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Singularity's Children #3
Conflict
Action Adventure and Techno-Utopian Manifesto.
Conflict is compelling and provocative—a romp through the alien landscape of our not-so-distant future.
The balance is shifting. The Forward Coalition is losing relevance, it knows the world is slipping through its fingers. But Nebulous and the Kin are still too weak to confront the old bulls, who, cornered and confused, are at their most deadly. Can the torrent of fantastic technologies emerging from the Klan’s Fabs bring about utopia as the optimists claim, or only speed the planet’s inevitable appointment with annihilation?
Cold wars are growing hot as governments lash out at what they don’t understand. Plutocrats and blue-eyed idealists face off across a planet bristling with micro-nukes, chthonic bio-machines, and weaponised hallucinations. Mankind’s million-year run will finally take it to the brink of an abyss with oceans of darkness awaiting above and below…
The fast-paced action ricochets the reader between neon-stained riots of urban flesh and idyllic tropical islands, where humans and their BugNet companions have built a pan-species utopia.
War is coming and Conflict crackles with the energy of an approaching storm.
Conflict is compelling and provocative—a romp through the alien landscape of our not-so-distant future.
The balance is shifting. The Forward Coalition is losing relevance, it knows the world is slipping through its fingers. But Nebulous and the Kin are still too weak to confront the old bulls, who, cornered and confused, are at their most deadly. Can the torrent of fantastic technologies emerging from the Klan’s Fabs bring about utopia as the optimists claim, or only speed the planet’s inevitable appointment with annihilation?
Cold wars are growing hot as governments lash out at what they don’t understand. Plutocrats and blue-eyed idealists face off across a planet bristling with micro-nukes, chthonic bio-machines, and weaponised hallucinations. Mankind’s million-year run will finally take it to the brink of an abyss with oceans of darkness awaiting above and below…
The fast-paced action ricochets the reader between neon-stained riots of urban flesh and idyllic tropical islands, where humans and their BugNet companions have built a pan-species utopia.
War is coming and Conflict crackles with the energy of an approaching storm.
407 pages, Paperback
Published July 5, 2018
5 people are currently reading
13 people want to read
About the author
Toby Weston
8 books41 followersToby Weston (born May 8th, 1972) is a British writer and technologist.
His work weaves action and philosophy while dealing with the themes of consciousness, utopia, and the technological singularity.
His books are grounded in science, but he is prepared to take excursions into the fantastic.
Before writing books, Toby worked as a parking attendant, spook, tour guide, software engineer and chef (if you count making crab sandwiches).
His academic background spans Software Engineering, Computational Neuroscience, Environmental Biology and Deep Learning.
He is currently based in Switzerland where he writes and works in the field of digital innovation.
His work weaves action and philosophy while dealing with the themes of consciousness, utopia, and the technological singularity.
His books are grounded in science, but he is prepared to take excursions into the fantastic.
Before writing books, Toby worked as a parking attendant, spook, tour guide, software engineer and chef (if you count making crab sandwiches).
His academic background spans Software Engineering, Computational Neuroscience, Environmental Biology and Deep Learning.
He is currently based in Switzerland where he writes and works in the field of digital innovation.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
August 27, 2020
First things first: this is book three of a series and you absolutely need to start with Denial and then Disruption before this!
TL;DR: This is very much a continuation of what has come before and, once again, there's a cliffhanger ending leading to the next book and not a whole lot of conclusion. Actually, come to think of it, none. If you've enjoyed the story so far you will continue to enjoy what happens here. It's "more of the same" in a good sense, same style, same action, same contemplation of future tech, same fun! I'm looking forward to the Grand Finale!
TL: Once again, some time has passed, somewhere between 3 to 5 I think. There are sprinkled references to "a few years" regarding events in Disruption. Everyone is roughly where we left them:
- Stella, despite some renewed contact with her former friends, is still enmeshed in TeenLife™;
- Zaki and Segi are becoming well known in their Klan (I literally didn't think of the other connotation that might have until I typed it just now!) and and are continuing to make the Çiftlik house a technological haven whilst sheltering within the Caliphate's low-tech sanctuary;
- Keith, poor Keith, continues to be abused and is still working with Dee for Niato;
- Niato continues to push Atlantis Online (I still smile everytime I see "AOL" referenced, I'm pretty sure this is on purpose) and has expanded what can be achieved in the real world through playing;
- The CLV(s?) finally make an appearance! I've been waiting so long! More on this anon;
- Ben is, unsurprisingly, still a jerk.
Conflict, obviously, pushes the story arc from the cold-war-style standoff that's been building between the Forward Coalition and Atlantis (with the Caliphate and folks like Nebulous/the Kin not entirely dedicated to supporting either side) into actual conflict. However, the majority of the story is about why this stage is finally reached, and the conflict itself isn't sparked until the final few chapters of the story. This particular plot-line is highly plausible and it's interesting to see how it plays out.
The tech continues to be both one of the main sources of joy for me, but also one that I have to keep not thinking too hard about because otherwise it really seems...unlikely. I think that a lot of the technological advances can happen, but I don't think that the Mesh and the Kin/Klans would be able to do what they do - that the Consensus could be so seamlessly ubiquitous. I work in the industry that attempts to make compute a ubiquitous utility and I know exactly what goes into making that stuff available. The current pandemic situation has demonstrated just how easy it is(n't) to have an x-person video conference, let alone a fully-immersive augmented reality hook up. Granted, the book isn't claiming that this is now, or even here for that matter, but there's nothing mentioned about exactly how the non-Forwards are powering all of their compute-heavy workloads. I guess that maybe the Caliphate has some vast datacenters scattered around and they're willing to rent/sell anyone time, but that doesn't entirely fit the story there. I can see the Forward's not actually caring a great deal WHO is running workloads on their platforms come to that, but regardless, the seamless and ubiquitous full-immersion occasionally annoys me. Mostly because I want it to be honest :D
As mentioned above, the CLV has finally made more than a postscript appearance! For the most part, it's more setup for what I assume is going to be an interesting clash of the titans in book 4. I think the final appearance of one of the CLV17 units in particular is very interesting because it sets the stage for a CLV vs CLV confrontation at some stage in the future. There's a lot of this setup actually, seeing how all of this ties up in ReImagination is quite exciting!
TL;DR: This is very much a continuation of what has come before and, once again, there's a cliffhanger ending leading to the next book and not a whole lot of conclusion. Actually, come to think of it, none. If you've enjoyed the story so far you will continue to enjoy what happens here. It's "more of the same" in a good sense, same style, same action, same contemplation of future tech, same fun! I'm looking forward to the Grand Finale!
TL: Once again, some time has passed, somewhere between 3 to 5 I think. There are sprinkled references to "a few years" regarding events in Disruption. Everyone is roughly where we left them:
- Stella, despite some renewed contact with her former friends, is still enmeshed in TeenLife™;
- Zaki and Segi are becoming well known in their Klan (I literally didn't think of the other connotation that might have until I typed it just now!) and and are continuing to make the Çiftlik house a technological haven whilst sheltering within the Caliphate's low-tech sanctuary;
- Keith, poor Keith, continues to be abused and is still working with Dee for Niato;
- Niato continues to push Atlantis Online (I still smile everytime I see "AOL" referenced, I'm pretty sure this is on purpose) and has expanded what can be achieved in the real world through playing;
- The CLV(s?) finally make an appearance! I've been waiting so long! More on this anon;
- Ben is, unsurprisingly, still a jerk.
Conflict, obviously, pushes the story arc from the cold-war-style standoff that's been building between the Forward Coalition and Atlantis (with the Caliphate and folks like Nebulous/the Kin not entirely dedicated to supporting either side) into actual conflict. However, the majority of the story is about why this stage is finally reached, and the conflict itself isn't sparked until the final few chapters of the story. This particular plot-line is highly plausible and it's interesting to see how it plays out.
The tech continues to be both one of the main sources of joy for me, but also one that I have to keep not thinking too hard about because otherwise it really seems...unlikely. I think that a lot of the technological advances can happen, but I don't think that the Mesh and the Kin/Klans would be able to do what they do - that the Consensus could be so seamlessly ubiquitous. I work in the industry that attempts to make compute a ubiquitous utility and I know exactly what goes into making that stuff available. The current pandemic situation has demonstrated just how easy it is(n't) to have an x-person video conference, let alone a fully-immersive augmented reality hook up. Granted, the book isn't claiming that this is now, or even here for that matter, but there's nothing mentioned about exactly how the non-Forwards are powering all of their compute-heavy workloads. I guess that maybe the Caliphate has some vast datacenters scattered around and they're willing to rent/sell anyone time, but that doesn't entirely fit the story there. I can see the Forward's not actually caring a great deal WHO is running workloads on their platforms come to that, but regardless, the seamless and ubiquitous full-immersion occasionally annoys me. Mostly because I want it to be honest :D
As mentioned above, the CLV has finally made more than a postscript appearance! For the most part, it's more setup for what I assume is going to be an interesting clash of the titans in book 4. I think the final appearance of one of the CLV17 units in particular is very interesting because it sets the stage for a CLV vs CLV confrontation at some stage in the future. There's a lot of this setup actually, seeing how all of this ties up in ReImagination is quite exciting!
July 21, 2018
Conflict (Singularity's Children, Book 3) by Toby Weston
With each book in the series, the story gets better! I do hope that the author is pounding away on his keyboard, furiously completing the next book. You *are* doing that, right Toby Weston?! I hope so as after finishing this one, I really need to know what's next.
The character drive the plot, and in this book they drive it right off a nuclear cliff! So to speak. The stakes get higher, and the relationships get both clearer, and also more fuzzy. The technology is increasingly intelligent, which also has some interesting side effects. But hey, it's not like it's the end of the world... Is it?
With each book in the series, the story gets better! I do hope that the author is pounding away on his keyboard, furiously completing the next book. You *are* doing that, right Toby Weston?! I hope so as after finishing this one, I really need to know what's next.
The character drive the plot, and in this book they drive it right off a nuclear cliff! So to speak. The stakes get higher, and the relationships get both clearer, and also more fuzzy. The technology is increasingly intelligent, which also has some interesting side effects. But hey, it's not like it's the end of the world... Is it?
August 11, 2020
A direct continuation of Singularity's Children previous two books, Conflict is the story of the old corporate and political powers feeling threatened by decentralized new technology.
After her kidnapping Stella has 'retired into public life' - living as a celebrity she would rather not have anything to do with her past.
Based in their great aunt's Caliphate home, Segi and Zaki are growing more and more into their underground movement of semi-legal (bio) tech.
Keith is still a soldier and being swung around by King Niato with what Niato calls karma. Keith isn't really buying it but he likes the job.
Conflict is the next logical step after Denial and Disruption: the rich one percent of one percent insist on remaining in power. They are finding a solution in the Philip K. Dick-like propaganda-as-a-service, provided by the ubiquitous company BHJ, led, incidentally, by a very old man dying from cancer but being kept alive in a sack of nutrients who is 'remoting' to his head quarters, there to be projected as a perfectly healthy and strong leader.
Conflict feels like the missing link between Stephen Baxter's dystopian world view and Iain M. Banks' Culture series' technological utopia. Weston show how (if at all) we will be forced into this utopia. Decentralisation of technological power is essential, but as with any revolution this will lead to a change of power rather than its abolishment. Key elements in this utopia are upcoming technologies like artificial general intelligence and democratised biotechnology.
Singularity's Children contains a number of interesting peculiarities, some of which Weston mentions in his afterword.
- Like Greg Egan and others Weston is drawing the conclusion that the old genderspecific pronouns cannot cover new life forms and chooses to employ explicitly non-genderspecific ones.
- Nods to Monty Python, The Hitchhike's Guide to the Galaxy and other great works.
- A habit of using non-functional but nevertheless funny alliterations. For example, a bomb with a nervous artificial intelligence becomes 'a psychologically precarious, potential slayer of cities' and an older woman about to vomit 'an elegant elderly lady [...] show[ing] every sign of an imminent emetic episode'.
The story isn't relying on it but Westons dry humour certainly does contribute to it. The blurb on the cover says 'Action Adventure and Techno-Utopian Manifesto' - and that is exactly what Conflict is.
With this series we can follow Weston's development as an author. This third book's story has more meat to it than the previous two and he certainly seems to be heading in the right direction.
After her kidnapping Stella has 'retired into public life' - living as a celebrity she would rather not have anything to do with her past.
Based in their great aunt's Caliphate home, Segi and Zaki are growing more and more into their underground movement of semi-legal (bio) tech.
Keith is still a soldier and being swung around by King Niato with what Niato calls karma. Keith isn't really buying it but he likes the job.
Conflict is the next logical step after Denial and Disruption: the rich one percent of one percent insist on remaining in power. They are finding a solution in the Philip K. Dick-like propaganda-as-a-service, provided by the ubiquitous company BHJ, led, incidentally, by a very old man dying from cancer but being kept alive in a sack of nutrients who is 'remoting' to his head quarters, there to be projected as a perfectly healthy and strong leader.
Conflict feels like the missing link between Stephen Baxter's dystopian world view and Iain M. Banks' Culture series' technological utopia. Weston show how (if at all) we will be forced into this utopia. Decentralisation of technological power is essential, but as with any revolution this will lead to a change of power rather than its abolishment. Key elements in this utopia are upcoming technologies like artificial general intelligence and democratised biotechnology.
Singularity's Children contains a number of interesting peculiarities, some of which Weston mentions in his afterword.
- Like Greg Egan and others Weston is drawing the conclusion that the old genderspecific pronouns cannot cover new life forms and chooses to employ explicitly non-genderspecific ones.
- Nods to Monty Python, The Hitchhike's Guide to the Galaxy and other great works.
- A habit of using non-functional but nevertheless funny alliterations. For example, a bomb with a nervous artificial intelligence becomes 'a psychologically precarious, potential slayer of cities' and an older woman about to vomit 'an elegant elderly lady [...] show[ing] every sign of an imminent emetic episode'.
The story isn't relying on it but Westons dry humour certainly does contribute to it. The blurb on the cover says 'Action Adventure and Techno-Utopian Manifesto' - and that is exactly what Conflict is.
With this series we can follow Weston's development as an author. This third book's story has more meat to it than the previous two and he certainly seems to be heading in the right direction.
July 28, 2018
I enjoyed the plot development. The balance and conflict between the "old" self-interested dystopian and "new" idealistic techno-utopian is interesting. Many of the characters tend toward archetypal except for the lynchpin connecting the opposing sides. With each book, I have looked forward to the next book. Book four should have a fascinating start.
I received a promotional copy for review.
I received a promotional copy for review.
September 30, 2020
This is an amazing read...top 5 ever.
The multiple story lines, well-developed characters and incredible technology make for an emotionally and mentally stimulating experience.
I cannot wait for book 4.
The multiple story lines, well-developed characters and incredible technology make for an emotionally and mentally stimulating experience.
I cannot wait for book 4.
May 5, 2022
Gripping. On to book four.
Gripping.
This series gets better and better.
Very well crafted. Much like book 2, I looked forward to reading it each day.
Straight on to book four.
Highly recommended.
Gripping.
This series gets better and better.
Very well crafted. Much like book 2, I looked forward to reading it each day.
Straight on to book four.
Highly recommended.
July 9, 2018
glad that this one picked up where the last book left off. couldn't put it down. awesome writing Toby Weston!!
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews