After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States government attempts to counter future acts of terrorism against the United States and its allies. The CIA's response to this executive order is Jay Weaver's revolutionary invention; a covert listening device that fuses nanotechnology with artificial intelligence. Jay, a quirky and innovative engineer tortured by numerous personal difficulties-the recollection of his girlfriend's infidelity, his father's psychological manipulation, and his mother's mental illness-immerses himself in his work to avoid confronting this pain, striving to prove himself as a capable engineer and project leader while unwittingly placing himself, his family, and the Constitutional rights of all Americans at risk. Once the government's hidden agenda for the use of his creation is discovered, Jay finds himself torn between completing his work and destroying it to spare the world a future filled with fear and paranoia.
About the Author: Steven Shostack received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology with a minor in Biology in 1991 from the State University of New York at Albany. In 1995, he completed a Master of Arts degree in Human Factors Psychology with a specialization in Human Computer Interaction from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. While earning his Master's degree, Steven worked part-time as a civilian contractor for the Army Research Institute at the Army Materiel Command in Alexandria, Virginia. Independent of his graduate studies and work at the Army, Steven learned about nanotechnology as the details of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center became public which, together, inspired the central theme for this novel. Shortly after completing his graduate work, Steven achieved a life-long dream of working at NASA. While there, he assisted engineers, programmers, scientists, and astronauts in designing the user interfaces of medical and scientific equipment, computers, and software used aboard the International Space Station, Space Shuttle and in Mission Control Center. Steven finished writing most of this novel prior to the events of September 11, 2001. However, the destruction of the World Trade Center and attack on the Pentagon required significant changes to the novel's premise and tone to maintain a story that more closely reflected the political realities of the day. It wasn't until after Steven left NASA and returned to New York at the end of 2002 that he completed Eve of Patriots. Steven now resides in Long Island City, New York and applies the knowledge he acquired at NASA to the design of software and websites for Fortune 500 companies.