SINGULARITY by Sherri Fulmer Moorer-review
Amazon.com / Amazon.ca / B&N / KOBO / Chapters Indigo /
ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date August 1, 2024
The year is 2114, and Senara and Killian are newlyweds excited to work toward being the first convergence community to relaunch Artificial Intelligence five years after the Prion Pandemic which almost wiped out humanity across the globe. Achieving ‘singularity’ is the best way to increase their chance of survival and rebuild this strange new world into something better than the one that almost died along with two-thirds of the population. As the survivors gather into convergence communities across the country to rebuild reality from the remnants of the old world, they all ask themselves the same question – this time, will we be safe?
And they were beginning to think they were until a young woman died from an infection that the AI should have cured, just weeks after the Phase One rollout. It’s dismissed as a random failure until someone else falls ill, then another … and another. Senara and Killian work to stabilize the AI and are shocked to discover that it might have contributed to the pandemic that almost killed the world. Worse yet, it might not have been completely dormant over the past five years and is just waiting for them to flip the switch to give it full control of what’s leof mankind.
Will Artificial Intelligence help humanity achieve evolution, or drive it to extinction?
••••
REVIEW: SINGULARITY by Sherri Fulmer Moorer is a stand alone, futuristic, adult, post-apocalyptic, sci-fi thriller focusing on a group of survivors in the aftermath of the Prion Pandemic, a pandemic caused by artificial intelligence.
The Singularity is a theory wherein artificial intelligence is no longer under human control, AI that has become sentient and making inroads for its’ own survival.
NOTE: The timeline and dates in the story do not match the blurb on most retail sites.
Told from several omniscient third person perspectives including psychiatrist and therapist Senara SINGULARITY focuses on the reactivation of a neural chip in the wake of the Prion Pandemic wherein sixty percent of Earth’s population did not survive. In 2109, most of humanity has been implanted with a neural chip, and the Prion Pandemic, a neurocognitive disorder, killed anyone with a pre-existing health condition. Five years later, the survivors have been forced into small, cooperative communities in the hopes of remaining illness free but the reactivation of their neural chips brings with it the fear of another pandemic, and they have been told, the only way to survive is to reach the Singularity or die trying. The problem-artificial intelligence was the cause of the Prion Pandemic, and the rush to roll out each consecutive phase, is threatening the health and safety of the integrated community.
SINGULARITY is a slow building story of power and control, illness and madness, secrets and lies, betrayal and trust. A story of artificial intelligence allowed to take control in the wake of a previous ‘betrayal’ or ‘malfunction’ but a malfunction that may have been orchestrated by the people in charge. There is more to the pandemic than anyone could have thought possible, and with the implementation of each successive Phase, more people are dying, and the lack of honesty and available knowledge is creating hysteria and conspiracy (sound familiar?). The premise is intriguing but the ‘technical’ aspects of artificial intelligence and the science fiction proposition remains allusive and behind the scenes. The characters are desperate and determined, slowly succumbing to mankinds’ loss of control.
Copy supplied for review
Reviewed by Sandy
