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Advice from IR Approved Author Keith Noback: “I was looking for a good thought experiment about determinism. I couldn’t find one that I liked, so I thought I would cook one up myself.”

Summa Totalis: Received a 4+ star review, making it an IndieReader Approved title.

Following find an interview with author Keith Noback:

1. What is the name of the book and when was it published? Summa Totalis published august 2025

2. What’s the book’s first line? In a neglected quarter of the dendritic event radiation, Laplace brooded on the day’s poor prospects.

3. What’s the book about? Give us the “pitch”. If we knew every detail of past events, could we predict all future events? With a precise map of the future in hand,  couldn’t we add a butterfly’s wing flap here, subtract a raindrop there and render Utopia? The Cosmo’s oldest intelligent species thinks so. Millions of years ago, they built an interactive model of global events and turned their best and boldest loose in the perilous, unregulated clockwork to compete for a solution, so far without results. Among the current competitors, one person, Laplace, harbors a heretical suspicion that something is off with the entire project. Now he must face past crimes, a vengeful God, and an eschatological cult to get at a truth that may be more than he bargained for. 

4. What inspired you to write the book? A particular person? An event? I was looking for a good thought experiment about determinism. I couldn’t find one that I liked, so I thought I would cook one up myself. How hard could it be?

5. What’s the main reason someone should really read this book? If you ever wake in a cold sweat, wondering how we are not a mere rounding error in an unintelligible cosmos, maybe this book will help you get back to sleep a little quicker. 

6. What’s the most distinctive thing about the main character? Who-real or fictional-would you say the character reminds you of? He had a cosmetic procedure that rendered his facial tissues transparent, exposing his eyes, nerves, and  blood vessels. Laplace is James Bond, if James Bond were working for Anarchists while he struggled through an existential crisis.

This is my first book, and I feel like I just fell into it while trying to devise a thought experiment. I enjoy the process, and I am fortunate enough to have an income independent of my writing. I am glad that I don’t need to hand over rights to the material. I am not a glory hound, but the worst part of publishing independently was learning what it really meant to come in at the bottom of a two-million-book pile.

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