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Two Thirds of a God: A Novella
She digitized her mind to escape death—but immortality has its own chains
Dr. Eleanor Burton spent her life building the future. A world-renowned scientist and the force behind a revolutionary satellite network designed to break global censorship, Eleanor achieved more than most could dream of. But when a terminal diagnosis robs her of time, she makes a desperate to become the first human subject in an experimental simulation that could preserve her consciousness forever.
When Eleanor “Elly” awakens inside one of the satellites, she remembers everything. She is fully sentient. Fully aware. Fully… herself. But her existence must remain secret.
As Elly navigates this new digital existence, she uncovers secrets about the world she left behind—and the one she's inherited. Her identity, her autonomy, and even her memories are now currency in a battle between surveillance, sovereignty, and survival. Facing betrayal, revelation, and the looming question of what makes a soul, she must fight not only to stay alive—but to protect the world.
Two Thirds of a God is a genre-bending science fiction odyssey, blending emotional depth with technological intrigue. Perfect for fans of Blake Crouch, Neal Stephenson, and Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun, this is a story about what remains when the body dies—and what emerges when the self refuses to.
Dr. Eleanor Burton spent her life building the future. A world-renowned scientist and the force behind a revolutionary satellite network designed to break global censorship, Eleanor achieved more than most could dream of. But when a terminal diagnosis robs her of time, she makes a desperate to become the first human subject in an experimental simulation that could preserve her consciousness forever.
When Eleanor “Elly” awakens inside one of the satellites, she remembers everything. She is fully sentient. Fully aware. Fully… herself. But her existence must remain secret.
As Elly navigates this new digital existence, she uncovers secrets about the world she left behind—and the one she's inherited. Her identity, her autonomy, and even her memories are now currency in a battle between surveillance, sovereignty, and survival. Facing betrayal, revelation, and the looming question of what makes a soul, she must fight not only to stay alive—but to protect the world.
Two Thirds of a God is a genre-bending science fiction odyssey, blending emotional depth with technological intrigue. Perfect for fans of Blake Crouch, Neal Stephenson, and Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun, this is a story about what remains when the body dies—and what emerges when the self refuses to.
- GenresScience Fiction
183 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 25, 2025
5 people are currently reading
20 people want to read
About the author
Vance Mitchell Gloster
3 books1 followerVance Mitchell Gloster had a career as a computer scientist before turning to writing full-time. He worked on the Space Shuttle program and for several leading technology firms, developing artificial intelligence and encryption software, as well as a massive email system. He is also a musician having played keyboards on several progressive rock albums from the bands Gekko Projekt and Bomber Goggles, and having written the score for one movie. He resides in Southern California with his wife Kathy and their dog Cali, where he and Kathy enjoy riding recumbent bicycles.
Vance Mitchell Gloster is an award-winning writer, who had a career as a computer scientist before turning to writing full-time. He worked on the Space Shuttle program and for several leading technology firms, developing artificial intelligence and encryption software, as well as a massive email system.
He is also a musician, having played keyboards on several progressive rock albums from the bands Gekko Projekt and Bomber Goggles, and having scored a film.
He lives in Southern California with his wife Kathy and their dog, Cali, where they enjoy riding recumbent bicycles.
Vance Mitchell Gloster is an award-winning writer, who had a career as a computer scientist before turning to writing full-time. He worked on the Space Shuttle program and for several leading technology firms, developing artificial intelligence and encryption software, as well as a massive email system.
He is also a musician, having played keyboards on several progressive rock albums from the bands Gekko Projekt and Bomber Goggles, and having scored a film.
He lives in Southern California with his wife Kathy and their dog, Cali, where they enjoy riding recumbent bicycles.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
March 20, 2025
Thank you to the author and publisher for an eARC of this novella. Two Thirds of a God follows the story of ELE, the first virtual human. I enjoyed this book. It was fast paced and well written. There were plot twists and it kept me guessing. I struggled a little with some parts where there was explanations of AI, satellites and technology as I have very limited prior understanding of these topics. Overall, a nice quick read and the ending has me interested to see how the story progresses in the next book. 4⭐️
October 30, 2025
Gloster's experience and understanding of AI ripples through this also deeply human tale of one woman's "consciousness" transformed into her AI version after her death. I loved both the premise and execution, but also the philosophical questions it asks of us, the readers, about what it means to be "alive" as we watch actual AI begin to infiltrate our lives. In a strange way, this book gives me hope for the future.
April 26, 2025
4/5🌟. The story in Two Thirds of a God has a very intriguing premise - a terminally-diagnosed scientist has her brain scanned and becomes a virtual ‘post-human’ after her death. Early in this novella, character development seemed to be ignored in favor of story development, but later in the story, the author does a much better job of bringing the characters into focus and making the virtual human’s development a very compelling part of the story. The author has a background in computer science and working for the space shuttle program and writes a truly hard science fiction story. He brings all of his experience to bear in this story and gives some wonderful background to the science involved here. This was a short, quick read, with a meaningful and thought-provoking story. Recommended!! #TwoThirdsofaGod #netgalley
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March 26, 2025In a world were serious conversations take place about the possibility of post-organic humanity, Gloster’s excellent novella, Two Thirds a God, is entertaining sci-fi that feels plausibly prescient. The heroine, Eleanor, is a brilliant scientist with a failed marriage and an estranged daughter. So, when she learns she has a fatal illness and doesn’t have long to live, agreeing to have her brain cloned in service of scientific advancement makes sense. But when her consciousness “wakes up” in a satellite, she discovers she’s being used in ways she’d never anticipated. Gloster delivers a gripping thriller, a compelling character study and a fabulous conversation starter within the story’s modest page count. Highly recommend!
March 15, 2025
Thank you Vance Mitchell Gloster & Netgalley for this free ARC in exchange for a review.
A quick sci-fi read, this fast-paced novella is strengthened by a woman protagonist.
Around 77%, there’s a bit of telling instead of showing which takes one a bit out of the story. The , improving the book.
Overall, I really enjoyed this first book. The preview of book two at the end convinced me to continue on with this series, whether or not I receive an ARC.
A quick sci-fi read, this fast-paced novella is strengthened by a woman protagonist.
Around 77%, there’s a bit of telling instead of showing which takes one a bit out of the story. The , improving the book.
Overall, I really enjoyed this first book. The preview of book two at the end convinced me to continue on with this series, whether or not I receive an ARC.
March 28, 2025
What would you do if, after death, you could go on living - as a virtual human? Would you take the offer - and who could you turn to for advice, and friendship? And what if some power-hungry people wanted to use your considerable talents to serve nefarious ends?
The twists and turns and surprises kept me reading much too late at night. No spoilers, but I liked all three versions of Eleanor, and there are also self-aware AI beings, which is extremely timely in this era. Satisfying read, and ending.
The twists and turns and surprises kept me reading much too late at night. No spoilers, but I liked all three versions of Eleanor, and there are also self-aware AI beings, which is extremely timely in this era. Satisfying read, and ending.
April 11, 2025
[2.5 stars rounded down]
“And yet, the possibility of harm from the scan pushed her toward saying yes. Comminitng to a risky endeavor paradoxically felt like defying her illness… She had the possibility of leaving another mark on the world. As Benjamin asked, what did she have to lose?”
I really wanted to love this book. Two Thirds of a God is an intriguing sci-fi novella about a terminally ill woman who scans her brain into a virtual human à la Black Mirror, sends it up alongside the satellite that she and her team have been developing, and the government plot that hinges on the control of that satellite. The premise is golden and the characters are enjoyable, but there were many issues that stopped me from rating this much higher.
Starting with much of the good, I was entertained the whole time. Page-time is utilized very well in this novella, with little down time (but, at the same time, there is plenty of time for rest in between events, especially in the dialogue between ELE and Charlotte or LNX). The chapters are very short, usually with multiple POV swaps within those short chapters. I already enjoy books with short chapters, and I felt that the author used the format very well. He understood how little time you inherently have with a novella, and did not bog down the reader ever.
Early on in the story, there was a building sense of seeing how the average person loves scientific development for the spectacle of it, not the actual details of how it works. I wish this motif was kept more heavily through later moments in the novella, but while it was there I really enjoyed it.
Charlotte was my favorite character and her POV chapters were a standout. As a full AI - compared to ELE who is an uploaded scan of a human, she had a strongly written tone and style that came across well. Her first POV section was my favorite chapter in the novella, as I found how she was constantly interrupting herself with her self-imposed jobs very entertaining. Her, and MON189 (who I’ll mention later) are the two fully AI characters in this story and both have genuinely fun narration moments. I’m sure the author's background in computer science gave him some creative ideas for how to write AI characters, and that comes across in these two POVs.
Ultimately, other than Charlotte, most characters did not have a distinct voice. I don’t need excessive accent markers, of course, but this book was to the point where if you were to remove character names, you wouldn’t be able to tell that dialogue didn’t all come from one single character. It made, despite the fast-paced chapters, dialogue-heavy parts of this novella slog on. On top of this, dialogue is written very basically to a distracting point. There are only so many times I can read variants of “Benjamin sighed,” “Daniel said,” “He shook his head” as dialogue tags for nearly every interaction before it all blends together. So many interactions could have had these tags cut out or otherwise written less basic.
With this, there is very little attempt at creative or poetic prose. Everything is written very matter-of-factly. It’s not necessarily bad to many readers, but I prefer more detailed, showcasing of characters' feelings and events that happen. For instance: “It utterly confused me. I felt the loss of Eleanor deeply, even though I was her in every way that mattered.” feels like an almost juvenile attempt at describing a character’s thoughts.
I like how, throughout the second half of the novel, we have this presence of MON189. He acts as a warden for the satellite and instills a needed sense of tension and unease. Not too directly involved with the character, at first, but a far away, but also scarily near, figure. I think that the way he reacts to some of ELE’s actions is really fun to read… and then he just
From what I can tell, the author is American (or, at least he currently lives in the US). There are several moments when writing Eleanor/ELE, an English woman, where he has her narrate the meaning of something uniquely British to Americans. For instance: “‘Who caused us trouble in the sixth form?’ I asked. The sixth form in British schools is much like a junior or senior year in high school in the US.” There is no need for a British woman to translate what the phrase “sixth form” means to Americans as a random thought in her head. As an American, no I did not know what sixth form meant, but I would much rather be expected to look up the meaning myself instead of the character, for no reason, randomly thinking of what it means related to US schools. It just reeks of the author’s lack of faith towards his audience being able to understand concepts.
Though I enjoyed my time reading this novella, I ultimately felt disappointed by the lack of quality in some core departments. It's so close to being so good, but these things hold it back too much. Minus my main criticisms, the plot is very fun and I enjoyed the cast of characters a lot. The preview to the sequel that was included was very intriguing, and I hope to read it in the future.
“And yet, the possibility of harm from the scan pushed her toward saying yes. Comminitng to a risky endeavor paradoxically felt like defying her illness… She had the possibility of leaving another mark on the world. As Benjamin asked, what did she have to lose?”
I really wanted to love this book. Two Thirds of a God is an intriguing sci-fi novella about a terminally ill woman who scans her brain into a virtual human à la Black Mirror, sends it up alongside the satellite that she and her team have been developing, and the government plot that hinges on the control of that satellite. The premise is golden and the characters are enjoyable, but there were many issues that stopped me from rating this much higher.
Starting with much of the good, I was entertained the whole time. Page-time is utilized very well in this novella, with little down time (but, at the same time, there is plenty of time for rest in between events, especially in the dialogue between ELE and Charlotte or LNX). The chapters are very short, usually with multiple POV swaps within those short chapters. I already enjoy books with short chapters, and I felt that the author used the format very well. He understood how little time you inherently have with a novella, and did not bog down the reader ever.
Early on in the story, there was a building sense of seeing how the average person loves scientific development for the spectacle of it, not the actual details of how it works. I wish this motif was kept more heavily through later moments in the novella, but while it was there I really enjoyed it.
Charlotte was my favorite character and her POV chapters were a standout. As a full AI - compared to ELE who is an uploaded scan of a human, she had a strongly written tone and style that came across well. Her first POV section was my favorite chapter in the novella, as I found how she was constantly interrupting herself with her self-imposed jobs very entertaining. Her, and MON189 (who I’ll mention later) are the two fully AI characters in this story and both have genuinely fun narration moments. I’m sure the author's background in computer science gave him some creative ideas for how to write AI characters, and that comes across in these two POVs.
Ultimately, other than Charlotte, most characters did not have a distinct voice. I don’t need excessive accent markers, of course, but this book was to the point where if you were to remove character names, you wouldn’t be able to tell that dialogue didn’t all come from one single character. It made, despite the fast-paced chapters, dialogue-heavy parts of this novella slog on. On top of this, dialogue is written very basically to a distracting point. There are only so many times I can read variants of “Benjamin sighed,” “Daniel said,” “He shook his head” as dialogue tags for nearly every interaction before it all blends together. So many interactions could have had these tags cut out or otherwise written less basic.
With this, there is very little attempt at creative or poetic prose. Everything is written very matter-of-factly. It’s not necessarily bad to many readers, but I prefer more detailed, showcasing of characters' feelings and events that happen. For instance: “It utterly confused me. I felt the loss of Eleanor deeply, even though I was her in every way that mattered.” feels like an almost juvenile attempt at describing a character’s thoughts.
I like how, throughout the second half of the novel, we have this presence of MON189. He acts as a warden for the satellite and instills a needed sense of tension and unease. Not too directly involved with the character, at first, but a far away, but also scarily near, figure. I think that the way he reacts to some of ELE’s actions is really fun to read… and then he just
From what I can tell, the author is American (or, at least he currently lives in the US). There are several moments when writing Eleanor/ELE, an English woman, where he has her narrate the meaning of something uniquely British to Americans. For instance: “‘Who caused us trouble in the sixth form?’ I asked. The sixth form in British schools is much like a junior or senior year in high school in the US.” There is no need for a British woman to translate what the phrase “sixth form” means to Americans as a random thought in her head. As an American, no I did not know what sixth form meant, but I would much rather be expected to look up the meaning myself instead of the character, for no reason, randomly thinking of what it means related to US schools. It just reeks of the author’s lack of faith towards his audience being able to understand concepts.
Though I enjoyed my time reading this novella, I ultimately felt disappointed by the lack of quality in some core departments. It's so close to being so good, but these things hold it back too much. Minus my main criticisms, the plot is very fun and I enjoyed the cast of characters a lot. The preview to the sequel that was included was very intriguing, and I hope to read it in the future.
May 27, 2025
Breaking the AI typecast. I thoroughly enjoyed this exploration of AI. This story is full of action and has great pacing. And the twist- these are not your typical AI. I’m invested and can’t wait to find out what happens next.
November 30, 2025
Two Thirds of a God is a gripping, emotional sci-fi ride that feels both fresh and deeply human. Elly’s journey, from dying scientist to digital consciousness, is powerful, tense, and surprisingly heartfelt. The story blends big ideas with real emotion, asking what identity and freedom mean when the body is gone but the mind lives on. It’s smart, fast-paced, and thought-provoking in all the best ways. I’d happily recommend it to anyone who loves Blake Crouch or just loves a great, meaningful sci-fi story.
January 1, 2026
This is an entertaining and easy read, despite a technological theme. It is not full of jargon that only an insider could know. It finds the perfect balance between the current state of the sociology, politics and technology and a future that is just out of reach. Thus it is plausible and fantastical. It gets you thinking then about our current state of technology and is especially poignant given the current and ongoing rapid growth of AI. A great way to end 2025 and kick off 2026!
December 31, 2025
An excellent near future rendition of potential AI
An absorbing story that explores AI from two directions. An uploaded human consciousness and an emergent digital intelligence. I am hopeful that the second story will explore this more fully.
An absorbing story that explores AI from two directions. An uploaded human consciousness and an emergent digital intelligence. I am hopeful that the second story will explore this more fully.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews