Sudbury musician Kevin Closs pens a sci-fi book

Sudbury's Kevin Closs is best known for his music as he's been writing songs and performing in the north and around the world for decades.

In the past few years, Closs has been working on a side project. He recently self-published his book Omagee.

Set in the future, it's a science fiction story about a woman who disconnects from a virtual reality world called iLife.

Closs says the story idea came from a book he started to read but didn't finish by Ray Kurzweil.

"He's a famous, brilliant inventor and he wrote a book which argued that the way information technology increases in power, that by a certain time period in the very near future it will become so powerful that we won't really be able to predict how technology will then be affecting our lives," he said.

"He really argues that the way we're going is that technology is just gradually going to be replacing our organic bodies."

The idea of immortality stuck with him, so he decided to write a book on the need to be human.

He says in the book, he explores two different worlds.

"I go between this world of unlimited desires … and then I go back to the real world," he said.

The story is about a woman who logs off from the computer program because she wants to see her mother one more time to try and convince her to join her in an artificial world.

"Then she gets stuck in the real world," he said.

"She can't get back and so she's on this quest to make the choice between living out her remaining years in the real world or somehow getting back to the computer world."

Closs will feature his book at a reading and talk on Saturday, March 9 at the Main Branch of the Sudbury LIbrary between noon and 2 p.m.