2054
A Novel
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3.8 • 61 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
From the acclaimed authors of the runaway New York Times bestseller 2034 comes another explosive work of speculative fiction set twenty years further in the future, at a moment when a radical leap forward in artificial intelligence combines with America’s violent partisan divide to create an existential threat to the country, and the world
It is twenty years after the catastrophic war between the United States and China that brought down the old American political order. A new party has emerged in the US, one that’s held power for over a decade. Efforts to cement its grip have resulted in mounting violent resistance. The American president has control of the media, but he is beginning to lose control of the streets. Many fear he’ll stop at nothing to remain in the White House. Suddenly, he collapses in the middle of an address to the nation. After an initial flurry of misinformation, the administration reluctantly announces his death. A cover-up ensues, conspiracy theories abound, and the country descends into a new type of civil war.
A handful of elite actors from the worlds of computer science, intelligence, and business have a fairly good idea what happened. All signs point to a profound breakthrough in AI, of which the remote assassination of an American president is hardly the most game-changing ramification. The trail leads to an outpost in the Amazon rainforest, the last known whereabouts of the tech visionary who predicted this breakthrough. As some of the world’s great powers, old and new, state and nonstate alike, struggle to outmaneuver one another in this new Great Game of scientific discovery, the outcome becomes entangled with the fate of American democracy.
Combining a deep understanding of AI, biotech, and the possibility of a coming Singularity, along with their signature geopolitical sophistication, Elliot Ackerman and Admiral James Stavridis have once again written a visionary work. 2054 is a novel that reads like a thriller even as it demands that we consider the trajectory of our society and its potentially calamitous destination.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Former Marine Ackerman and retired Navy admiral Stavridis follow up 2034 with another top-shelf thriller about near-future geopolitical turmoil. The decade-long rule of American president Angel Castro, whose American Dream Party has weakened both the Democratic and Republican parties to the point of near-extinction, ends suddenly after he collapses during a public speech. At first, Castro's administration covers up the incident, digitally altering images to make it seem as if he only stumbled. When Castro dies a short time later, however, the deception is exposed, exacerbating political tensions across the country. As the U.S. teeters on the edge of civil war, tech leaders privately struggle with concerns that Castro's death—the result of a mysterious growth on his heart—may be connected to a nascent biotechnology that can alter human cells via remote gene editing software. If so, the incident may mean that humanity is approaching "the Singularity" long predicted by technologist Ray Kurzweil, in which human and machine merge "into a single consciousness." White House aides, doctors, tech experts, and military personnel attempt to track down Kurzweil for guidance while keeping the existing shards of American democracy intact. Spreading the narrative's focus over many characters and nations, Ackerman and Stavridis paint a sweeping and resonant portrait of a world faced with a powerful technological advancement it doesn't fully understand. The results are genuinely chilling.
Customer Reviews
Hmm. Ok. Not quite sure of the point.
I enjoyed 2034 — read it twice. However this story wasn’t quite as tight. To me the plot was amorphous and the connection to characters from 2034 unnecessary.
Spoiler: this might have been better as two separate storylines: one focusing on the future extrapolation of American politics; the second focusing on
the singularity. The combination deprives each of sufficient treatment and makes for a story that doesn’t quite mesh the two concepts.
I’ll look forward to 2074 and hope it focuses on the first storyline. That should be interesting and relevant considering the current state of politics in America.