Transcension
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- $3.99
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- $3.99
Publisher Description
Aleph is a machine mentality overseeing a future Earth largely bereft of humans, most of whom have sublimed into a virtuality.Remaining are the smug but cautious adherents of science. Amanda, still a teen at age 30, is a skilled violinist and mathematician but craves the applause of the Mall for some daring exploit.
In a nearby enclave live the rustic, non-scientific people who worship the god of their choice. In the center of their poly-religious valley a wicked tower has emerged, surely a tool of evil temptation. Far below, a supersonic railroad is being constructed. Amanda conceives a dangerous feat: to enter the valley and descend to the rushing train, hitching a mad ride to the next city.
Using a cyber "Liar bee," she buzzes the ear of young Matthewmark, who chafes under the restrictions of his own narrow society. He agrees to aid Amanda and her friend Vikram Singh, but the scheme goes horribly wrong. Vik dies; Matthewmark's brain is seriously damaged, although he recovers with advanced neurological prostheses. This treatment, condemned by his own people, allows him contact with the AI Aleph.
In a series of startling moves, Amanda graduates to adulthood (and her modish clipped speech patterns give way to this new sophistication), while Matthewmark explores uncanny and sometimes very funny opportunities in the Alephverse, climaxing in the dismantling of the solar system and its embrace by the hyperuniverse beyond ours. This is the Singularity, at last, the Transcension, and everyone lives happily ever after, for rather mindboggling values of "lives" and "happily."
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Anyone who can't imagine grinning at the end of life as we know it should skip this book, but it'll be fun for people self-confident enough to imagine a lighthearted fusion of Clarke's Childhood's End and the movie Clueless. When Amanda, an adventurous adolescent girl, wanders into the life and mind of Mathewmark, a young man living in the Valley of the God of One's Choice, a low-tech, religious enclave, the two are soon on the bumpy road to romance. Meanwhile, the resurrected version of a scientist who'd been attempting to create artificial intelligence observes and attempts to judge what he sees in this fractured future. He's aware that an AI controls the world and may even have created the sensations that convince him there is a world out there. So should he be afraid? Angry? How should he feel when the AI begins to evolve into something else, changing the nature of humanity, too? As for Mathewmark and Amanda, they misunderstand each other, make fools of themselves and feel real pain, but also discover that change is more exciting than frightening. Australian author Broderick (The Dreaming Dragons) sees how silly individual humans can be, especially when they choose to stay isolated. However, he also believes that technology gives us fresh possibilities for unity and growth. By the end, the young people's gusto is contagious, and readers can feel confident that we'll all be able to cope with new challenges.
