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The Archon Sequence #1
Singularity (The Archon Sequence) (Volume 1) by Bill DeSmedt
Bill DeSmedt should be on the bestseller lists with Tom Clancy and Dan Brown. DeSmedt's ambitious and exciting debut novel, Singularity, mixes a post-Cold-War conspiracy with cutting-edge quantum physics and a century-old mystery to create a terrifying techno-thriller. A secret US government agency, CROM, fights terrorism by apprehending or terminating post-Soviet scientists before they sell the technology of mass destruction to terrorists. A rookie CROM agent, Marianna Bonaventure, and a brilliant consultant, Jonathan Knox, find themselves on an undercover mission to locate a missing Russian physicist. Instead, they discover a secret far scarier than terrorists with nuclear weapons.
The famous "meteor" that devastated Siberia's Tunguska wasteland in 1908 was no meteor. It was a microscopic black hole that entered the earth's crust--and never exited. Trapped, it may eventually devour the earth. But a small, clandestine group has developed secret technology to capture the black hole. If the conspirators succeed, the world will be enslaved by a dictatorship made omnipotent by the black hole's quantum effects. If the conspirators fail, they will accelerate the black hole's destructiveness--and guarantee the earth's immediate annihilation. Bonaventure and Knox rush to stop the conspirators--but they may already be too late. --Cynthia Ward
The famous "meteor" that devastated Siberia's Tunguska wasteland in 1908 was no meteor. It was a microscopic black hole that entered the earth's crust--and never exited. Trapped, it may eventually devour the earth. But a small, clandestine group has developed secret technology to capture the black hole. If the conspirators succeed, the world will be enslaved by a dictatorship made omnipotent by the black hole's quantum effects. If the conspirators fail, they will accelerate the black hole's destructiveness--and guarantee the earth's immediate annihilation. Bonaventure and Knox rush to stop the conspirators--but they may already be too late. --Cynthia Ward
Mass Market Paperback
First published November 1, 2004
22 people are currently reading
650 people want to read
About the author
Bill DeSmedt
9 books158 followersBill DeSmedt has spent his life living by his wits and his words. In his time, and as the spirit has moved him, he’s been: a Soviet Area expert and Soviet exchange student, a computer programmer and system designer, a consultant to startups and the Fortune 500, an Artificial Intelligence researcher, an omnivorous reader with a soft spot for science fiction and science non-fiction, and now, Lord help us, a novelist!
Bill's first novel, SINGULARITY (2004), won Foreword Magazine's Book of the Year Award for Science Fiction and the Independent Publisher Group's IPPY for Best Science Fiction. The free podcast of SINGULARITY, available on the web at Podiobooks.com, has gone on to be named an SFFaudio Essential, while SINGULARITY itself has evolved into the first of the "Archon Sequence" of loosely related technothrillers, followed by DUALISM (2014) and the forthcoming TRIPLOIDY.
Bill's first novel, SINGULARITY (2004), won Foreword Magazine's Book of the Year Award for Science Fiction and the Independent Publisher Group's IPPY for Best Science Fiction. The free podcast of SINGULARITY, available on the web at Podiobooks.com, has gone on to be named an SFFaudio Essential, while SINGULARITY itself has evolved into the first of the "Archon Sequence" of loosely related technothrillers, followed by DUALISM (2014) and the forthcoming TRIPLOIDY.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 51 reviews
July 1, 2024
What can I say? -- I wrote it. But other people seemed to like it. To quote Stephen Hawking's best bud Kip Thorne: “Bill got the vast majority of the physics right, which is highly unusual — especially in a book that is such a good read.”
If you want a hardcover, though, you'll have to move quickly -- the first edition (available on Amazon and B&N.com) is nearly sold out. Alternatively, you can listen to the free podcast at http://www.podiobooks.com/title/singu....
If you want a hardcover, though, you'll have to move quickly -- the first edition (available on Amazon and B&N.com) is nearly sold out. Alternatively, you can listen to the free podcast at http://www.podiobooks.com/title/singu....
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 10, 2008
The basis of the story revolves around an event that occurred in 1908 in the bleak Siberian locale named Tunguska. The novel supposes that the Tunguska explosion of 1908 wasn't caused by a meteor or a comet, as commonly thought, but by a sub atomic black hole.
The story ends up being quite a thriller -- utilizing secret government agencies, innocent bystanders evolving into heroes, and quantum physics. Quantum physics, you ask? Now don't get me wrong...I did not pay attention in physics class in high school or college, for that matter. Still the story is plausible because the author is adept at explaining the intricacies of quantum physics (i.e. lifecycles of black holes, Hawking radiation, etc.) without putting the reader to sleep. I would say that the experience of reading this book was akin to reading Jurassic Park, where Michael Crichton explained the minutia of DNA splicing that gave you just enough of an understanding to be dangerous and resonates so closely to actual fact that reader is convinced that dinosaurs can be extracted from amber! In the same sense, Bill DeSmedt has the reader believing that a sub atomic black hole could be orbiting in the Earth's crust, lurking.
I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the quality of the characters. I absolutely fell in love with one of the primary characters, Jonathan Knox. Jonathan is a consultant who becomes wrapped up (no pun intended) with a elite government agency operative named Marianna Bonaventure. Their quest to locate a missing Russian scientist leads them into the hands of the seemingly innocuous Russian billionaire, Arkady Grigoriyevich Greshin. But under the cultured facade of their Russian host lurks an uber-secret effort to catch a primordial black hole and change the course of history! Assisted by Mycroft (a computer specialist of unmatched ability) and Texas physicist Jack Adler, Jonathan and Marianna try to unravel this mystery before time runs out -- for everyone on Earth!
The author himself was a one time physics major, a consultant, and has a background in Russian studies (a la Jonathan Knox). The latter is important to the audiobook because the author uses Russian accents to bring his characters to life. It brings a whole new dimension to the experience of the story and makes it absolutely riveting.
Since reading this book I felt a bit of regret that I didn't delve further into the sciences while in school. On the bright side, I was inspired by this book to read Stephen Hawkings book A Brief History of Time and The Universe in a Nutshell (which I am currently reading). I believe the highest praise an author can receive is that the results of their craft motivated another person in some small way.
One last note: If you're intrigued you can get the free podcast version of the audiobook at the author's website (there is a link for it at the bottom of the page):
http://www.billdesmedt.com/
The story ends up being quite a thriller -- utilizing secret government agencies, innocent bystanders evolving into heroes, and quantum physics. Quantum physics, you ask? Now don't get me wrong...I did not pay attention in physics class in high school or college, for that matter. Still the story is plausible because the author is adept at explaining the intricacies of quantum physics (i.e. lifecycles of black holes, Hawking radiation, etc.) without putting the reader to sleep. I would say that the experience of reading this book was akin to reading Jurassic Park, where Michael Crichton explained the minutia of DNA splicing that gave you just enough of an understanding to be dangerous and resonates so closely to actual fact that reader is convinced that dinosaurs can be extracted from amber! In the same sense, Bill DeSmedt has the reader believing that a sub atomic black hole could be orbiting in the Earth's crust, lurking.
I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the quality of the characters. I absolutely fell in love with one of the primary characters, Jonathan Knox. Jonathan is a consultant who becomes wrapped up (no pun intended) with a elite government agency operative named Marianna Bonaventure. Their quest to locate a missing Russian scientist leads them into the hands of the seemingly innocuous Russian billionaire, Arkady Grigoriyevich Greshin. But under the cultured facade of their Russian host lurks an uber-secret effort to catch a primordial black hole and change the course of history! Assisted by Mycroft (a computer specialist of unmatched ability) and Texas physicist Jack Adler, Jonathan and Marianna try to unravel this mystery before time runs out -- for everyone on Earth!
The author himself was a one time physics major, a consultant, and has a background in Russian studies (a la Jonathan Knox). The latter is important to the audiobook because the author uses Russian accents to bring his characters to life. It brings a whole new dimension to the experience of the story and makes it absolutely riveting.
Since reading this book I felt a bit of regret that I didn't delve further into the sciences while in school. On the bright side, I was inspired by this book to read Stephen Hawkings book A Brief History of Time and The Universe in a Nutshell (which I am currently reading). I believe the highest praise an author can receive is that the results of their craft motivated another person in some small way.
One last note: If you're intrigued you can get the free podcast version of the audiobook at the author's website (there is a link for it at the bottom of the page):
http://www.billdesmedt.com/
December 8, 2011
I have been listening to the audiobook version of this (found on Podiobooks.com) on my commute, and have been blown away by the story. It's gripping, action packed, and filled with excellent science and geek-ness. Super spies, corporate greed, and a quantum singularity.
December 18, 2014
Science Fiction. Hard science fiction. Dense science fiction. Like a … you get the point.
Incredible freshman effort which grabs the reader by the throat and drags him or her, often willingly, deep into history, science, politics and consequences. You can read the blurb at any good book site, but they can’t tell you how DeSmedt skillfully lays out the treads to his tale then meticulously weaves them into a plausible, yet incredible, plot. He does.
Few technical quibbles and only one lapse of logic, but most readers won’t spot it or won’t care. I didn’t.
And, almost as important these days, it’s a complete, satisfying tale told between one pair of covers.
Excellent job.
Incredible freshman effort which grabs the reader by the throat and drags him or her, often willingly, deep into history, science, politics and consequences. You can read the blurb at any good book site, but they can’t tell you how DeSmedt skillfully lays out the treads to his tale then meticulously weaves them into a plausible, yet incredible, plot. He does.
Few technical quibbles and only one lapse of logic, but most readers won’t spot it or won’t care. I didn’t.
And, almost as important these days, it’s a complete, satisfying tale told between one pair of covers.
Excellent job.
May 13, 2014
I reviewed this book a few years back for Infinity Plus and was reminded of it recently. As it's a favourite book of mine I thought I'd "reprint" my Infinity Plus review here
The first book from a new Seattle publisher that aims to compete head-on with the established "big boys", Per Aspera Press, Singularity is an effective technothriller that stamps DeSmedt's name on the field in no uncertain manner.
Marianna Bonaventure is an inexperienced agent for CROM, a US covert agency charged with keeping track of the nuclear materials and knowhow left lying around after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and -- more to the point -- with attempting to make sure none of it falls into the hands of terrorists or rogue nations. (Yes, there's an irony in the "rogue nations" part of this.) She finds that there is something suspicious going on around the enigmatic Russian industrialist Arkady Grishin, who makes his base of operations on a vast ocean liner, the Rusalka. In order to help her probe this mystery, she ropes in Jonathan Knox, a high-priced civilian business analyst who has a great knack for solving problems through near-instinctive pattern-recognition. At first reluctant about everything to do with the caper except the charms of Ms Bonaventure, Knox soon finds himself an enthusiastic participant in the investigation, as it becomes clearer and clearer that the nature of Grishin's ambitions is world-affectingly grim.
Meanwhile, on the far side of the globe, Texan physicist Jack Adler is bemused to the extent to which his Russian colleagues on an expedition into the wilds of Siberia to examine the region of the Tunguska Event of 1907 are resistant to his theory of its cause. That theory posits that the earth was hit by a mini black hole, a remnant from the Big Bang. It's a perfectly valid real-world hypothesis; Adler's extension of it is that the black hole may very well have taken up a complex spiralling orbit within the body of our planet. He finds what appears to be proof of this, but then all of his records and equipment are destroyed in a murderous attack.
Through many complicated routes, Bonaventure and Knox, placed as spies aboard the Rusalka, come close to hitting on Adler's theory independently, and in due course their suspicions are confirmed through a direct electronic contact with Adler himself. Grishin and his scientists have developed a way of capturing the black hole, stripping it temporarily of its event horizon, and using the naked singularity as a time machine whereby they can alter history to their own gain and human civilization's enormous disbenefit.
As in any technothriller, there are two elements to this novel, the techno part -- the scientific/technological underpinning -- and the thriller part.
It's in the techno part that DeSmedt shines. He has an astonishing gift for explaining really quite abstruse physical and technological concepts with clarity and immediacy, and in making such explanations both fascinating and -- let's be forthright here -- enormous fun. Even if you're perfectly au fait with current ideas about black holes and their physics, the novel is worth reading just for the flamboyant joy of these expository passages. DeSmedt is clearly passionately in love with these areas of physics, and he succeeds completely in conveying that passion to the reader.
Similarly, his extrapolations from present into near-future technology are entirely convincing -- at least to this reader. I finished this book with my mind in a total jumble as to which of the communication/surveillance technologies depicted are current in the real world and which are merely products of DeSmedt's controlled imagination; all of them seemed equally plausible. As for the technologies involved in black-hole capture, they too seemed highly feasible. It's a while since my disbelief has been so convincingly suspended by a technothriller.
DeSmedt is less accomplished in the thriller element of the novel, but luckily he's saved by another of his great skills: the creation of excellently sympathetic characters. Marianna Bonaventure is a wonderful creation; she stands out in a genre where the smart, kickass, yummy female has come to be regarded as little more than a standard part of the toolkit. This is because all of her many strengths as a person are in part a product of the weaknesses she also possesses. At first she completely flummoxes Knox, who simply cannot find a way to relate to her complexities, his reactions to her beauty and her personality all clashing with each other. The reader's reactions are likely to be similar, until at last, probably more than halfway through this long book, it becomes possible to understand, at all levels, this thoroughly three-dimensional -- and certainly very engaging -- individual.
Knox himself is no mean fictional creation. He's somewhat reminiscent of an Ellery Queen for the twenty-first century in his powers of ratiocination and his veneer of general geekiness, but he's a far more real person than Ellery Queen could ever be. DeSmedt's semi-major characters, too, leap from the page: Sasha, the old friend of Knox's who has compromised his idealism in the pursuit of entrancing technology; Galina, another old acquaintance of Knox, a tragic figure whose love for children is brutally matched by her inability to have a child of her own, and who, unknowing of Grishin's fell motives, is the primary technological brain behind his endeavours; and Mycroft, a.k.a., Dr Finley Laurence, the super-analyst and cybernautics genius to whom Knox turns when his own impressive analytical powers prove insufficient. Even Bonaventure's boss, the shoot-first-think-later bureaucratic numbskull Pete Aristos, has a delightful sense of realness about him. Only the character intended as our heroes' ultimate focus of dread, Yuri, Grishin's murderous sidekick, is a bit of a cypher; in essence, he's Jaws from the James Bond movies but without any of the redeeming characteristics. Grishin likewise seems to have been drawn from Central Casting.
Perhaps Yuri in particular epitomizes the novel's weakness as a thriller. The thug-dodging and general hijinks are all perfectly competently done, but they lack the marvelous originality of the rest of the novel: you find yourself aching for each "exciting bit" to be over so you can get back to the really exciting stories being told -- the next link in the scientific chain, or what's happening in the faux pas-strewn mutual circling going on between Bonaventure and Knox. As implied above, it's because of the enormous strength of these aspects -- the scientific and the emotional -- that the novel swings grippingly along at the high pace that it does; the relative weakness of the adventure aspects, their resorting-to-the-default aura, becomes more or less irrelevant.
The back of the book bears a stack of cover quotes from noteworthies: Kevin J. Anderson, David Brin, Kip Thorne, Greg Bear and Anthony Olcott. Unusually, I found that I agreed with just about everything they say; for once their enthusiasm isn't merely mega-inflated hype. With one exception. Anderson says: "Singularity juggles Clancy, Crichton, and The Da Vinci Code." The comparison with Crichton is justified, although DeSmedt is by far the better novelist of the two. The comparison with Clancy may be justified: I've never been able to get beyond about twenty pages of any of Clancy's writings, so rely for my knowledge of them on the rather jolly movies. But Singularity has no connection whatsoever with The Da Vinci Code; the comment is quite simply absurd -- a thoroughly egregious example of the base art of rentaquote. In the ordinary way I'd not bother mentioning this piece of folly, but Singularity is something, well, a bit special. Shame on Per Aspera for so cheapening the treasure they've published!
Throughout this review I've been describing Singularity as a technothriller. As will be evident, though, it can also be approached as hard sf. In that context, too, it's eminently successful -- in fact, it's the most readable piece of hard sf, by a quite significant margin, that I've come across in a fairly long while, and, enlivened as it is by its glorious characterization (or, to be waspish, by characters at all), should be recommended reading for most of the authors currently working in the subgenre.
However, matters of categorization are best left to the Dryasdusts and Panglosses: technothriller or hard sf, who really cares? It's purely as a work of imaginative fiction, classification be damned, that Singularity should be assessed. Well, put it this way: this is a book you'll want to own in hardback. Even if your more usual taste is for fantasy (well, perhaps not if it's for generic high fantasy), you're almost certain to enjoy this one. DeSmedt is a wonderful newcomer to the field, and his debut one of great significance to it. I cannot believe otherwise than that his voice will be given the attention it so emphatically deserves in the years to come.
The first book from a new Seattle publisher that aims to compete head-on with the established "big boys", Per Aspera Press, Singularity is an effective technothriller that stamps DeSmedt's name on the field in no uncertain manner.
Marianna Bonaventure is an inexperienced agent for CROM, a US covert agency charged with keeping track of the nuclear materials and knowhow left lying around after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and -- more to the point -- with attempting to make sure none of it falls into the hands of terrorists or rogue nations. (Yes, there's an irony in the "rogue nations" part of this.) She finds that there is something suspicious going on around the enigmatic Russian industrialist Arkady Grishin, who makes his base of operations on a vast ocean liner, the Rusalka. In order to help her probe this mystery, she ropes in Jonathan Knox, a high-priced civilian business analyst who has a great knack for solving problems through near-instinctive pattern-recognition. At first reluctant about everything to do with the caper except the charms of Ms Bonaventure, Knox soon finds himself an enthusiastic participant in the investigation, as it becomes clearer and clearer that the nature of Grishin's ambitions is world-affectingly grim.
Meanwhile, on the far side of the globe, Texan physicist Jack Adler is bemused to the extent to which his Russian colleagues on an expedition into the wilds of Siberia to examine the region of the Tunguska Event of 1907 are resistant to his theory of its cause. That theory posits that the earth was hit by a mini black hole, a remnant from the Big Bang. It's a perfectly valid real-world hypothesis; Adler's extension of it is that the black hole may very well have taken up a complex spiralling orbit within the body of our planet. He finds what appears to be proof of this, but then all of his records and equipment are destroyed in a murderous attack.
Through many complicated routes, Bonaventure and Knox, placed as spies aboard the Rusalka, come close to hitting on Adler's theory independently, and in due course their suspicions are confirmed through a direct electronic contact with Adler himself. Grishin and his scientists have developed a way of capturing the black hole, stripping it temporarily of its event horizon, and using the naked singularity as a time machine whereby they can alter history to their own gain and human civilization's enormous disbenefit.
As in any technothriller, there are two elements to this novel, the techno part -- the scientific/technological underpinning -- and the thriller part.
It's in the techno part that DeSmedt shines. He has an astonishing gift for explaining really quite abstruse physical and technological concepts with clarity and immediacy, and in making such explanations both fascinating and -- let's be forthright here -- enormous fun. Even if you're perfectly au fait with current ideas about black holes and their physics, the novel is worth reading just for the flamboyant joy of these expository passages. DeSmedt is clearly passionately in love with these areas of physics, and he succeeds completely in conveying that passion to the reader.
Similarly, his extrapolations from present into near-future technology are entirely convincing -- at least to this reader. I finished this book with my mind in a total jumble as to which of the communication/surveillance technologies depicted are current in the real world and which are merely products of DeSmedt's controlled imagination; all of them seemed equally plausible. As for the technologies involved in black-hole capture, they too seemed highly feasible. It's a while since my disbelief has been so convincingly suspended by a technothriller.
DeSmedt is less accomplished in the thriller element of the novel, but luckily he's saved by another of his great skills: the creation of excellently sympathetic characters. Marianna Bonaventure is a wonderful creation; she stands out in a genre where the smart, kickass, yummy female has come to be regarded as little more than a standard part of the toolkit. This is because all of her many strengths as a person are in part a product of the weaknesses she also possesses. At first she completely flummoxes Knox, who simply cannot find a way to relate to her complexities, his reactions to her beauty and her personality all clashing with each other. The reader's reactions are likely to be similar, until at last, probably more than halfway through this long book, it becomes possible to understand, at all levels, this thoroughly three-dimensional -- and certainly very engaging -- individual.
Knox himself is no mean fictional creation. He's somewhat reminiscent of an Ellery Queen for the twenty-first century in his powers of ratiocination and his veneer of general geekiness, but he's a far more real person than Ellery Queen could ever be. DeSmedt's semi-major characters, too, leap from the page: Sasha, the old friend of Knox's who has compromised his idealism in the pursuit of entrancing technology; Galina, another old acquaintance of Knox, a tragic figure whose love for children is brutally matched by her inability to have a child of her own, and who, unknowing of Grishin's fell motives, is the primary technological brain behind his endeavours; and Mycroft, a.k.a., Dr Finley Laurence, the super-analyst and cybernautics genius to whom Knox turns when his own impressive analytical powers prove insufficient. Even Bonaventure's boss, the shoot-first-think-later bureaucratic numbskull Pete Aristos, has a delightful sense of realness about him. Only the character intended as our heroes' ultimate focus of dread, Yuri, Grishin's murderous sidekick, is a bit of a cypher; in essence, he's Jaws from the James Bond movies but without any of the redeeming characteristics. Grishin likewise seems to have been drawn from Central Casting.
Perhaps Yuri in particular epitomizes the novel's weakness as a thriller. The thug-dodging and general hijinks are all perfectly competently done, but they lack the marvelous originality of the rest of the novel: you find yourself aching for each "exciting bit" to be over so you can get back to the really exciting stories being told -- the next link in the scientific chain, or what's happening in the faux pas-strewn mutual circling going on between Bonaventure and Knox. As implied above, it's because of the enormous strength of these aspects -- the scientific and the emotional -- that the novel swings grippingly along at the high pace that it does; the relative weakness of the adventure aspects, their resorting-to-the-default aura, becomes more or less irrelevant.
The back of the book bears a stack of cover quotes from noteworthies: Kevin J. Anderson, David Brin, Kip Thorne, Greg Bear and Anthony Olcott. Unusually, I found that I agreed with just about everything they say; for once their enthusiasm isn't merely mega-inflated hype. With one exception. Anderson says: "Singularity juggles Clancy, Crichton, and The Da Vinci Code." The comparison with Crichton is justified, although DeSmedt is by far the better novelist of the two. The comparison with Clancy may be justified: I've never been able to get beyond about twenty pages of any of Clancy's writings, so rely for my knowledge of them on the rather jolly movies. But Singularity has no connection whatsoever with The Da Vinci Code; the comment is quite simply absurd -- a thoroughly egregious example of the base art of rentaquote. In the ordinary way I'd not bother mentioning this piece of folly, but Singularity is something, well, a bit special. Shame on Per Aspera for so cheapening the treasure they've published!
Throughout this review I've been describing Singularity as a technothriller. As will be evident, though, it can also be approached as hard sf. In that context, too, it's eminently successful -- in fact, it's the most readable piece of hard sf, by a quite significant margin, that I've come across in a fairly long while, and, enlivened as it is by its glorious characterization (or, to be waspish, by characters at all), should be recommended reading for most of the authors currently working in the subgenre.
However, matters of categorization are best left to the Dryasdusts and Panglosses: technothriller or hard sf, who really cares? It's purely as a work of imaginative fiction, classification be damned, that Singularity should be assessed. Well, put it this way: this is a book you'll want to own in hardback. Even if your more usual taste is for fantasy (well, perhaps not if it's for generic high fantasy), you're almost certain to enjoy this one. DeSmedt is a wonderful newcomer to the field, and his debut one of great significance to it. I cannot believe otherwise than that his voice will be given the attention it so emphatically deserves in the years to come.
October 29, 2021
This is a great genre-blending novel. It is actually set out as a spy thriller, complete with international intrigue, cold-war politics, and a secret research lab aboard a mega-yacht catamaran. But the novel also has significant hard sci-fi elements that make for a great twist in the story.
The cosmic mystery part of the novel revolves around the nature of the Tunguska event - a twelve megaton explosion that occurred in 1908. (The author has a great series of blogs around the scientific explorations of this event on his website.) What evolves from this is a struggle for control over some of the most fundamental forces in the universe with global consequences. The speculative parts of the narrative are very believable and well thought through.
The other aspect of the novel that really appealed to me was an exploration of the Russian culture that transcends the shallow cultural stereotypes so prevalent in cold-war spy thrillers. A great read all-around.
The cosmic mystery part of the novel revolves around the nature of the Tunguska event - a twelve megaton explosion that occurred in 1908. (The author has a great series of blogs around the scientific explorations of this event on his website.) What evolves from this is a struggle for control over some of the most fundamental forces in the universe with global consequences. The speculative parts of the narrative are very believable and well thought through.
The other aspect of the novel that really appealed to me was an exploration of the Russian culture that transcends the shallow cultural stereotypes so prevalent in cold-war spy thrillers. A great read all-around.
Read
February 5, 2009Publisher Per Aspera Press took a gamble__their debut is DeSmedt's first novel__and it paid off. In this scientific technothriller, DeSmedt fictionalizes the possible implications of the bizarre explosion in Tunguska, Siberia. It didn't result from a small meteorite, his protagonists speculate, but rather from a tiny black hole crashing into Earth. It's a convincing, if farfetched, interpretation, made more realistic by DeSmedt's believable "what if" scenario. The scientifically accurate dialogue, unpredictable plot twists, and characters (Bonaventure is a real, breathing woman with emotions) give the book surprising depth. The verdict: move over Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and Arthur C. Clarke for the new author in town.
This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.
January 15, 2012
Can this excellent thriller really be Bill deSmedt's first novel? If so, I'm really looking forward to his second. Singularity is a truly excellent mix of political thriller and science fiction, in the truest sense of that label: fiction about science.
Remember that theory that the Tunguska event was caused by a sub-microscopic black hole? And the subsequent arguments that this couldn't be the case, as there was no evidence of an exit location? Bill deSmedt takes some expertise and some painstaking research, mixes that with an impressive ability to write and tell a story, and bakes up a big novel that will keep you guessing, and flinching, and hyperventilating, and READING right up to the amazing end.
Remember that theory that the Tunguska event was caused by a sub-microscopic black hole? And the subsequent arguments that this couldn't be the case, as there was no evidence of an exit location? Bill deSmedt takes some expertise and some painstaking research, mixes that with an impressive ability to write and tell a story, and bakes up a big novel that will keep you guessing, and flinching, and hyperventilating, and READING right up to the amazing end.
December 12, 2011
I had read Singularity in hard cover when it first came out, and liked it so much I bought 2 more copies as gifts. Now that it's available as an ebook I just bought it again. I have a special affinity for Jonathan Knox, Consultant, as I have been an IT consultant most of my working life. In Singularity Jon teams with Marianna, a US Government spook (or more correctly is shanghaied by her) to...well...save the world from evildoers. The book is extraordinarily well researched, from details of the Tunguska event through the physics of black holes (and is even endorsed by physicist Kip Thorne). While it starts with a hard science background, it is first and formost a great technothriller with believable characters, seriously villainous bad guys and and an ending gripping to the last page.
October 8, 2008
Smart, beautifully written, and thrilling novel.
DeSmedt is a great story teller. The novel is gripping from the very beginning. The storylines are brilliant and are cleverly woven together. The characters are smart and interesting. The writing is witty and delicious. It is a smart read with the author's deep knowledge of spies and science fueling the fast pace. This is cutting-edge fiction. I have yet to read a novel as good as Singularity. I eagerly await Mr. DeSmedt's next novel, Dualism. I know he won't disappoint.
DeSmedt is a great story teller. The novel is gripping from the very beginning. The storylines are brilliant and are cleverly woven together. The characters are smart and interesting. The writing is witty and delicious. It is a smart read with the author's deep knowledge of spies and science fueling the fast pace. This is cutting-edge fiction. I have yet to read a novel as good as Singularity. I eagerly await Mr. DeSmedt's next novel, Dualism. I know he won't disappoint.
October 7, 2011
Very well written scientific adventure story, kind of like a Clive Cussler novel co written with a very smart physicist. This is a story about one of many possible theories trying to explain the mysterious blast crater in the Tunguska region of Russia many decades ago. Think teeny tiny black holes. I don't know if the science was right all the time but it didn't really matter as it sounded plausible and the intrigue, action, and characters all kept me entertained through to the end. I enjoyed this very much and look forward to the upcoming sequel, or anything else by this author.
August 21, 2014
About the first 200 pages is pretty much an average spy thriller with a little sci-fi on the side. Not bad, not great, but good enough to keep me interested. Then the sci-fi aspects started to dominate and the book really took off. Some of his scientific explanations would have made Crichton proud. Even tossed in a little philosophy.
In short, I found the book interesting, enjoyable, and thought provoking. I see a follow-up book has recently been published. I hope he emphasizes sci-fi over thriller, but I WILL read it.
In short, I found the book interesting, enjoyable, and thought provoking. I see a follow-up book has recently been published. I hope he emphasizes sci-fi over thriller, but I WILL read it.
March 29, 2009
Oooh, this type of book is my total and complete weakness more so than any other sci-fi or fantasy. Give me a government agency with a smart female lead (that she's good looking actually helps) and throw in some linguistics or cog-sci, hard science or maths, and a bit of historical truth and I’m hooked. Singularity delivers and throws in Russia and the KGB to keep me hooked.
(note: I listened to half of this via podiobooks and then took it out from the library and read the rest)
(note: I listened to half of this via podiobooks and then took it out from the library and read the rest)
October 23, 2008
Great book. I wish I knew more about the physics of black holes, but that didn't take away from the book. A great action packed race to save the planet from a disaster almost no one knows about nor would they believe to be true if they were told.
May 23, 2011
Amazing book, really good science coupled with very strong characters and plot. Not a chapter was wasted, excellent pacing. Would highly recommend, one of the best science fiction books that I've read in a long time.
September 21, 2008
Love this book. First introduced to it via Bill DeSmedt's podcast. Can't wait for the next book. *hint hint*
October 17, 2008
Entertainment and science in the same book, with interesting characters? Of course you can have it right here.
June 4, 2009
Bill DeSmedt combines good writing with historical facts and science fiction to produce an excellent thriller. One of my all time favorite stories.
November 11, 2009
Jason Young recommends
May 18, 2009
The mix of sci-fi and international spy thriller is great. Loved it.
February 17, 2011
One of my all-time favorites.
August 19, 2010
Awesome Awesome book. I had mostly figured out the end halfway through, then hit it dead on about 3/4 in. I just like the fact it played by the generally accepted rules for it's subject matter.
June 20, 2021
Very over the top, but full of enough accurate science and fact-based conjecture that it was very interesting and entertaining.
June 25, 2016
I enjoyed this book.
The story line is gripping. The employment of science is witty and thought-provoking. The characters are interesting, and the dialogue is clever and pointed.
However there are measure shortcomings that, despite my enjoyment of the book on a thriller-reading level, forces my stars to be only three on a novel-writing level:
The story events, towards the end, got thrilling and fast as they are supposed to in a thriller novel, but unfortunately it felt as if the events ran away from the author's grip. I felt they decidedly crossed the blurry line between science-fiction and fantasy, and it felt that the authors decision, to cross this line, was an escape from the difficulty of maintaining the science back-bone of the story, and into closing the curtains fast before the readers notice.
The other shortcoming was in one aspect of character development. While each character was beautifully crafted, the romance between the two main characters was a total failure. The lust turning into love was teenager-ish at best. The flirtation seemed to be trying to hard to be socially witty, but was naive and totally out-of-pace with the high level dialogues in the rest of the novel. This aspect of the novel seemed shallow and hallow, and rather than making the novel more interesting, it was a turn-off for me.
I struggled between 3 and 4 stars. I truly enjoyed the writing talent of the author, and his scientific depth. But in a novel, even a sci-fi one, I still wanted my characters to be real from all angles, and the events to be consistently believable, and not to go into fantasy just because the author ran out of believable and plausible discourse to execute them.
The story line is gripping. The employment of science is witty and thought-provoking. The characters are interesting, and the dialogue is clever and pointed.
However there are measure shortcomings that, despite my enjoyment of the book on a thriller-reading level, forces my stars to be only three on a novel-writing level:
The story events, towards the end, got thrilling and fast as they are supposed to in a thriller novel, but unfortunately it felt as if the events ran away from the author's grip. I felt they decidedly crossed the blurry line between science-fiction and fantasy, and it felt that the authors decision, to cross this line, was an escape from the difficulty of maintaining the science back-bone of the story, and into closing the curtains fast before the readers notice.
The other shortcoming was in one aspect of character development. While each character was beautifully crafted, the romance between the two main characters was a total failure. The lust turning into love was teenager-ish at best. The flirtation seemed to be trying to hard to be socially witty, but was naive and totally out-of-pace with the high level dialogues in the rest of the novel. This aspect of the novel seemed shallow and hallow, and rather than making the novel more interesting, it was a turn-off for me.
I struggled between 3 and 4 stars. I truly enjoyed the writing talent of the author, and his scientific depth. But in a novel, even a sci-fi one, I still wanted my characters to be real from all angles, and the events to be consistently believable, and not to go into fantasy just because the author ran out of believable and plausible discourse to execute them.
January 13, 2010
Is it alright to kill one person to save millions? To save the world?
What interested me in this book in the first place was the "take-off' from the Tunguska Event. I read the synopsis, I read the reviews of several people who like the book and only a couple who didn't. So, I ran it down. Unfortunately I'm going to join the ranks of those who didn't care for it.
I feel almost as if I should apologize for not liking this novel. It seems to one of those that gets "almost" universal approbation. I wanted to like it. The Tunguska Event (or Blast) is one of the grails for Science Fiction buffs, fantasy fans, and geeks of all stripes, and I suppose I fit in all three categories. But I just didn't care for it.
I was some where past 30 pages in when I began to wonder how long before the book would catch my interest. I endured (for me) the annoying conversations inserted to convince me that the mocro black hole theory wasn't...popular, noted the slightly overdone romance, and finally read the account of time warps, distortions, and shifts. How could all that not be fascinating?
Sorry, it wasn't. For those of you who love this book, I'm happy for you and to you who read this, the novel is obviously a matter of taste. I found it overdone, draggy, and sometimes annoying. it failed to hold my interest. I'm reading scenes of everything from a chase across a roof to an account of a void in reality being ripped open, and my mind is wandering. I love science fiction, I love fantasy, but I just didn't care for this.
What interested me in this book in the first place was the "take-off' from the Tunguska Event. I read the synopsis, I read the reviews of several people who like the book and only a couple who didn't. So, I ran it down. Unfortunately I'm going to join the ranks of those who didn't care for it.
I feel almost as if I should apologize for not liking this novel. It seems to one of those that gets "almost" universal approbation. I wanted to like it. The Tunguska Event (or Blast) is one of the grails for Science Fiction buffs, fantasy fans, and geeks of all stripes, and I suppose I fit in all three categories. But I just didn't care for it.
I was some where past 30 pages in when I began to wonder how long before the book would catch my interest. I endured (for me) the annoying conversations inserted to convince me that the mocro black hole theory wasn't...popular, noted the slightly overdone romance, and finally read the account of time warps, distortions, and shifts. How could all that not be fascinating?
Sorry, it wasn't. For those of you who love this book, I'm happy for you and to you who read this, the novel is obviously a matter of taste. I found it overdone, draggy, and sometimes annoying. it failed to hold my interest. I'm reading scenes of everything from a chase across a roof to an account of a void in reality being ripped open, and my mind is wandering. I love science fiction, I love fantasy, but I just didn't care for this.
March 10, 2013
I listened to the podcast version of this book, which was very well done by the author. He did a really great job of making all the characters have their own "voice," both by using accents and via very subtle modulations in his tone.
I found the book a little slow to start, but once I was hooked I kept coming back to it, wanting to know where the story was going. It's easier for me to ditch an audiobook than a physical book, so while I'm a little more forgiving with audio, I'm also quick to give up if the author really loses me. The plot has lots of twists and turns but there's a nice balance of viewpoints that doesn't leave the reader lost, and the science is well-handled even when it gets into the very theoretical. By the time I was halfway through, I really wanted to know what was going on, and that kept me listening. I didn't love everything about the book, but it was a worthwhile read for me.
I found the book a little slow to start, but once I was hooked I kept coming back to it, wanting to know where the story was going. It's easier for me to ditch an audiobook than a physical book, so while I'm a little more forgiving with audio, I'm also quick to give up if the author really loses me. The plot has lots of twists and turns but there's a nice balance of viewpoints that doesn't leave the reader lost, and the science is well-handled even when it gets into the very theoretical. By the time I was halfway through, I really wanted to know what was going on, and that kept me listening. I didn't love everything about the book, but it was a worthwhile read for me.
September 28, 2012
I found Singularity gripping, so much so that I woke up from a deep sleep just now to finish the last act, and now am typing up a review in the dead of night.
The Cold War lives on in a fascinating way in this debut novel, which also resurrects some of the best tension of the X-files and some great books of years past (Gregory Benford's Artifact comes immediately to mind.
But even though Singularity shares themes with these other works, it's a thoroughly original and unique book, and I look forward to DeSmedt's next offering.
The Cold War lives on in a fascinating way in this debut novel, which also resurrects some of the best tension of the X-files and some great books of years past (Gregory Benford's Artifact comes immediately to mind.
But even though Singularity shares themes with these other works, it's a thoroughly original and unique book, and I look forward to DeSmedt's next offering.
July 27, 2016
This nice small-press technothriller sank without a trace, but it's worth looking for. It's a retelling of the Tunguska impact as a what-if it was a micro black hole? Structured as a spy thriller, it's not terribly plausible (especially the Eeevil Russky Villain) but moves along briskly, with some interesting and entertaining twists en route. Well above average first novel: recommended. There's a sequel, but SINGULARITY is fully self-contained.
December 29, 2011
An ingenious and complex thriller that deals with some pretty mind blowing ideas extremely well. A few things on the IT side didn't quite add up for me (you set up a super secret connection and you talk on it via telnet?) which made me wonder how sound the rest of the reasoning was but overall a nicely crafted, well thought out and well performed book.
January 8, 2015
This is a very good book. The story is fast paced, the characters are well developed and the science is presented in a way that makes it very accessible. If you merged a James Bond story with Dr. Who, this would be the result.
The only flaw I found is that the relationship between the two main characters was a bit gratuitous and sometimes got in the way of the story.
The only flaw I found is that the relationship between the two main characters was a bit gratuitous and sometimes got in the way of the story.
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