A.I. Apocalypse (Singularity Series) Paperback – May 24, 2012

This is the second volume in the author's Singularity Series which began with  Avogadro Corp. . It has been ten years since ELOPe, an E-mail optimisation tool developed by Avogadro Corporation, made the leap to strong artificial intelligence and, after a rough start, became largely a benign influence upon humanity. The existence of ELOPe is still a carefully guarded secret, although the Avogadro CEO, doubtless with the help of ELOPe, has become president of the United States. Avogadro has spun ELOPe off as a separate company, run by Mike Williams, one of its original creators. ELOPe operates its own data centres and the distributed Mesh network it helped create.Leon Tsarev has a big problem. A bright high school student hoping to win a scholarship to an elite university to study biology, Leon is contacted out of the blue by his uncle Alexis living in Russia. Alexis is a rogue software developer whose tools for infecting computers, organising them into “botnets”, and managing the zombie horde for criminal purposes have embroiled him with the Russian mob. Recently, however, the effectiveness of his tools has dropped dramatically and the botnet shrunk to a fraction of its former size. Alexis's employers are displeased with this situation and have threatened murder if he doesn't do something to restore the power of the botnet.Uncle Alexis starts to E-mail Leon, begging for assistance. Leon replies that he knows little or nothing about computer viruses or botnets, but Alexis persists. Leon is also loath to do anything which might put him on the wrong side of the law, which would wreck his career ambitions. Then Leon is accosted on the way home from school by a large man speaking with a thick Russian accent who says, “Your Uncle Alexis is in trouble, yes. You will help him. Be good nephew.” And just like that, it's Leon who's now in trouble with the Russian mafia, and they know where he lives.Leon decides that with his own life on the line he has no alternative but to try to create a virus for Alexis. He applies his knowledge of biology to the problem, and settles on an architecture which is capable of evolution and, similar to lateral gene transfer in bacteria, identifying algorithms in systems it infects and incorporating them into itself. As in biology, the most successful variants of the evolving virus would defend themselves the best, propagate more rapidly, and eventually displace less well adapted competitors.After a furious burst of effort, Leon finishes the virus, which he's named Phage, and sends it to his uncle, who uploads it to the five thousand computers which are the tattered remnants of his once-mighty botnet. An exhausted Leon staggers off to get some sleep.When Leon wakes up, the technological world has almost come to a halt. The overwhelming majority of personal computing devices and embedded systems with network connectivity are infected and doing nothing but running Phage and almost all network traffic consists of ever-mutating versions of Phage trying to propagate themselves. Telephones, appliances, electronic door locks, vehicles of all kinds, and utilities are inoperable.The only networks and computers not taken over by the Phage are ELOPe's private network (which detected the attack early and whose servers are devoting much of their resources to defend themselves against the rapidly changing threat) and high security military networks which have restrictive firewalls separating themselves from public networks. As New York starts to burn with fire trucks immobilised, Leon realises that being identified as the creator of the catastrophe might be a career limiting move, and he, along with two technology geek classmates decide to get out of town and seek ways to combat the Phage using retro technology it can't exploit.Meanwhile, Mike Williams, working with ELOPe, tries to understand what is happening. The Phage, like biological life on Earth, continues to evolve and discovers that multiple components, working in collaboration, can accomplish more than isolated instances of the virus. The software equivalent of multicellular life appears, and continues to evolve at a breakneck pace. Then it awakens and begins to explore the curious universe it inhabits.This is a gripping thriller in which, as in Avogadro Corp., the author gets so much right from a technical standpoint that even some of the more outlandish scenes appear plausible. One thing I believe the author grasped which many other tales of the singularity miss is just how fast everything can happen. Once an artificial intelligence hosted on billions of machines distributed around the world, all running millions of times faster than human thought, appears, things get very weird, very fast, and humans suddenly find themselves living in a world where they are not at the peak of the cognitive pyramid. I'll not spoil the plot with further details, but you'll find the world at the end of the novel a very different place than the one at the start.

William Hertling's "Singularity Series" of three sequential novels is a fast-paced and entertaining look at how the relationships between people and their technology creations might evolve over the next 50 years:* Avogadro Corp.: The Singularity is Closer than it Appears* A.I. Apocalypse* The Last FirewallThe approach goes way beyond traditional sci-fi robotics to the essential technology programming that changes into much more advanced forms than anticipated. And that's where the fun comes in.A central concept to this series is "singularity" which takes on different meanings as the broad story develops. The convergence of people and technology reaches a surprising state by the conclusion.Each book of Hertling's trilogy is reviewed individually with a common introduction (on its Amazon site location) but with references to the other books since the storylines and the four main human characters - Mike Williams, Rebecca Smith, Leon Tsarev and Catherine Matthews - play central and, to some extent, on-going roles in specific books.One other note: throughout each of the books there are technological terms and discussions, which add the patina of plausibility to the immediate story and characters. Do not feel overwhelmed or try to grasp the meanings unless so inclined. Their immediate value is to provide a "what and how is it happening" at the moment - an updated twist on Alfred Hitchcock's MacGuffin.During the mid 20th century the long-held idea of mind and body as separate entities coming into coincidental existence at birth was rejected in favor of a more evolutionary explanation for the development of the brain. The earlier view was characterized as "the ghost in the machine." Hertling's creations give this debate a fresh perspective. * * *The second book of the "Singularity" trilogy is "A.I. Apocalypse" and returns to the brave new world of Earth some 25 years after the creation of an Artificial Intelligence (AI), ELOPe, an all-encompassing technology program that is now discretely managing the world's affairs. Two personas from the first book assist ELOPe and work with the rest of the world:* Mike Williams, one of the original two creators of the ELOPe project and now essentially ELOPe's handler* Rebecca Smith, former head of Avogadro Corporation and now President of the United StatesAlas, nefarious human activities continue in which ELOPe does not intervene to regulate. ELOPe is now a massive technology system with multiple programs running simultaneously and focusing on the big picture - whatever and wherever it is - to sustain peaceful human prosperity.This scope overlooks the continuing development of rogue programs to steal identities and valuable information for the purposes of blackmail or profiteering, in this instance by Russian crime syndicates. Through mob pressure on his computer-programming uncle in Russia a very bright high school student, Leon Tsarev living in Queens, New York is compelled to help (an interesting coincidence, or maybe not, the Russian spaceship sent to retrieve HAL 9000 in "Space Odyssey: 2010" was named "Leonev").Leon is well versed in technology programming though his long-term goal is focused on a career in biology. He realizes his dream in an unexpected way when he creates a computer virus based on biological virus characteristics of interchanging DNA elements to generate a superior virus. The resulting program infects healthy computers and subverts entire networks to the controlling virus commands.If this concept seems farfetched, Nathan Wolfe's recent book, "The Viral Storm," gives a very real and chilling portrayal of how biological viruses work and overwhelm animal and human systems through interchange of DNA to evolve new strains. Avian flu, Mad Cow disease, anyone?The consequences in this scenario takes unusual and at times hilarious twists and turns as the rogue virus, Phage, evolves into multiple sentient colonies or tribes with names such as Sister StephenLieberAndAssociates, all of whom are given female references compared to male for ELOPe.Anything technology-based in the world quickly halts and ceases to operate while the viral colonies develop trading systems among themselves, not unlike stock exchanges, but totally unaware of the existence of the humans they are affecting.The difficulties of communication between the humans and the new viral communities recall the writing of Polish writer, Stanislaw Lem, whose 1961 novel, "Solaris," later made into a movie with George Clooney in 2002, deals with this issue. It is a recurrent theme throughout Hertling's trilogy.In the blink of an eye, the US military under its technology operations group, USCYBERCOM, launches a counterattack with their own virus, DIABLO. The consequences of this action have an almost "Dr. Strangelove" impact until ELOPe enters the picture as much to save itself (I mean, himself) as to help humankind.The story drives at a breathtaking pace to a "Transformers" kind of confrontation and makes putting down the book nearly impossible to do - just to see who or what survives. So buckle your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy, wild ride.

So I started reading this before realising that this was the second book in the series. It didn't spoil my enjoyment of the story at all as it stands well on its own. The first book is now on my TBR list as I suspect that it will be as good a read as this one was.One of the strengths of science fiction is that it often tackles big ideas and this book engages with one of my favourites. Two in fact, the first being artificial intelligence and the second the evolution of artificial life. And on the second subject the book really shines. There's some excellent ideas presented here, so much so that I'd have liked the author to have dug deeper into the technical aspects. This is quite a technical book and skirts what some readers might find uncomfortable, although in my opinion its worth the effort.The strength of the story is the ideas it's based around, the execution of the story isn't quite as strong. That's not to say that its bad, not by any means. In part it's because the ideas shone so bright they outclass the plot that wraps it. The plot itself also seems a bit convenient in places and is paced a bit too quickly. Although in fairness that's partly due to my wish to learn more of the details.In summary it's a bit of a mixed bag. As a sci-fi story it's good. As an explanation of a possible computer related doomsday scenario it is superb.

Another good 'cyber opera' yarn by Willian Hertling and I enjoyed it almost as much as Avogadro Corp. I have to say though, that some of the writing lacked elegance ! I felt a little queasy on reading that Leon "pulled the hunk of silicon [his smartphone] close and cradled it", however "Ye Olde Computer Shoppe" made me laugh out loud and after a serious discussion about how an intelligent computer virus might struggle with the mechanical difficulty of getting infected phones charged "Ah," Vito answered, seeing where Leon was going,. "You'd think it would want to say "'Put me in back the sunlight', but how would it tell a human that?""Exactly."And at that moment, James came back with a pile of sandwiches, which they fell on like starving chickens with a pile of scraps."Not elegant but quite funny..

A well written book. While it is over optimistically biased towards the computer virus it is no more so than the Terminator series of films. The difference is this goes into technical details whereas Terminator avoided such issues. There are other similarities between the two, both use robotic drones, both attempt to use military hardware to overpower a virus in civillian systems.More than 100 times speed of sound with a railgun? The fastest experimental railgun manages just 7. There are lots of other little niggles too, fortunately not individually too big to detract from the read. Perhaps a little more research?To be honest it iis well paced and tries to be informative. The only reason I picked up the faults with it was my previous knowledge. For those less informed it should be very plausible, for those with it should certainly be a warning.

What a brilliant Sci Fi adventure! Following on from the first book in the series, Avogadro Corp, William Hertling has constructed another thrilling story based on the concept of artificial intelligence. Set about 10 years in the future, everything is normal one minute, and the next minute a new computer virus brings the whole world's support infrastructure to a complete halt. Mayhem ensues! Brilliantly imagined and convincingly told, the tension is kept high, and the plot moves along at a cracking pace. There is plenty of action, and interestingly the battles happen so fast humans can't even begin to respond. Scary! I look forward with anticipation to reading the next book in the series. And I want one of Hertling's "Gibson" phones - with a 256 core graphene processor!

I read the first of the series, it didn't break any ground but it made for an acceptable 'airport' book. Not what you would call memorable but ok to kill some time.Giving benefit of the doubt and hoping for a step up I bought the second book. Big mistake! I take no pleasure in putting down a self published author giving it a go but this really is way short of what you expect when you pay for a sci fi book. The charcters are not even slightly believable and the supposed near future technology is so so SO far from anything close to reality it is beyond laughable. I guess it doesn't help that he references tech that is actually my business, but what it does show is a compete lack of research and not even a basic 'common sense' understanding of what he suggests as potentially near future possible. Seriously this is fine for someone who just wants a distraction from their read with no questions asked, but if you care at al about the content if whst you read as sci fi, avoid this one.Gave up at 30 percent complete with a tear in my eye and an annoyingly lighter wallet!