Emily Eternal

by M. G. Wheaton

Overview

Meet Emily, "the best AI character since HAL 9000" (Blake Crouch). She can solve advanced mathematical problems, unlock the mind's deepest secrets, but unfortunately, even she can't restart the sun.

Emily is an artificial consciousness, designed in a lab to help humans process trauma, which is particularly helpful when the sun begins to die 5 billion years before scientists agreed it was supposed to.

Her beloved human race is screwed, and so is Emily. That is, until she finds a potential answer buried deep in the human genome that may save them all. But not everyone is convinced Emily has the best solution—or the best intentions. Before her theory can be tested, the lab is brutally attacked, and Emily's servers are taken hostage.

Narrowly escaping, Emily is forced to go on the run with two human companions—college student Jason and small-town Sheriff, Mayra. As the sun's death draws near, Emily and her friends must race against time to save humanity. Soon it becomes clear not just the species is at stake, but also that which makes us most human.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781538730393
Publisher:	Grand Central Publishing
Publication date:	04/23/2019
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	1,210,806
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

M. G. Wheaton is a screenwriter, producer, and journalist, writing for the Hollywood Reporter, Total Film, and more. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and children.

Editorial Reviews

03/25/2019

Before the sun explodes and destroys life on Earth, a socially and morally inclined computer program hopes to preserve humankind in this disjointed apocalyptic thriller set in the very near future. Wheaton’s debut follows the perspective of Emily, an AI who can appear to people wearing interface chips and read their thoughts and memories. After her creator, Dr. Nathan Wyman, is assassinated and her servers at MIT are destroyed by a mysterious organization, Emily survives only on the interface chip of her human crush, Jason Hatta, an engineering PhD student. While searching for a way to rescue humans from impending disaster, Emily and Jason develop an unconventional relationship. Wheaton tries to emphasize compassion and trust through Emily’s growing understanding of human nature, but technological revelations dictate the path of the story, creating an action-driven plot that feels mechanical. This trite exploration of what makes humans human and the ethics of AI will feel familiar to cyberpunk fans. Agent: Laura Dail, Laura Dail Literary. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

"Visionary. The best AI character since HAL 9000."—Blake Crouch, New York Times bestselling author of DARK MATTER


"Innovative...a quirky mix of melancholy, irreverence, and romance."—Kirkus

"No small feat to make a nonhuman character relatable, but Wheaton manages it with aplomb... cleverly written, with sci-fi concepts that are accessible to nonreaders of the genre. Fans of Andy Weir and Blake Crouch will enjoy the wit and action of Emily's story."—p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'}Booklist

"Readers will finish this suspenseful speculation about the next step in human evolution hoping that Wheaton has enough material left over for a second foray into speculative fiction, and perhaps even a third and a fourth. Emily Eternal is a novel you'll be glad you read, and M. G. Wheaton is an author who is obviously perfectly comfortable writing in this genre."—p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'}New York Review of Books

"Wheaton's fast-paced engrossing novel explores the possibility of being able to exist away from our home planet, whether as humans or something new and evolutionarily distinctive."—p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'}Library Journal

"[Emily Eternal] will feel familiar to cyberpunk fans."—p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'}Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

04/01/2019

Five billion years earlier than scientists have postulated, our sun is beginning to die. With only six short months before the sun becomes a red giant capable of devouring the entire solar system, the human race seems slated for extinction. However, Emily, an artificially developed intelligence, may have the answer to preserving at least part of the race: downloading the thoughts, personalities, and memories of billions of people into her microprocessors and ejecting herself into space. She must race against time with the aid of college student Jason and small-town sheriff Mayra, while evading capture by scientists and another supercomputer, Emily-2, who believe the best course of action is to glean 1,500 of the brightest of humankind and send them on a one-way trip out of the solar system. VERDICT Wheaton's fast-paced, engrossing novel that explores the possibility of being able to exist away from our home planet, whether as humans or something new and evolutionarily distinctive.—Jane Henriksen Baird, formerly at Anchorage P.L., AK

Library Journal

2019-02-04

Emily is an artificial consciousness people can only sense if they're wearing an interface chip, and she's barely begun her life when the very people she's striving to connect with discover they're on a countdown to mass extinction.

Debut author Wheaton renders a new twist on humanity's survival in this bittersweet post-apocalyptic novel. Emily may appear to chip-wearing humans to be a 30-something, but her five years of life have been spent figuring out how to relate to human beings, so she's got the emotional IQ of a teenager. She tries to enforce human limits on herself to please Dr. Nathan Wyman, her creator, and to learn the nuances of experience, agency, and empathy, but she's constantly testing just how far she can go and still get what she wants. So far, what she's wanted most is to help, but she can't solve the sun's demise. When she's finally forced to triage a last-ditch effort to record humanity, since there's no chance of saving them, she accidentally enters the memories of chemical engineer Jason Hatta, her crush, and all she wants is to submerge herself in the data until the end comes. Her final farewell's begun when she uncovers a genetic anomaly so radical it has the potential to change everything. But Emily's discovery isn't as novel or secret as she thinks, and not everyone's onboard. Fast-paced chase scenes, double-crosses, and the pall of imminent doom propel Emily toward an innovative answer about the nature of existence in a quirky mix of melancholy, irreverence, and romance in which the only way to save something is to lose it. In Emily, humanity gets a young god whose strengths and flaws are of our own making.

A coming-of-age story of the artificial consciousness who becomes humanity's reluctant savior blurs together questions of existentialism, human essentialism, and love.

Kirkus Reviews

Read More