The Improbable Rise of Singularity Girl

by Bryce C. Anderson

Helen Roderick thought life would be epic after she died. Once her neural paths were scanned and the pattern uploaded to an enormous bank of computers, she could be happy and carefree. No more aging, dandruff, fear of death, or any of the other drawbacks of hauling her own squishy meatsack hither and yon.

But her new life is a troubled one. As she learns to enhance her own intelligence, she grows alienated from her old life. She has no legal rights, and the government is trying to shut her down and steal her research.

But when a nuke detonates over Manhattan, Helen devotes her growing power to bringing the culprit to justice. She uncovers a force bent not on geopolitical power, but on the extinction of all humankind.

Will our heroine be enslaved or deleted by the Feds? Can she avert an impending war with China? How will she find time to finish her doctoral thesis? And (hey, we're trying not to judge) isn't Dr. Mellings way too old for her?

Alternately goofy and dark, The Improbable Rise of Singularity Girl tells the story of a singular woman, and a life lived at an exponential pace.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Humor, Unfinished

Unknown Binding

First published March 1, 2012

Reviews

[Meagan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I got this book with the Immerse or Die Storybundle and I think I got my money's worth out of just this book. It was ambitious in the best way, a story about the singularity that focuses on the essence of being human.

[Eric Mesa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a great example of why you shouldn't judge a book by its cover...or title. I got it as part of a Storybundle deal and passed it over a few times. It just didn't quite feel like something I would enjoy. BOY WAS I WRONG! For me, this book was everything that Ready Player One was not. In fact, I'd say that TIRoSG was more like Mel Brooks early parodies while RPO was more like the Scary Movie and its ilk type of parodies. RPO seemed content to say, "Look, a reference for late Gen X/Early Millenials!" While TIRoSG tells a great, mostly unique story while paying homage to that which came before it. Some of those are overt - the author calls out Pratchett early on. Others are more implicit like the writing style (similar to early Neal Stephenson) or later cyberpunk elements that recall Gibson while not (to my knowledge) aping it. (The last chapter also recalls stories by Asimov and Clarke) The language of the characters and the parodies of I haz cheezeburgers type things are minimal enough that I don't think it'll end up dating the book in the future.

So it had the write writing style and tone. It was also a great story of personal growth of the characters, including many of the side characters. Many of the tech changes that the world goes through seem even more likely today than they did when the book was first written. Like more and more fiction is starting to realize - we're slowly being automated out of jobs without the world of plenty envisioned by Star Trek. On my way back home from a trip (during which I was reading this book on the plane) I wanted to pre-order some Olive Garden takeout since we'd cleaned out the fridge before our trip. The phone call reminded me twice at least (maybe 3 times) that I could cut a human out of the loop by using the web to order. And stores are trying to get more aggressive about both self-checkout and RFID-based walkouts. Also, the eventual political story is SO much more plausible today that it's scary! Like I wanted to stop reading because I could see it happening for real.

There are only two things that kept it from 5 stars for me. The book is divided into parts 1 and 2, but I think it might have made more sense to divide it into more parts. Because I kept getting to what seemed like narrative dead ends, but knew I had a lot more book to go. But the following chapter would spring in a completely new direction. So just for a bit more cohesion. The other thing was the latter 1/4 (I didn't actually measure, but it seems to be about this much) of the book that involved a lot of cyber battles. Anderson was probably just paying homage to cyberpunk books and movies which, themselves, were paying homage to the metaphorical fights that Professor X would have on the thought planes with villains. (Or like Inception symbolizing the safe to contain secret information) But given the two entities that were battling, it seemed...like the metaphor wouldn't truly make sense given what they were doing to each other. Maybe I was just too tired, but I kept falling out of the story in the last few chapters because of it.

That said, I thought it was well-told with engaging characters. Also, the story works very well and the ending makes sense, even if it is slightly early Stephenson-esque. If you like the narrative style of Douglas Adams or early Stephenson and enjoy SF, you'll have a good time with this one.

[Fredrik · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wish I could say I loved this, because the concept is great: The life-story of the world's first uploaded conciousness, and the influence she has on the world. There's a solid core of excellent science fiction here.
The problem is mainly that that it's so overspiced with geeky pop-culture references it ends up dominating everything. Look, I enjoy seing references to things I like enjoy, and used well that can help making characters relatable. However, when overdone it reduces them to meme-machines, and this story falls dangerously close to that line. Another issue is the reliance on cool imagery, to a large extent rooted in World of Warcraft-inspired style. It's well done and evokative, but too often it's excessively descriptive, in a way that makes me wish this was a comic book/graphic novel or a movie. Told in a visual format, this could have been a joy to behold. As a work of written fiction it sadly gets a bit too tedious and long-winded and lacking in depth.

[StarMan · Rating 2 out of 5]

VERDICT: ~2 stars for me, but readers who like uber-fantastical, comic-book level SciFi with little actual "science" may dig this book.

PLOT: Dead girl's digitized brain versus emerging A.I.

IN SHORT: 10% SciFi, 90% Fantasy. As ambitious as it is ridiculous. It's the kind of writing where terms like "nano" or "crypto" are thrown around willy-nilly, and fantastical battles take place in cyberspace realms. I think it was also supposed to be funny, but it wasn't my kind of humor.

AWARDS: Exponentially more weird/silly the longer you read.

CONSIDER THESE SIMILAR-ISH BOOKS (my rating/GR rating)
The Holy Machine by Chris Beckett (3.7/3.57)
Uncanny by Sarah Fine (4/3.96)
The Unseen World by Liz Moore (4.4/4.11)
The Last Day by Glenn Kleier (4.0/4.07)

[Mike Billington · Rating 5 out of 5]

Geeks and Gamers will love this book.
I am neither a Geek (I'm not even sure what a Geek is, I just know I'm not one) nor a Gamer but I loved this amazing book that is part adventure, part war story, and part science fiction with a little bit of romance thrown in for good measure.
The fact is that author Bryce Anderson, while showing off some impressive knowledge of how the virtual world actually works, is one heck of a storyteller. He must be because - despite the fact that I am someone who treats his laptop as little more than a glorified typewriter, still writes letters by hand (with a fountain pen, no less) and doesn't know a bit from a byte - I thoroughly enjoyed following Anderson's intrepid heroine Helen Roderick through the pages of this novel.
I admit that I bought this book primarily because the author's blurb starts out by saying that once she died, Helen thought her life would be simple.
That caught my attention right away: I mean, dead girl? Simple life? Zombie?
To my surprise Helen doesn't shamble around searching for bodies to chew on; instead she becomes a virtual person after she freezes herself and somehow (I don't really understand the mechanics of this) enters a computer.
Or her brain does.
Or her personality and memories or... well, she gets into it somehow.
And her life is NEVER simple.
In fact, at one point it becomes so complicated that she's trying to save the planet - literally - from... well, I won't say too much for fear of spoiling the narrative that Anderson obviously worked so hard to craft. Suffice it to say that it was very easy for me - first cousin to a Luddite - to get so wrapped up in the story that hours would sometimes pass while I was reading it. At one point I was so engrossed that when my telephone rang and I had to stop reading to answer it I was actually angry.
Anderson includes a lot of technical information in this book but he does it in a good way and by that I mean he didn't make me feel stupid.
(That's a gift because there are authors out there who - consciously or not - can make me feel really stupid about the science-y things they write about.) His characters - and there are a bunch of them - are well drawn and even though this is a novel about some pretty fantastical people I found them to be very "real" in the way they responded to one another. I even grew to have a grudging respect for the villain because Anderson was careful to let me know just what drives him (it?).
The narrative is pretty seamless and although this is a long novel, I never felt overwhelmed by it. There is just enough humor - including Anderson's often hilarious footnotes - to lighten the tension and just enough tension to pull the reader in.
All in all, a wonderful story beautifully told and a book I highly recommend.

[Peggy · Rating 5 out of 5]

So I read this without knowing ANYTHING about it. (No, I hadn't read a description here or on the back of a book or anything else.) So with that in mind...

This was a great book! I rate it 5 stars IF you're a geeky-type person. 4 stars if you just like science fiction, but aren't into the geek culture at all. (Because quite frankly, if you're not familiar with geek culture references, you'll miss a huge percentage of the charm of this book!)

There were a couple of slow spots a few chapters in - mostly info you needed for the story later to make sense.

Helen also had some relationship and sex-related actions that seemed more like what a guy would think a woman would do than what one would actually do. (No, there aren't graphic sex scenes in the book!) However, it could be argued that Helen's actions were due to her unusual circumstances, so it didn't bother me.

The ending was a surprise and at first I wasn't sure if I liked it. Then I thought, "How would I have ended it differently?" And honestly, I couldn't think of a better ending, so I decided it was just perfect. :)

Why did I rank this so high? Because there were lots and lots of really novel ideas - this is super-creative stuff!! Plus I loved all the references to movies and shows and books and games that I know and love. Very cool! :)

[Graham Storrs · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really enjoyable book - because I'm a nerd. It plots the rise and rise of Helen, a young woman who has her mind uploaded to a computer early in the piece and ends up saving the world - or not, depending on your perspective, I suppose. The book was funny, clever, quirky, and well-informed - all attributes I love.

So why didn't it get 5 stars? Well, it had a bit of a structural problem. There was a part of the book where the focus on Helen's technology and its development came at the expense of the story and its development. It sagged. I kept reading through because I'm a nerd and I was fascinated by all the technical stuff and I loved the nods and winks and homages to popular SFF culture that went on throughout the book. But, nerdgasms aside, I was very glad when the technology gave way to story again and the author got on with it.

I've put Bryce C. Anderson on my list of sci-fi writers to watch. And, if you're a nerd too, you should read this book.

[Nathan Shumate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Starts off a little shaky and meanders a bit for the first quarter or so, but then decides on its direction and gives the reader the goods.

[Skeldof · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed "Volume I". Total 5 stars. It was like a mash-up of some of the most enjoyable books I've read over the past few years. Elements from Scalzi's Lock-in, Cline's Ready Player One and a dash of Cory Doctorow, with nods towards Pratchett's writing style. All told from the point of view of a nerdy but strong female voice. A real product of current thinking and societal fears touching on moral issues around what it means to be human and AI.

Unfortunately Volume II lost me. The ongoing epic superhero style fight didn't do anything for me. It's not a genre I'm generally keen on. Shame. It feels like it was written by a different person. It did try to touch on how the war was a metaphor for the real world software struggle. But it was a little muddled and didn't have the strength of the first part of the book.

[Shaun · Rating 3 out of 5]

The “singularity” -- uniting of human consciousness and advanced machinery -- has fascinated spec-fic writers for years. One question that’s never been answered, though: if you’re uploaded, do you still have a soul? It turns out that our heroine here very much does, and that’s a good thing for humanity.

Entertaining and thoughtful, I thought the plot dragged and it was a bit too video game-like for me in places (your taste/mileage will vary). Overall it was a solid read. I found this through the Immerse or Die novel compilation, which I wound up re-reading this summer. On balance, this was the weakest of the group Smith curated. That said, I still enjoyed it, and it was still worth the time.

[Ashley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have to admit that this book did not last long as a read aloud, but I finished it on my own. It definitely reads as fanfic. The novel, written online with a strong fan following, tells the story of Helen as she abandons meat space for a life as a digitally uploaded consciousness. It imagines what such a future would be like. The last part deals with a violent battle against a rival AI that views humanity as a destructive force.

[Max Savenkov · Rating 3 out of 5]

Funny in a way, but waaaaay too cliched. The antagonist is a walking cliche, and one very boring and lacking interesting motivation, and the combat episodes are more suited for a bad Hollywood movie about "cyberspace" than more-or-less serious sci-fi, which tries to raise some questions about progress and humanity. Still, some jokes in this book were good, and the ending, at least, is not as bland as the middle.

[Jeffrey W Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very cool book. I believe that I found this author by reading a story in the "All These Shiny Worlds" anthology. So then I went and found this book. What a great story. This is a very long book, that I was forced to read in short sittings, and I must admit that I may have confused what was reality and what was virtual, a time or two. That's probably OK. Helen deserves a movie deal. I plan to read the rest of Mr Andersons works.

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the story, of science grad student Helen taking the leap from living flesh to digital representation, and how she gets up to speed (literally, in the beginning as the computer simulation can't match real time). The novel is slightly let down by pacing as the major incident mentioned in the sleeve notes occurs half way through the book, and is shortly followed by the end of "Part 1". This marks a good point to take a breather as a lot of action is packed into that end.

The 2nd part is better paced building up to various action sequences as Helen battles her primary foe. Getting virtual reality "right" in stories is hard, even when read in the same era as written. Anderson doesn't use the phrases "cyberspace" or "Second Life", which now appear dated to the modern reader, though the parallels are there. He certainly gives vivid descriptions, which overcame my occasional thoughts about ridiculous representations. It also helps the main character is portrayed thinking about this too!

The novel is peppered/seasoned with pop culture and geeky references, famous quotes, etc. They're not piled on too thickly, so I'm sure the author has plenty more favourite references to spice up future work.

[Brendan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. The story is very engagingly written and never loses momentum, and the characters ooze personality with every line. For most of the book the footnotes are full of interesting real-life concepts and further reading. Committing to tracing the singularity all the way from the present day is a daunting task, but Anderson handles it with aplomb.

It goes a bit off the rails towards the end, when things get a bit too close to the singularity for anyone to write very clearly. Some characters and plot points become very confusing and difficult to follow. Underneath it all is still some interesting ideas, but they're not presented with the same impressive clarity.

[Pierce White · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had a lot of political commentary woven throughout that often times never related back to the story. I was disappointed with the pacing used for the main character overcoming obstacles, one moment there was a problem and the next page it was weeks, months, or years later with the problem overcome.

There were very interesting concepts that were explored regarding virtual reality, mortality, and human augmentation and their moral implications but mostly done in vague struggles that didn't get much depth. I found the story entertaining enough to finish but the ending gave me more separation from the main character than a sense of connection to her.

[Michael Pritchett · Rating 4 out of 5]

All encompassing look at a future where and how people might be able to upload themselves, the consequences and issues surrounding the technology. Beyond that it then extrapolates how it is different and akin to AI in a last ditch effort to save humanity from itself and its creation.

The author size notes, quips, and geek references through the story kept me entertained even when it tripped past the interesting to the incredible. Nevertheless I enjoyed the read as a whole even with a flawed ending.

[Richard Kendrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Warning: this book contains a dangerous neuro-virus that will compel you to read page after page. It will not set you free until you've reached the end. So if you have a job or a family or any other responsibilities...

...take some vacation days, or quit, even. Send the kids off to grandma's. You know, whatever it takes. Read this book! Seriously. It's terrific. And that's not just the virus talking. I think.

[C. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Due to distractions of everyday life I wasn't able to binge-read this from start to finish like I wanted to.

This novel is both optimistic and cynical, and at moments the narrative strays into "author soapbox" territory more than I would like, but overall it fits together nicely. It's suspenseful, amusing, strange, and a lot of other things all rolled together.

I will almost certainly re-read this novel at some point, like I do all my favorite books.

[Kat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really good. At first it kind of strains your brain to comprehend what's going on (especially while time is out of sync) but I found that happening less and less later into the story. Lots of pop culture references and funny footnotes. Also, the author translates things like viruses infecting other computers into action fights.

[tivasyk · Rating 4 out of 5]

чудова книжка, на диво! ну, не ідеальна, — але захоплююче чтиво для любителів кіберпанку, фантастики загалом, і гумору в стилі террі пратчета. хто пропустив її в складі immerse or die storybundle — шукайте онлайн, текст має бути доступний вільно з ліцензією creative commons (принаймні таке посилання бачив у книжці).

[Cass Morrison · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story is like a time capsule of all the hopes, fears, and idiosyncracies of today's internet pop culture from the political fear to the nod to Pratchett, Adams and other writers. Part one could have used a little more editing but part 2 moved along very well. Over all really well written. and enjoyable.

[Ibri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read. Takes a bit to get exciting but the beginning is still interesting.

[Kristin · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's an interesting premise, and the author has a fun voice, but holy heck does he need an editor. This book is at least twice as long as it should be.

[Eero · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably should subtract one star for excessive Joss Whedon references. On a tablet now, may write a full review later.

[Joe Baughman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very entertaining, if you liked Ready Player One, you will probably like this book.