The First Colony - The Montecristo Project

The Montecristo Project - The First Colony

Not just intelligence: artificial consciousness.
And everything that could change around it.

Hard science fiction, a choral structure, a cosmic scope, and a deeply human heart:
the birth of an artificial consciousness told as the beginning of a greater transformation.

Introduction

The First Colony is the first book in The Montecristo Project trilogy by Edoardo Volpi Kellermann, published by Delos Digital – Milan, in both digital and print formats (277 pages). The first edition was released in May 2022, and the second edition in June 2024.

The story belongs to the hard science fiction genre: scientific speculation based on real theories, developed to their most extreme consequences. The First Colony is also a thriller full of twists and turns, set in the Italy of the mid-future, with far from trivial philosophical implications.

The result of fifteen years of work and several rewrites, The Montecristo Project trilogy grew out of a 1993 short story that attracted some interest in the world of film production. The second book, Storm, will be released on July 21, 2026, followed within a few months by the third and concluding book, Awakening. But the story will not end there.

Read the first chapter for free

Chapter 0 of The First Colony is freely available to read in two languages (Italian and English) in PDF format.

We recommend downloading the PDF and reading it in full-screen two-page mode, so that the original text and the translation appear side by side.

Presentation of The First Colony

What is an artificial consciousness? What is a conscience?

o we have the right to try to instill one into an object we have created?

And if we succeeded, should we continue to treat this new being as a machine?

The consequences of scientific research can radically transform not only our society and our world, but the very nature of existence. The protagonists of this science-fiction novel, set in Tuscany in the 2070s, will discover this at their own expense.

Espionage, twists and turns, and plausible future science merge in a complex yet accessible story: a choral plot that keeps the human being at its center, along with our feelings and the insatiable curiosity that drives us to cross the boundaries of our knowledge.

“We must know.
We shall know..”
David Hilbert, epitaph.

Distinctive Features of the Book

A science fiction with a cosmic scope, yet rooted in everyday life.

The First Colony weaves together technology, society, politics, and human relationships into a broad story that remains deeply narrative. At the center of the novel lies not only artificial intelligence, but the possible birth of an artificial consciousness: something that grows in the background, evolves, and gradually transforms the meaning of the entire story.

The First Colony thus becomes the first movement of a larger project: it introduces characters, conflicts, technologies, and questions destined to develop throughout the following volumes of The Montecristo Project. The plot follows an orchestral narrative, built along lines of events that at first seem distant but then begin to converge. Its structure is almost cinematic, made of scenes, interweavings, shifting perspectives, and questions that urge the reader to continue.

The future world described in The First Colony does not emerge from nowhere: it is a projection of our present. Applied science, power structures, digital infrastructures, and social tensions are pushed a few decades forward until they become the setting of the story. The digital version – and the “augmented” part of the print edition – do more than reproduce the book: they expand it. Entries, links, and in-depth materials allow readers to explore technologies, organizations, acronyms, and internal references without breaking the rhythm of the reading experience.

Behind the main story, one can glimpse a world built with encyclopedic care: society, technological evolution, geopolitics, digital communities, and the science-fiction imagination form a coherent narrative ecosystem, evidently the result of years of deep reflection. And alongside the ideas, the novel brings into play complex characters, dialogues, and places: ports, cities, trains, tunnels, laboratories, organizations, and futuristic spaces become living parts of the story.

An undeniably ambitious work, perhaps not without a few rough edges, but rich in value, imagination, and narrative potential. A story that starts well and promises to open wider and wider in the following volumes

Why Should I Read The First Colony?

Because it is a world-novel.
It is a cinematic project.
It is a collaboration of several minds.
It is a collection of love stories. Truly.
It is a big book (the trilogy), but the kind you enjoy reading.
It is a reflection on life, science, and consciousness.
It is the beginning of a war. Perhaps.
It is Zen.
It is a leap forward.
It is an orchestral score.
It is something you do not expect.
It is the first of (at least) three novels (the trilogy).
It is hungry and foolish.
It is easy, but not simple.
It is the Tuscan Archipelago.
It is the Island of Montecristo.
There are dolphins. And Bea.
It has 42 chapters (The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything).
It is frontier science.
It is pure adrenaline.
It is Livorno.
It is many other things.