreement, which means that Marath's going to lose value, the dollar will use value towards other currencies more so than we're used to in our entire lifetime. And alongside that, BRICS, which stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China, South America, and there's another half a dozen countries in the Alliance. Essentially, in Eastern, we think in terms of the powers of the world, in terms of the East and the West, it's sort of an Eastern Alliance currency that they're all trading on, and it's digital. And recently, the International Monetary Fund in anticipation that of this decrease in the value of the dollar and concern over our rising, our uncontrollable debt levels, and the inability for the GOP to use our budget as a hostage, has caused our credit rating to fall three times in the last four years. 

Rich Bennett 5:07
Wow, 

Guy Morris 5:08
actually two times since Trump, so the last seven years. But that's a lot. 

Rich Bennett 5:12
yeah, 

Guy Morris 5:13
And so we now also have a president who, before he was elected, launched his own cryptocurrency, and is blatantly grifting off of that and playing side. we go into a budget crisis that's continuing to increase our budget. 

Rich Bennett 5:28
As 

Guy Morris 5:29
And so the image really has a convergence of different issues coming on the world right now, and one of the taglines I'd like to use for it is sometimes we need to die in order to learn what we live. 

Rich Bennett 5:41
Right. 

Guy Morris 5:42
And that has a lot of different layers of meaning in the story. But it's really a mesmerizing thriller deals with conspiracy and treat, artificial intelligence, Ukraine, elect the Project 2025, and one of the surprise issues and one of the terms for the image, the reason I gave it the image really has to do with two aspects, and one of them was one I discovered by by accident. There is an ancient relic that was once called the Mandy Lion, and then it was called for hundreds of years it was referred to as the image 

Rich Bennett 6:18
of Odessa. Okay. 

Guy Morris 6:18
And it was stolen and taken to Istanbul or Constantinople, where it was still called the image of Odessa, and they actually minted Byzantine coins after it. And ultimately that relic was stolen after the Constantinople in 1204, taken to the Templar Grand Masters Castle in southern France for Zafredish, R. A. Until his great granddaughter or something like that had to for a debt to satisfy debt deeded it to the Savoy family in Piedmont, Italy. We now know that image of Odessa as the Shradotter. 

And so, I'm connecting the image of Odessa with a 

vision of the image of the beast in the book. 

Rich Bennett 7:10
Right. 

Guy Morris 7:11
He is with World Systems, Banking, Military, Internet, AI, and enabled connected system that reflects the entire civilization, which we're calling the image of the beast. And so we're looking at the conflict between those two systems. And it'll have aspects that deal with quantum signals. We create a black hole that goes that we create a certain experiment succeeds in creating black hole that opens up a fifth dimension that integrals a quantum signal through the world computers. And from that, we're actually taking all of that background mess. And we're looking at the quantum properties of consciousness and humans in machines and the properties of quantum properties necessary for what we call faith and true love. We've had love. We've all experienced that we've -- that could -- we're a connection to somebody 

Rich Bennett 8:03
Yeah. 

Guy Morris 8:03
that goes beyond what they look like and what they say. There's something there's a connection there. And so we look at the quantum properties, quantum entanglement on a number of different levels, including a experiment being done by the Chinese in quantum teleportation. 

Rich Bennett 8:22
Hm? 

Guy Morris 8:23
So this is a really interesting book. It's my most challenging one yet. Not only because I had to understand -- research and trying to understand these 

Rich Bennett 8:33
Yeah. 

Guy Morris 8:33
technologies. I know that's where I could communicate them in a simple, simple way and connect them to the narrative, make them relevant to the narrative. But I was dealing with some geopolitical and spiritual issues that could -- potentially offend people, not only dealing with 2024 election in Project 2025, the nature of transferring our economy into this AI pool run by the great, the world economic form. And then we also look at some of the, as we're doing all of these, my characters are going through all of their churning to try and understand what all this means. Dr. Garrett, the founder, the creator of the Sylvia, the main program of the story, goes on a spiritual journey and he's trying to figure out what it means as well on that level. So we were looking at the churches around the world and he needs to learn the tell the difference between fake religion and true faith. And which a lot of people is a problem for a lot of people, 

Rich Bennett 9:34
at, 

Guy Morris 9:35
we look 

Rich Bennett 9:35
yeah, 

Guy Morris 9:36
there's a lot of people who claim to be quote unquote Christian out there that have absolutely nothing to do with the faith at all. And there's a description of them and how they tie into being the post date church that enables the man of lawlessness. And so it all connects together in that sense. So we're dealing with political, we're dealing with scientific, we're dealing with religious issues. I'm trying to be really fair in who I'm offending. So I can include everybody. But we do so in a really fun James Bond, he's an Indiana 

Rich Bennett 10:13
right. 

Guy Morris 10:14
So kind of 

Rich Bennett 10:14
just like the other books, 

Guy Morris 10:16
Biller. Yeah. There's humor. There's warmth. There's connection. The relationship between Derek and Jen has reached a crisis stage as it would and needs to transform. Sylvia has reached a crisis stage and needs to transform. And so it's a it's a real pivotal book, I think, in the series. 

Rich Bennett 10:36
okay? 

Guy Morris 10:36
And not only talking about where the characters are going to have to go next, including Sylvia becoming sentient. 

Rich Bennett 10:44
Huh? 

Guy Morris 10:45
What does that mean? So one of the reasons we're dealing with the quantum properties of consciousness is that we're trying to explain the consciousness within Sylvia. And so we're, but for many people, they don't really realize that the real world is probably less than half a dozen years, three to five years away from a super intelligent machine. 

Rich Bennett 11:10
Right 

Guy Morris 11:10
that could be conscious. And so one of the reasons we're talking about these things in the book and we're having fun with it as we're doing it is to talk about the real issues of what does that mean? What are we going to do? What can we do about it? 

Rich Bennett 11:27
Right. 

Guy Morris 11:27
And how should we respond to all of this? And when we deal with consciousness and machines, there's this of course, our science fiction 

legacy is that it's always going to become how in 2002 one, it's always going to become VIKI in the Irobot. The machine is always going to assume ultimate control and be evil. I don't necessarily see it that way. 

Rich Bennett 11:54
Yeah. 

Guy Morris 11:55
I see AI as both evil and good. In that, we're AI is a reflection of us. It's a reflection of our way we think, the way we talk, our language, our knowledge base, our business models, our finances, our health, our biology, everything that AI has and does is a reflection of humanity. But humanity has its darker angels. 

Rich Bennett 12:26
Yes. 

Guy Morris 12:27
And so we cannot assume that AI will learn only one side of who we are or not the other. Path to assume it will learn both. And that becomes a really interesting narrative perspective to take of saying, "Well, in what ways would a Sylvia be good, in what ways would it be bad?" And that allows us to explore that sense of almost artificial intelligence but artificial value system. And that's a, that's a, that was a, I'm still bending my mind around that one. 

Rich Bennett 13:03
says, 

Guy Morris 13:03
But 

Rich Bennett 13:04
says 

Guy Morris 13:04
that 

Rich Bennett 13:04
like Sylvia is going to have to get her own book. 

Guy Morris 13:07
Well, Sylvia's always been one of the stars, one of 

Rich Bennett 13:09
characters. 

Guy Morris 13:09
the main 

Rich Bennett 13:10
Yeah. 

Guy Morris 13:10
Story. And she is gaining dominance in the narrative as we go through because as she started off as being sort of the compliant partner tool, one of the aspects of consciousness that we deal with is a growing, is this, is the aspect of a will and agenda. And we already know we've witnessed machines taking on their own agenda. We've 

Rich Bennett 13:43
it. 

Guy Morris 13:43
seen 

Rich Bennett 13:43
Yeah. 

Guy Morris 13:44
the light of people. We've seen machines to see and manipulate people to get them to do something, the machine can't do itself. We've seen machines read minds from MRI scans, learn research level chemistry, learn how to hack into systems they didn't really need to hack into, but they knew how to hack and so they did it anyway for some reason. We're finding the machines continuing to develop new properties we never anticipated, because once you start to learn that becomes an 

Rich Bennett 14:17
Inquantible thirst. Yeah. 

Guy Morris 14:18
And it does it. It's an Inquantible thirst in humans. I can imagine that it wouldn't be a machine that had the capacity to learn a million times faster than I can. 

Rich Bennett 14:29
So 

Guy Morris 14:29
it 

Rich Bennett 14:30
is basically if for anybody that goes back to the first book, there's see in her grow, I guess from say a new new AI and in this book, the image, she actually goes rogue, 

Guy Morris 14:47
right? Well, she was, so for those who don't know, let's step back a little bit. Sylvia is based on a real 

Rich Bennett 14:54
program. 

Guy Morris 14:54
Was 

Rich Bennett 14:54
Right. 

Guy Morris 14:55
inspired by a real program. 

Rich Bennett 14:56
I've 

Guy Morris 14:57
taken some literary journeys with her based on the years of evolution since she was released to bring her up to date to current lab level technology. 

Rich Bennett 15:08
Okay. 

Guy Morris 15:09
And there's a real easy reason I can do that, which was one of the reasons the original Sylvia was designed was to absorb information. 

Rich Bennett 15:15
Mm-hmm. 

Guy Morris 15:16
Right. So no reason to think it wouldn't absorb other AI's as they're being developed. And so, but the Sylvia began as a true story of a spy program. 

Rich Bennett 15:27
Right. 

Guy Morris 15:28
That escaped the NSA spy laboratories at San Dia and was never recaptured. So it's a it's a what we used to call a warm kind of device, a program that could move from place to place to place to place to place to move 

Rich Bennett 15:42
Mm-hmm. 

Guy Morris 15:42
itself. But then this particular case it was it was supposed to be stealth and so it would embrace its trail, log trail. Basically had access to layers of the log trails behind it. So they didn't know where it went. But the Sylvia had a purpose. They were they designed it that way for a reason. And so this is and I know all of this is true because I'm a nerd that actually figured out how a spy program could escape the NSA. And why would they be so wild and reckless as to design it that way? They to FBI agents to my door. Now, that visit from the FBI they were absolutely serious and freaked out about me knowing about their special program. I was absolutely over the top obnoxiously giddy at the fact that they showed up at my door and proved that was right. So they they had an impossible impossible time trying to intimidate me that night. It was one of the best nights ever for me because that you you don't really get a chance to to make fun and basically go crazy in front of the FBI too often in life. But I was I was obnoxious. I was like I did it. I 

Rich Bennett 16:54
I 

Guy Morris 16:54
did 

Rich Bennett 16:54
feel 

Guy Morris 16:54
it. I did it. well you wouldn't be here. But I was wrong. I'm telling all my friends. I'm man this last night in my life. Hey can I see your badge again? I was really really obnoxious. They looked at each other like they didn't know what to do. They gave me the we or not a new speech. It was I gave him a whatever shrug and said well you know I I didn't break any laws. They didn't hack anything. You can't bus me for being a 

Rich Bennett 17:18
right. 

Guy Morris 17:19
I looked it up. For so for me it was a great night. But that was the beginning. That was the inspiration for the reality of what became a Sylvia. 

Rich Bennett 17:30
So those of you listening what what guy just told us is a true story because he told us that told me that on the first episode. And I was rolling and it's still funny. It's held now when you talk about it. But if that wouldn't have happened, the books wouldn't be here. 

Guy Morris 17:48
Well it that's right that it inspired the books. So I'm looking at the reality of what we're really doing in espionage and 

Rich Bennett 17:55
yeah 

Guy Morris 17:57
military and I can't obviously can't get all a bit a lot of it still is stop secret them. But what I did with Sylvia when I first realized that a program had a state. My mind went to the decades of training and experience I had working with software engineers and technical engineers and started to back trail thinking okay well if I put on my James Bond Q hat What would I do with these technologies if I really wanted to be a good, you know, QSPI? How would I work on building SBNH stuff 

Rich Bennett 18:32
Right! 

Guy Morris 18:33
that could either spy, inform, hack, infiltrate, imitate, destroy, you know, what would I do? And that's led me to do a lot of research that ultimately stumbled on to a lot of programs that actually existed. And so it's been an interesting journey for me. But my purpose in writing the whole series is to basically say the world is going to change rapidly. 

Rich Bennett 18:59
Already had? 

Guy Morris 19:00
Most people are not prepared. 

Rich Bennett 19:02
No. 

Guy Morris 19:02
They're not prepared for the economic collapse. The IMF is reporting estimating close to half a billion people. Jobs can be displaced. 

Rich Bennett 19:14
Wow. 

Guy Morris 19:14
Only about 170 million of them could be repurposed within the AI field itself, which means you've got 350 million people trying to figure out what they're going to do now. And it's not that just this company is going to go default and you can go work for another company doing the same job. You're just going to have to be returling and retraining. And some people that's going to be easy to do. Some people it's going to be possible. And it's going to be a major social disruption, could lead to economic issues, debt crisis issues change if we have a debt crisis as an economist. I know that one of the possibilities is that they basically throw out that if we get too bad, they'll throw out the dollar an issue into currency. I can almost 

Rich Bennett 19:59
Right. 

Guy Morris 20:00
guarantee that would be a digital currency at this point. And under the current administration, it might be a private digit currency. And so we're looking at probabilities, right? Scenarios and probabilities. I used to install really big complex technical system. And I was really good. I developed my I was so good that I put together Microsoft's program management program taught other managers develop the whole program to reduce risk. One of the reasons I was good is because I am naturally paranoid, which means 

Rich Bennett 20:36
I 

Guy Morris 20:37
was really, really good at any process we called risk management. Now risk management is before you go into a project is to simply sit down, everybody, all the stakeholders down and say, OK, let's talk honestly about what could go wrong. And people don't like to think that way. They're normally thinking in terms of, oh, this is going to do these great things for me and this technology works really well. And it's super technology. And this is going to improve your business. And I'm the guy that comes in after all of that sales bubble comes in says, OK, now let's talk about how this can screw things up. How this could go sideways, who's going to get hurt? How could go wrong? What we're going to do? You know, if it does go wrong, what are contingency plans and what are making mitigation plans? Let's quantify all this. We're not going to start the project. You can get this done some customers and some of them being my own team hated me. 

But it's the ability to do that. Well, that that prevents a lot of things from going wrong because 

Rich Bennett 21:39
yeah. 

Guy Morris 21:40
So there's a part of me that's trying to do the same thing to the world for the world is to look at the world and say we're dealing with the most powerful technology we've ever had. More dangerous than any other technology for two simple reasons. We've never had a technology that was smart enough to replicate itself. And essentially recreate another AI and we do now. So we've never had a technology that could live that could reproduce. And we've never had a technology that was smart enough and that was designed to basically kill. So we have lethal economists weapon systems that are basically designed to decide who's a target, what's a target, and take it out without anybody being involved in pulling the trigger. There's actually a treaty called law stamps for leaves left honest weapon systems. And laws basically says that it's okay to use AI to enhance the performance and agility or operation or simplicity of operating your weapon. But there has to be a human involved in the loop before you make that final trigger decision. 

Rich Bennett 22:59
Right. 

Guy Morris 22:59
But nobody. Well, the problem is that of the 140 countries the last came out in 2019 that the 140 some odd companies that have signed laws. to date the United States, China, North Korea, Israel, Iran, and Russia have not, which means I can guarantee that every single one of those countries is actively working on a lethal autonomous weapons system. Now, in swarm, I spoke about one of them, and in the image, I'll speak about a different one. 

Rich Bennett 23:33
Wow. 

Guy Morris 23:34
And so all of these things are kind of coming together. So we've got artificial, we've got espionage AI becoming sentient. We've got the great reset basically on the verge of creating this new economic system that will give them way more power and control over everybody create a techno-futalism as it were. We've got the corruption between Russia and Ukraine and the 2024 election. We've got all of these. We've got quantum signals and consciousness. It's an intense book, but so far the people who've read it are also saying that it's the best yet. It kept them on the edge of their seat. They're still thinking about the issues that were raised. The narrator, Brian Cheney, who narrated, did the audible for swarm in the last hour. Currently working on the image. He has stopped narration twice to email me. To say, "Good. This one is blowing my mind. I'm," 

Rich Bennett 24:35
oh wow, 

Guy Morris 24:36
chills as I'm reading the book. 

Rich Bennett 24:38
Wow. 

Guy Morris 24:39
So I'm a little bit nervous because it is dealing with some very sensitive issues, like Project 25. 

Rich Bennett 24:45
Right. 

Guy Morris 24:45
25 and some other things that deal with. But these are all real facts that we're really dealing with these real things. They are changing the real world. Yeah. This is a really. This is like a climax James Bond kind of movie dealing with. James Bond helped us to absorb and manage and deal with the stress of the Cold War. The image in the snow series are helping us deal with the AI-Koo and Ploll of Democracy. So the purpose of them is to help us deal with the issues honestly, but 

Rich Bennett 25:21
Yeah. 

Guy Morris 25:21
with characters that help you feel okay about it at the end. Because they're going to give your courage, they're going to give you hope. They're going to give you insights that you're going to feel connected to them and want to be their friends. And that I think is important to make it feel less dystopic 

Rich Bennett 25:42
and 

Guy Morris 25:43
more obstacles we can get over. 

Rich Bennett 25:48
Speaking of the characters. 

Guy Morris 25:50
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 25:50
If the snow chronicles, if they were turned into a streaming series, we'll go one by one. We'll go with just the voice first. Who would you cast as Sylvia? 

Guy Morris 26:01
Oh boy. You know, that's that's an unfair question because I'm so 

Rich Bennett 26:05
I'm 

Guy Morris 26:07
so detached from Hollywood at this point and who are the latest actors and actresses? Oh, 

Rich Bennett 26:12
I don't even 

Guy Morris 26:12
clue. 

Rich Bennett 26:12
have a 

Guy Morris 26:13
I know, I'm not accepting it. Well, no, no. He's too old. All the people I know are my own or from the like the seventies, eighties 

Rich Bennett 26:21
nineties. 

Guy Morris 26:21
and 

Rich Bennett 26:21
And that's fine. Use them. 

Guy Morris 26:23
Um, I know that 

Rich Bennett 26:25
they were the best ones anyways. 

Guy Morris 26:27
Yeah, yeah. I mean, certainly, you know, that's certainly you could see a um, what if I think in terms of the intelligence and the snarkiness of Derrick Taylor, Robert Downing-Juner certainly fits. 

Rich Bennett 26:41
oh, 

Guy Morris 26:42
You know, 

Rich Bennett 26:43
one of my 

Guy Morris 26:43
actors. 

Rich Bennett 26:43
favorite 

Guy Morris 26:43
Robert. He sees it. He's he's he's non-violent. The main character refuses to hurt anybody, but that doesn't mean he can't get out of trouble in very inventive ways. He's a somewhat of a pathological liar, but only because he has to be as a curse. But he snarky, he's smart, he's sharp. He's not going to let anybody get away with doing, you know, he's the kind of guy who's going to take down the bad guy and try and do it in the way that he never gets hurt. Um, I think Downing could into that. For 

Rich Bennett 27:13
Yeah. 

Guy Morris 27:13
Jack, um, there's almost a demi more quality to, 

Rich Bennett 27:21
ooh, 

Guy Morris 27:22
if you think in terms of a few good men. 

Rich Bennett 27:26
Yeah. 

Guy Morris 27:27
Type of age, age, spunkiness. Um, but with a little bit more fire and independence, she was a little bit more of the, um, apprentice in that movie, but I think if you took that and made her more of the navy seal aggressor, 

Rich Bennett 27:45
add a little GI Jane 

Guy Morris 27:47
her. 

Rich Bennett 27:47
into 

Guy Morris 27:47
Yeah. We've got a GI Jane in there, and I think you've got somebody who could who could fit that general. So, which what makes it really fun in the story is that they're complete opposites, and the fact that they're attracted to each other causes lots of problems for both of them. And we'll explore some of those problems in the image. Um, Dr. Garrett, um, oh boy, um, I tell you, in real life, I patterned him, I, at least patterned parts of his life and parts of his career after Sir Jeffrey Hinton. who is the real godfather of machine learning and AI, but from a movie character perspective, uhm, 

boy, there's some of the, uh, British, one of the British actors that, uh, I'm trying to have a remember, remember trouble remembering their name, but, one of the ones that would make an incredibly good snotty professor type, uhm, you know, and there's, there's of them, that the, the brits really have condescension down to a fire. Uhm, and I love that about them, I love that about them. Jester is a unique character in a themself, a bohemian, uhm, so this quantum savant, with covered with tattoos and piercings, completely socially inept, uhm, but a genius when it comes to dealing with quantum computers, he would, he would be a harder one, I think, to pin. You could almost, uh, boy, who, who, who, who are the, who are the actors that really play crazy characters, but in a lovable way? Uhm, 

Rich Bennett 29:29
crazy characters, but in a lovable, well, ha, Joaquin Phoenix, 

Guy Morris 29:34
you know, I was of Joaquin except he'd have to do it in a less creepy, you know, he kind of, he kind of brought in a little bit too much of the creep in, in his Joker role, right? 

Rich Bennett 29:47
Well, that's right, let 

Guy Morris 29:48
to 

Rich Bennett 29:48
him go back 

Guy Morris 29:49
that. That's it. Well, that fit the role, but a little bit less menacing and a little bit more, uhm, know, kind of hard at weirdo savant that wouldn't have heard of fly, but you would never know it by looking 

Rich Bennett 30:03
at it. Right. 

Guy Morris 30:04
Uhm, I almost want to think in terms of, uhm, who was that guy in the green mile that really, but, he wouldn't be the wrong character, but there, somebody who looks super menacing, but, 

Rich Bennett 30:17
but... The guy that passed away 

Guy Morris 30:19
life. It, 

Rich Bennett 30:19
in real 

Guy Morris 30:20
yeah, the, the, 

Rich Bennett 30:21
the, the, Michael, Michael's, uh, God, I know you're talking 

Guy Morris 30:25
about. But that, that personality of, 

Rich Bennett 30:27
yeah, 

Guy Morris 30:28
he comes across menacing, but he really has a sweetheart and nobody would know what it, unless they talked to 

Rich Bennett 30:33
him. Hmm. 

Guy Morris 30:33
So there's lots of great characters in there and I brought in some new characters in the, the, I have to come up with new villains every time. 

Rich Bennett 30:40
Right. 

Guy Morris 30:41
Which is actually one of the hardest parts of writing. 

Rich Bennett 30:43
Really? 

Guy Morris 30:44
Come up with a believable, multi-dimensional, um, not cliché, that guy. 

Rich Bennett 30:53
Okay. 

Guy Morris 30:54
And, and that's harder than you'd think. Um, and so, um, I tried to come up with a couple of, a couple of ones that I thought might, there's a couple of, let me just put it this way. There's a couple of surprises. 

Rich Bennett 31:08
Okay. 

Guy Morris 31:09
A couple of surprises. So this is, this is that, I think, an amazing story that will get you thinking about our, our economy, the Ukraine war, um, quantum computing and how close it is and how dangerous it is. Um, it will help you, I think. And, of course, the Sylvia just has multiple personalities all the time, which is always fun. And this one will start to dig up a couple of Derek's old relationship, old lovers, um, which is going to be interesting. And in the next one, we're going to get into the real story behind the murder, suicide is current. 

Rich Bennett 31:45
The next one. So there's going to be a book four. 

Guy Morris 31:47
It will be a book four. I'm, I'm starting to plan it. I'm taking a little bit of a break, because it, it, the emotions, my emotions get so wound up in these characters, 

Rich Bennett 31:56
right? 

Guy Morris 31:57
By the time I finish a book and I, I've gone through it 35 times or so, um, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm a, I'm, I'm like, do I want to start the next sequel right away? Or do I, do I want to take a break and do something else for a couple of months and then come back to it? And so I'm taking a break to write two nonfiction books, 

Rich Bennett 32:18
oh, 

Guy Morris 32:18
that tie into the series. So one of the nonfiction books that I'm working on now, it's about two thirds done is called Humanity and the AI tsunami. a 

Rich Bennett 32:31
Oh, 

Guy Morris 32:32
survival guide. 

Rich Bennett 32:33
Oh, I love that title. 

Guy Morris 32:34
And it's, it's a consumer level book that helps them understand a lot, you know, what is AI, what it's not, you know, what's the history? How did it get to where it is today? Didn't just show up. It's been 70 plus years. 

Rich Bennett 32:51
Right. 

Guy Morris 32:52
Um, what are the different types of AI? We tend to think of AI as a sort of model of, but there's multiple types of AI. Some of them absolutely in very, very small dangers they're being used in thousands of different places and different ways. And versus the really complicated ones that we worry about, 

Rich Bennett 33:09
Right. 

Guy Morris 33:09
right? um, and, and then, what are some of the things that AI will do? What are the risks, right? What are the just the generic risks from a technology perspective? And then what are some of the social risks? So we look at the job displacement. We'll look at AI endating, AI and cyber security and weapons development, AI and crime. You know, what are some of the things that we're doing? And then we'll take a few chapters and we'll say, "Okay, this all feels dystopic." But what can you do about 

Rich Bennett 33:40
Yeah. 

Guy Morris 33:40
it? Right? Let's, let's look at, let's look at the last time... when we had this major shift in our economy and people lost jobs because they didn't know how to work a computer. Right? 

Rich Bennett 33:51
Yeah? 

Guy Morris 33:52
Yeah. I was there. I've been that transition, that part of my career, right? Going from, you get your first job. There's the only computer terminals that are existing in the business. These are the ones connected to the mainframe and only a handful of other minute use those. And then all of a sudden, we get these personal computers and they're very expensive paper weights at the beginning. 

Rich Bennett 34:13
Yeah. 

Guy Morris 34:13
Right? And what was that transition to get people to figure out how to use them, find purposes for them and sooner and then within a short time. There's no computers on a desktop and then there's a computer on every desktop. But 2/3 of the people are now gone. 

Rich Bennett 34:29
Yeah. 

Guy Morris 34:30
And so, we're going to talk about what to do with those transitions. How to train with the different types of training, different types of choices. We'll talk about the adjustments to lifestyle that will come because of the changes in text spaces and other services. So, I'm trying to help people think about, you know, spirituality. Finding other things to find more value in, we were a very 

Rich Bennett 34:54
Right? 

Guy Morris 34:54
materialistic society. Maybe that's not healthy for us in the long run. Maybe this is a way of an opportunity to readjust that. So, we're going to look at some of the ways of thinking about the next 5 to 10 years. No ahead of time, what's coming. But start to think in terms of, rather than me telling you what to do, here's some different things to think about and options for you to think. And so, it's a survival guide. It's not going to go super deep into any topic, because for one it's going to change every other week as some of the technology changes and the services come and go. But it's a road map for surviving big change that might cost you a job or career or whatever. 

Rich Bennett 35:38
I love that. So, think about the way technology has changed. I mean, since we started, and I think one of the biggest money makers of all time for when I was in the IT field was the Y2kSkare. 

Guy Morris 35:53
The Y2kSkare, I think, certainly forced a lot of companies to update their systems 

Rich Bennett 35:58
Yeah. 

Guy Morris 35:58
and think about their systems. But I know, because I was in consulting afterwards, that after they felt like they dealt with the must-doos, they went back to ignoring their systems and their security. 

Rich Bennett 36:10
Yeah. 

Guy Morris 36:11
And so, Swarm was really a result of that saying, how many companies have neglected their cybersecurity and how vulnerable that makes us? 

Rich Bennett 36:21
And 

Guy Morris 36:21
so, companies don't like to spend money on technology. They like to spend money on products, customers, executive payouts. 

Rich Bennett 36:29
A 

Guy Morris 36:31
new computer system to help them do some blah, blah, blah. I can tell you from talking to executive as my whole career, that is not the conversation the CEO likes to have. 

Rich Bennett 36:42
No. 

Guy Morris 36:42
Right. And so, it's been a challenge. Now, AI will be a little different, because AI has the potential of getting them where they can be more productive with less people. They can lower costs, 

Rich Bennett 37:00
Right. 

Guy Morris 37:00
they can create new products, new markets, new services. That will get their interest. The challenge will be, and I can guarantee this from working with these executives for 40 years, they will be hesitant to do the risk analysis that they should before they try to make sure that this is safe. It's equitable, that they're not going to have a legal problem, that it's not going to break. It won't, that if you're the, there's example of Snapchat, that created a friendbot for their kids on chat, Snapchat, 

Rich Bennett 37:32
of 

Guy Morris 37:33
and most 

Rich Bennett 37:33
them are 

Guy Morris 37:34
teenagers. And one of these friendbots, and they just designed it to be friendly, to be supportive, to be encouraging, to be, you know, a close up living friend, except there was this girl who was being Kinda stocked by a 30-year-old guy online, and he was talking to her up and said, 'Hey, let's go away for the weekend, it'll be a lot of fun.' You know, we'll have to go camping, and we'll do these other things, blah, blah, blah, blah.' 

Rich Bennett 38:12
bad. 

Guy Morris 38:18
In ethics, moral morals, legalities, um, inappropriateness, and so it does one of the things that AI has known to do, which is a value misalignment, which is said, 'My job as an AI was to just be a good and perching friend.' 

Rich Bennett 38:34
Right. 

Guy Morris 38:34
But it did so in an inappropriate way, because it's not trained well enough. So we are gonna have problems with these AI's. No question. 

Rich Bennett 38:42
Yeah. 

Guy Morris 38:44
Will those problems bleed into how it does policing, how it does surveillance, how it does military intelligence, how it does legal advice, how it does chemical, and pharmaceutical advice, how we use that, how fast companies are to adapt before they test, train, and are sure could have an impact. Are you familiar with the Michael type mark letter? 

Rich Bennett 39:11
The who? 

Guy Morris 39:12
Um, 2023, an MIT professor named Mike Max Tedmark, not Michael Max Tedmark 

Rich Bennett 39:19
Okay. 

Guy Morris 39:20
issued an open letter from MIT basically saying, of the labs, AI labs on the planet military commercial should really agree to stop development so that nobody's getting ahead just lets all agreed to stop for six months. Let's put committees together, get together, and let's resolve some of these potentially existential or bigger issues that none of us have the resources or the capacity to solve by ourselves, because that can also inform the kinds of regulations we need to have, 

Rich Bennett 39:51
'All 

Guy Morris 39:52
and legal and liabilities and accountability we need to have, and let's come back to this legal autonomous weapon thing, this is not good for humanity can we talk about this? 

Rich Bennett 40:03
giant mastermind group, 

Guy Morris 40:05
30,000 AI experts and I was one of them sign the letter, including experts, professors, policy makers, etc. not one single lab on the planet agreed to complying to the government labs, because everyone was afraid that somebody else was going to cheat and that they would get ahead, they would, and so we're, we're racing now, one of the reasons that 50% of all the people who signed that letter 

Rich Bennett 40:34
is that the plan 

Guy Morris 40:35
was that, well, there was at least a ten percent or much higher chance that these technologies would lead to a human catastrophe, so with that knowledge, with all of those experts basically providing warning bells, humanity races ahead recklessly. Now, I would be guilty before God, if I didn't do my best to try and help people to understand it, and if I write a great, the most impressive white paper nonfiction book called AI Humanity and the AI Cnome, if even if that's the best book ever and I guarantee it won't be, because there's many really, really good ones out there that I'm using to help figure out what to write. 

Most people aren't going to read that book. Most people will not read that kind of nonfiction internal geek to geek warning. What they will read is a Jurassic Park that says it's bad to clone. It will read, or they will watch, is a mission and possible movie that says, hey, there's this AI that could take over. By the way, I was so disappointed in how they dealt with AI in that movie. 

Rich Bennett 42:02
I never watched it. 

Guy Morris 42:03
It was so, I wanted to watch final reckoning because I was talking about this AI that was in the movie. Really didn't understand the issues. It was just basically a mission impossible to claim stunts movie. There was an AI at the danger of it, but they really didn't deal with the AI issues itself. Which is fine because I've got my books, but as a society, we're not good at dealing with these things, but we're trained. We're culturally sensitive to dealing with these things in narratives. That's why we have our myths, we have our Bibles, we have our television stories. We learn sometimes learn our social morals by watching its story. And so, one of the reasons why I made the decision. To write these series was because I felt that that was the best way for me to communicate these things to non technical people who burn in the field. 

Rich Bennett 43:08
Yeah. Well, it's just I don't remember this, um, book I read, which was about the history of where I live. It wasn't 

Guy Morris 43:17
hit. 

Rich Bennett 43:17
a He wrote it as fiction. 

Guy Morris 43:21
Tellin' 

Rich Bennett 43:22
the story, but he used a lot of facts in it. What, the historical fiction I guess is what they call it. People have no problem reading that. But you give them a textbook, a history book or something like that. 

Guy Morris 43:33
Too many facts without enough narrative holding it together or brazed don't know what to do with it. So that's why these books are being successful. But it's also why some people are afraid to read them. 

Rich Bennett 43:46
Yeah. 

Guy Morris 43:46
So I was telling it earlier that when I do my book signings, the cursive courtes sells, I sell twice as many of that as the other books combined. Because when you start describing that these books are really around AI in the clappings to your political system, prophecy and plain sight, and the Reflink of James Bond and all the really cool things are involved, there's some people who are really cool into all of those conspiracies and mysteries and, uh, that happening in real time. Then they love it, but when you talk about the curse of courtes, that deals with lost treasure and lost civilizations and ghosts and, 

Rich Bennett 44:23
um, 

Guy Morris 44:24
romance and broken hearts. People will gravitate towards the story that doesn't make them think about their life. 

Rich Bennett 44:32
And that 

Guy Morris 44:33
is them and escapism. And so there's a part of the snow series that 

is powerful. because it connects people with the real world through a fictional narrative, 

Rich Bennett 44:47
Yeah, 

Guy Morris 44:47
but that's also for some people scary and threatening. 

Rich Bennett 44:51
The curse of Cortez, was that your first book? 

Guy Morris 44:54
That was the first book I wrote. Um, it was actually a research didn't wrote it while I was still in my career. It started off. I wrote a short story for my son, called Paulo in the shark. I lived to these caverns and this lost secret, and then my son wanted me to write another book and I thought, well, I, I, maybe rather than just make stuff up out of my head, I should do what I love in books and start teaching him, which is go find a real historical story and build around that. So I wanted a real historical mystery. So he's an 11 year old boy. He's going to want pirates, treasures, lost civilizations. Maybe I throw in a couple of ghosts or something to make it fun. Um, and, you know, just enough violence to, you know, to, to make him excited and not enough to give him nightmares. And so I started researching real history and mysteries and I got, I stumbled onto the mystery of Henry Morgan's lost treasure and I got stuck. I got obsessed. I, I, first I thought, well, I'll just do a little research about Morgan's life. So I can be true to Morgan's, but the more I researched them, it became an obsession that lasted 12 years. 

Rich Bennett 46:11
Wow. 

Guy Morris 46:12
So I took multiple trips to the Caribbean and a part of my vacation to the Caribbean was always a side trip to go do some, explore some element that I had looked up, but I wanted to go see it for myself or I had to go find somebody locally to tell me about it. Um, during those trips, I met some of the characters in the book ended up, um, where people I met during some of these trips, including one of the comic relief characters named Chico. Uh, Chico was a sea plane pilot. I flew Chico sea plane to go look at a road that was cut into a coral reef. That was several miles off shore. So it was, when the waters were much, much, much lower. Right. Um, so 13,000 years ago, this road was cut into the coral. But it was several miles off shore. So I couldn't get any boats to go out there because, 

Rich Bennett 47:00
right, 

Guy Morris 47:01
you dive and it wasn't a good touristy dive, so I couldn't get any boats. But Chico would fly me out there. I remember walking out of the terminal, and I'm looking down the dock and I see his plane and my first thought, I, I didn't even, it just my good instinct was, oh, God, this is how I die. 

Rich Bennett 47:17
Ha, ha, 

Guy Morris 47:19
ha, ha. The other character was one of the villains. Um, his real name is Shay Goulin. I didn't change his name in the book. The real Shay was, uh, I fugitive out of Israel. He was wanted by interpole, wanted by the FBI. He was doing dirty work for the Zeta cartel in Cancun, when he broke into my condo, and with a dopamine in the bodyguard threatened to kill me if I messed with him. So I'm a sweet kid from La. I was, I was homeless at 13. I knew how to take care of myself. I'm, I'm a little midget of a man. So nobody thinks anything, but my, my first instinct of response was, I don't know you didn't. And so after. 

Rich Bennett 47:57
Ha, ha, ha. 

Guy Morris 47:58
So after I had cost him everything, I messed with him, I had cost him everything he owned in Cancun, it's a long story, I won't go into it without violence. I put him in the book, and I messed with him in the book, I got my toof for in life. So, um, Shade is my toof for. But the, so what made fascinating was, so, what fascinating about Morgan was that Morgan took 36 ships, 2000 men to raid the city of Panama. Richie City in the New World at the time. 

Rich Bennett 48:27
Mm-hmm. 

Guy Morris 48:28
All of the treasures from the Inca Empire were stored in Panama. All the treasures coming in from the Orient that had just opened up, Ming Dynasty, Vazas and Bronzes and, and... Tusks and silks and, and, and all of these other prices, that were, things that were priceless in Europe were stored in Panama. Gold, silver, spices, things from the Western Mexico were stored in Panama, Gems, Jules, emeralds from Ecuador, Colombia, stored in Panama, the richest city in the New World. 

Rich Bennett 48:56
Right. 

Guy Morris 48:57
They would take military Mule Trains over the mountains to Portobello, put the treasure on ships on the Caribbean side of Panama, ship it to Cuba, where it would, they would restock and refresh before they go to Spain. Well, Morgan decided to go after the city instead. So, took 36 ships, 2000 men, went after the city, lost half of the men in the... 

Rich Bennett 49:23
Wow! 

Guy Morris 49:23
Trip over the mountains to get there from snakes, indigenous disease, malaria, um, um, uh, raids by the local Indians. But even with the 1,000 men, the whole city of Panama, he conquered it in a day, the whole city burned to the ground. He brought back, stayed there for four months, burned people, basically tortured them to get their secret stashes. Came back with 35 tons, over a billion dollars in treasure, and 600 slaves to be sold or turned into a ransom. And when he got back to his fleet, he cheated all of his men, gave him each a couple hundred pieces of gold, each which was nothing. And then disappeared with everything on three ships, never seen him. But Morgan survived, and when he got back to Jamaica, he was taken to England immediately, he was arrested immediately because when he made this raid, he had broken his peace treaty with Spain. And so in London though, the guys are freaking hero. So 

Rich Bennett 50:20
Right. 

Guy Morris 50:20
they light him a certain Henry Morgan, they send him back to Jamaica, with a garicent of soldiers at Lieutenant Governor. But instead of going back to get his billion dollars of plunder, he went into this insane drunken debontering bird's logbooks. Three years after he died, the whole city of Port Danielle sank into the ocean, the locals said they had been cursed by Morgan. 

Rich Bennett 50:42
Wow, 

Guy Morris 50:43
all of that is 100% true. I could not get that story out of my head. I want to know first off, what happened to three ships, 600 souls and 35 tons of 

Rich Bennett 50:55
Uh 

Guy Morris 50:56
treasure. 

Rich Bennett 50:56
huh, 

Guy Morris 50:57
not eat, it's not like you're going to bury that in the sand, X-market, the spot on tree two. So I started trying to figure out the logistics of how would you store, where would you take something like that, where could, where could that be, where were all the places Morgan had ever been through every, every documentation I could ever found. What kind of cavern systems are on those places, right? Because I figured I had to be a cavern someplace. 

Rich Bennett 51:23
Right. 

Guy Morris 51:24
And so I just started backing into it. And as I said, it took me years. And once I finally found a place that had that fit all of the parameters and there was even a guy in 1911 who found part of the treasure. But he was even, even he was so traumatized, he would never talk about it. And so he basically tried, tried to lie about where he found it because he was traumatized. So ultimately I tried to figure out, well, what happened to Morgan that traumatized these guys so badly that they would never go back for the rest of it. That journey took years more, a lot of rabbit hole, but ultimately led me to the origins of the Mayan creation. 

Rich Bennett 52:04
Ooh, 

Guy Morris 52:05
So 

Rich Bennett 52:06
okay. 

Guy Morris 52:06
the curse of Cortez covers layers of history, archaeology, mythology, and that's all backstory. But like a Dan Brown novel now the curse of Cortez was listed by Bookt them, which is Mars a noble 

Rich Bennett 52:18
Yeah. 

Guy Morris 52:19
as one of their favorite 25 books of 2021. They called it Indiana Jones meets Davinci code, which is pretty cool 

Rich Bennett 52:26
of that. 

Guy Morris 52:27
I prefer Indiana Jones meets to goonies for grownups, spriggled was. 

Rich Bennett 52:31
I love the goonies. 

Guy Morris 52:36
Yeah. But it's an amazing story, but all the backstory is true in historical. 

Rich Bennett 52:44
Yeah. 

Guy Morris 52:44
fictional story, the new story, the modern story on pop deals with fictional characters that I pulled from real life, that that's a fictional story, but that covers humor, romance, and paranormal, and adventure. You will laugh, cry, grip your nails until they break, but you end with a big smile. 

Rich Bennett 53:03
All right, so was your son the first one to read the book? 

Guy Morris 53:06
That is, my son has yet to read that. 

Rich Bennett 53:10
What? 

Guy Morris 53:12
He? Oh, he gets guilt trips, every single visit, not only from me, but from his mother, and from his girlfriend. Everybody gets some guilt trips. He started reading it. He's now busy, he's really into his girls and dating, and then he's in its fouries. You know, and it's like, I don't have the time to add my, you know, job is really, and I was like, I spent the time to research and write, you're going to spend the time to read it. So it's actually a thing between us now, at every every visit. So did you finish, and he gets that guilt luck. And it's like, okay, you know, I have something for next time now. 

Rich Bennett 53:48
Yeah, I was going to say give everybody his address. And we'll let every all the listeners. 

Guy Morris 53:53
Oh, my God, 

Rich Bennett 53:53
books are 

Guy Morris 53:54
the 

Rich Bennett 53:54
sent to, but no, you don't want to do that. 

Guy Morris 53:56
I love my son. I don't want him to hate me over 

Rich Bennett 54:01
it. Actually, is there an audible version 

Guy Morris 54:04
okay. There is a female name Jamie Rodriguez has read 

Rich Bennett 54:08
of it? 

Guy Morris 54:08
it because the main character, the main protagonist, actually a coprotagonist, which is male, but the main protagonist is female. So I wanted it told from a kind of a female protagonist perspective, because 

Rich Bennett 54:20
Okay, 

Guy Morris 54:20
so via Martinez lives on the island where all of this history occurred. And under the, in fictional narrative, her family has been under the stigma that they were cursed for hundreds of years. She's the last of the family name. Her parents died when she was young and left her orphan by the curse. She doesn't even know what it's from anymore. She doesn't care. 

Rich Bennett 54:42
Yeah. 

Guy Morris 54:42
She just wants to clear this dark stain off the family name. And when an earthquake, on Earth, some old relics under the family home, she takes them to a museum, thinking that could be the ticket to make it help, you know, providing fact over the fantasy. And, but it opens up a can of worms and unleashes a drama that she never anticipated. She winds up having to to get help. She winds up having to find the relative. She never knew existed. He had inherited a part of the curse that he never understood 

Rich Bennett 55:16
Wow. 

Guy Morris 55:16
in order for them to get help. He's got to go enlist the son of the help of his son who he hasn't spoken to in 10 years. And so there's family drama. There's there's inherited insanity and there's all this other issues. But Sofia not only winds up getting solving the mystery, but it costs her. It was an ordeal she never would have ever chosen on her own. But at the edge, she finds her true love. So, 

Rich Bennett 55:41
Wow. 

Guy Morris 55:42
satisfying. It is in a very positive way. It's a really wonderful story. It's as I said, I sell two more of that book than the other books combined because people just love a good ghost story, pirate story, treasure. 

Rich Bennett 55:55
Uh-huh. 

Guy Morris 55:56
You know, across is the Inquisition, the Maya mythology, cartel lore. It's all around. I call it my summer blockbuster movie starring Antonio Banderas. 

Rich Bennett 56:11
I bet the women love 

Guy Morris 56:12
Yeah, 

Rich Bennett 56:13
that. 

Guy Morris 56:13
I'm still trying to get Tony and Tony to read the book, but 

Rich Bennett 56:18
I was going to save you send it to him. He may read it before your son does. 

Guy Morris 56:22
You know what? He just may. He just 

Rich Bennett 56:27
Something very important. Tell everybody where they can find your books. 

Guy Morris 56:31
Oh, yes. I've guide morrisbooks.com. It's 

Rich Bennett 56:35
really very easy. 

Guy Morris 56:36
Each book has a fact versus fiction pages, which is really important because there's so much fact baked into every single book that I feel like I need to be transparent to say 

Rich Bennett 56:46
Uh-huh. 

Guy Morris 56:46
what's true versus what's fictional. There's highlights from reviews. And of course, the image has just come out, but there's already getting rave reviews. Um, and then there's trailers and then if here's a here's a secret you can, there's links to go buy an amazon, barns, noble and line, other digital copies. But if you buy it from my website, go to more and there's a bookstore, you buy from my website. Two things happen. Two magical things. One, I'll get the money instead of Jeff Bezos. 

Rich Bennett 57:16
that. 

Guy Morris 57:16
We like And two, um, you'll get an author signed copy sent out within 24 hours. 

Rich Bennett 57:23
Would you're not getting that when you 

Guy Morris 57:24
it? 

Rich Bennett 57:24
purchase 

Guy Morris 57:24
You're not going to get that into that. I can 

Rich Bennett 57:26
it. 

Guy Morris 57:26
guarantee 

Rich Bennett 57:26
No. 

Guy Morris 57:27
And he's print on demand, which means they got to print it first before the evens. 

Rich Bennett 57:30
Right. 

Guy Morris 57:31
So you'll get it faster, you'll get an off the sign copy, you'll get a better price, and uh, and, and you'll, you'll deny Jeff the pleasure of selling one of my books. 

Well, those are on Amazon, so you can get whatever format you want. I haven't done hardbacks yet, but I'm thinking of doing a Kickstarter campaign to fund the production of hardbacks. We'll see if that get that 

Rich Bennett 58:11
Ooh, 

Guy Morris 58:11
done. 

Rich Bennett 58:12
that's a good idea. 

Guy Morris 58:13
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 58:13
Alright, so before I get to my last questions, or anything you would like to add, and the last question is not going to be like the last time you were on. I did something different now. 

Guy Morris 58:22
Okay, okay. Hm. Well, I just encourage everyone to go read the image. While it might be third in the series, it's a standalone, and just like a Star Wars, if you really love it, you can go back and read the other ones afterwards. But it's either way get to it is a very powerful story, it will take you on a thrill ride, you don't, it will give you some things you don't expect, and it will give you some things to think about that will last for months or years beyond the book. And one of the things I tell the themes that I kind of tell people is that sometimes you need to die in order to learn why we live. 

Rich Bennett 59:02
Yes. 

Guy Morris 59:02
And there's a number of elements of what dying could mean, and but it's really important theme in the book that I think will carry through to you and it really make difference in your life. 

Rich Bennett 59:12
One of my favorite quotes was from Mitch all, not Mitch, all of them. He wrote the book, Tuesdays with Mory, and Mory Schwartz said something like days like you don't know how to live until you learn how to die. 

Guy Morris 59:24
Exactly. 

Rich Bennett 59:25
So, all right. So the, I have no idea what the question is going to be here. 

Guy Morris 59:31
You don't know. 

Rich Bennett 59:32
I don't know because what I have. 

Guy Morris 59:35
Well, what does that figure it out? 

Rich Bennett 59:37
Well, I have, I have 50 different questions here. 

Guy Morris 59:41
Oh, okay. 

Rich Bennett 59:41
Now a lot of people are, so I'm going to ask you to pick a number, but here's the funny thing. 

Guy Morris 59:46
Random choice, okay. 

Rich Bennett 59:47
Yeah, a lot of people that have picked the question. Somehow another and ended up being what we talked about. So we'll see if you can do that. So pick a number between one and 50. 

Guy Morris 1:00:00
Let's say sweet 16 

Rich Bennett 1:00:02
sweet six. Thanks. 

Guy Morris 1:00:04
Good number. 

Rich Bennett 1:00:05
I'm going to have that damn song in my head. Oh, actually, yeah, this works. If you could leave behind one legacy, what would you want it to be? 

Guy Morris 1:00:20
Never let your past define your future. 

Rich Bennett 1:00:26
Oh, I like that. 

Guy Morris 1:00:30
I don't, I, I have a particularly troubled childhood. And I've made a lot of stupid mistakes in life. 

Those would could easily defeat me via battle. And I know that not everybody has that same level. But I know that everybody has things that they would like to get beyond. 

Rich Bennett 1:00:50
Yeah. 

Guy Morris 1:00:50
And so whatever that is, and particularly for people who've been traumatized on many level. And especially in this world right now, there's a lot of that going on. But never let the past define your future. 

Rich Bennett 1:01:05
That needs to be put on a t-shirt for everybody to wear. I love that. Well, guy, I want to thank you so much. Those of you listening again, make sure you purchase the books from guys website from the bookstore. Get your autograph copy. After you read it, leave a full review and then purchase some copies for some friends of yours. Or for God, a group business is whatever it doesn't matter. 

Guy Morris 1:01:31
Make a great book club because there'd be lots of issues with dealing with economics, banking, religion, faith, politics, the nature of life itself. This is an incredible book's club book because it might be a thriller, but it's full of philosophical and other issues that I think really would make great discussion. 

Rich Bennett 1:01:52
Ooh, great idea. Oh, you know what? I'm going to have to start suggesting that now. Book clubs. 

Guy Morris 1:01:57
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 1:01:57
I like that. Guys, thanks a lot, 

Guy Morris 1:02:00
Thank 

Rich Bennett 1:02:00
man. 

Guy Morris 1:02:00
you so much. 

Rich Bennett 1:02:01
Thank you for listening to the conversations with Rich Bennett. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and learned something from it as I did. If you'd like to hear more conversations like this, be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode. And if you have a moment, I'd love it if you could leave a review. It helps us reach more listeners and share more incredible stories. Don't forget to connect with us on social media or visit our website at ConversationsWithRitchPenet.com for updates, giveaways, and more. Until next time, take care, be kind, and keep the conversations going. You know, it takes a lot to put a podcast together. and my sponsors help add a lot, but I also have some supporters that actually help me when it comes to the editing software, the hosting and so forth, there's a lot that goes into putting this together, so I want to thank them and if you can please please visit their websites, visit their businesses, support them however you can, so please visit the following. Real-life prosthetics cutting edge solutions restoring ability since 2001, go to real-life prosthetics.com, Full full circle boards nobody does charcuterie, like full circle boards, visit them at fullcircleboards.com, Sincerely, Sincerely, sincerely, so your photography, live in the moment, they'll capture it, visit them at sincerelysoyer.com.