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Summary
Summary
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.
Author Notes
Elliot Ackerman is the author of the novels Halcyon , Red Dress in Black and White , Waiting for Eden , Dark at the Crossing , and Green on Blue , and the memoirs The Fifth Act and Places and Names . His books have been nominated for the National Book Award and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. He is both a former White House Fellow and Marine, and served five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he received the Silver Star, the Bronze Star for Valor, and the Purple Heart. He is currently a contributing writer at The Atlantic .
Admiral James Stavridis, USN (Ret.), spent more than thirty years in the US Navy, rising to the rank of four-star admiral. He was Supreme Allied Commander at NATO and previously commanded US Southern Command, overseeing military operations through Latin America. At sea, he commanded a Navy destroyer, a destroyer squadron, and an aircraft carrier battle group in combat. He holds a PhD from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, where he recently served five years as dean. He received fifty medals in the course of his military career, including twenty-eight from foreign nations. He has published twelve other books and is chief international analyst for NBC News and a Bloomberg Opinion weekly columnist. He is currently partner and vice chair, global affairs of the Carlyle Group and the chair of the board of the Rockefeller Foundation.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
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. Agent: Andrew Wylie, Wylie Agency. (Mar.)
Booklist Review
This duo's previous work, 2034 (2021), imagined how technological developments could cause a global conflict; the sequel considers how currently fanciful concepts such as "remote gene editing" and achieving the singularity could actually wreak havoc within the U.S. Cycling through the perspectives of some characters from 2034--Hendrickson is now a central governmental figure, and Dr. Chowdury is looking for a cure for his ailing heart--while also introducing a raft of new characters, the novel opens with an image of a nation descending into authoritarianism. President Castro is looking for an unprecedented fourth term, and the country is split between "Dreamers" and "Truthers" (the latter being an unlikely alliance between Republicans and Democrats). When Castro mysteriously dies, his replacement, Smith, desperately tries to cling to power and conceal the technology that may have killed his running mate. However, a mysterious website, Common Sense, suggests what really happened, upping the temperature across the nation. Gripping and imaginative, if perhaps not as viscerally impactful as 2034, this is an enjoyable techno-thriller that explores the chaotic, self-destructive potential of human ingenuity.
Kirkus Review
The Singularity may become the new ultimate weapon in the aftermath of a nuclear debacle. If the page-and-a-half prologue doesn't stop the reader cold, nothing will. It begins: "If a beam of light / energy / open + / close-- / reopen == / repeat / stop..." Stop, indeed. This will prompt only the geekiest among us to move on to Chapter 1. But do turn the page. In 2054, the U.S. is in turmoil. Two decades earlier, China nuked San Diego and Galveston while the U.S. inflicted the same on Shanghai and Shenzhen. In the aftermath, the two countries no longer dominate the world, and traditional U.S. political parties are no more. The current action begins when the physically fit President Ángel Castro collapses while giving a speech, prompting "malicious rumors that the president had suffered some sort of health crisis." He had, and he dies. Of course, there are profound suspicions over his sudden demise. Was the president's aorta inflamed by a sequence of computer code, à la the prologue? Is he a victim of "remote gene editing" by an unknown entity? Hence the inklings of the 21st century's new existential threat, a race to achieve the Singularity, where--to oversimplify--technology and humanity become one. The cast includes some holdovers from the authors' last book, 2034, including Dr. Sandy Chowdhury and Julia Hunt, a woman born in China with allegiance to the U.S. But key is the elusive (and nonfictional) Dr. Ray Kurzweil, thought to be living in Brazil. Meanwhile, American society threatens to explode into civil war between Dreamers and Truthers. But if the ultimate threat to humanity is the Singularity, it doesn't come through convincingly on these pages. In 2034, the stakes were brutally clear, with millions of lives on the line. Two decades hence, they're mushier--serious to be sure, but tougher to wrap up into a thriller. With apologies to T. S. Eliot: This is the way the book ends / Not with a bang but a whimper. A game effort at a tough theme. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Excerpts
Excerpts
13:57 May 07, 2054 (-5 GMT) São Paulo Chowdhury awoke gradually. He'd taken a journey of weeks, in which he'd been dead or as close to death as a person can come. The cocktail prescribed by his doctors at Neutronics had slowed his body function to undetectable levels, and now they were bringing him back. It took a while before he once again became cognizant of where he was and what he was doing there. A clock hung on the wall of the dimly lit recovery room. Vague silhouettes flitted in and out of the room, but Chowdhury had no capacity to focus on anything except the clock. Its stubby hour hand. Its long minute hand. Chowdhury tried to concentrate on its movement, but it appeared frozen. He had to look away and look back to gauge the passage of time. Minutes . . . hours . . . days . . . Chowdhury couldn't say necessarily how long he stared at the clock as his faculties returned to him. He heard a voice calling his name. "Dr. Chowdhury . . ." A light flashed in his eyes, painful, startling. As he flinched, a muscle in the back of his neck spasmed. ". . . it's Dr. Bakari," said the voice, which sounded like it was underwater. "You're in the recovery room. Can you hear me?" Yes, he thought he said. But no sound came. She repeated the question. "Yes," he said. It came out as a dry whisper. Gently, she propped up his head and placed a plastic cup of water to his lips. When she tilted the cup forward, he began to choke and sputter. Then his body remembered itself and he swallowed a mouthful of the water. "Well done," said Dr. Bakari as she wiped up what had dribbled down his chin and onto his chest. With great effort, he could feel himself smile at her. Spent, he shut his eyes. When he opened them again some time had passed, and the room appeared different. It was no longer dim; it was illuminated under harsh, bright lights. The clock still hung on the wall. He felt refreshed, as if he'd simply woken from a decent night's sleep. Sitting on a chair at his bedside was Ashni. When he turned toward her and said her name, she startled. "You're awake," she said, allowing a little sob of relief to blend with her words. She took his hand and kissed his dry, tissue paper-like skin, near where the doctors had connected an intravenous port. Ashni reached across his bed to press the call button that would summon one of the attending physicians. Chowdhury stopped her. "How many days has it been?" he asked. "It's been two weeks, Bapu." Excerpted from 2054: A Novel by Elliot Ackerman, James Stavridis All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
