When everyone reads minds, a secret is a dangerous thing to keep.
Sixteen-year-old Kira Moore is a zero, someone who can't read thoughts or be read by others. Zeros are outcasts who can't be trusted, leaving her no chance with Raf, a regular mindreader and the best friend she secretly loves. When she accidentally controls Raf's mind and nearly kills him, Kira tries to hide her frightening new ability from her family and an increasingly suspicious Raf. But lies tangle around her, and she's dragged deep into a hidden underworld of mindjackers, where having to mind control everyone she loves is just the beginning of the deadly choices before her.
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Susan Kaye Quinn
Speculative Fiction Author
Faery Swap
(middle grade)
Mindjack Trilogy
(young adult science fiction)
The Dharian Affairs
(steampunk romance)
Debt Collector
(adult future-noir)
Find all of Susan's works here.
(available in ebook, print, and audio)
I’ve been working on Singularity for nearly two and a half years.
My original idea was to write a reverse Pinnochio story about a boy who wants to become a machine—or, more precisely, a reverse Bicentennial Man (apologies to Mr. Asimov), where the pinnacle wasn’t attaining humanity, but transcending it. The idea of humanity’s future evolution has intrigued me for some time (see my Mindjack and Debt Collector series), and technology is already changing how we interact with the world (and each other). I was fascinated by the question of what would cause humanity (or even a single human boy) to choose to leave his humanness behind. I had no question that the technology to advance human intelligence (or create from scratch a machine intelligence) would eventually arrive: the true question was, what would we do with it? Would we use it to ascend into something greater? What did that even mean? And what could possibly motivate us to choose that option, if it were presented?
One thing I knew: the answer (and there wouldn’t be just one, but a multitude) would involve the intersection of everything we knew about the mind, conscious and subconscious, creativity and the soul, and all of our philosophies about what it means to be human. It would be far more than a tale about technology—what was possible—and much more a story about the choices humanity would have to make in the face of those possibilities.
Needless to say, I was hooked.
Of course, I was vaguely aware of the Singularity as a concept—the idea of a time when computers would become sentient—but I already knew that my version of the Singularity would be nothing like Terminator and Skynet. Our real world was hurtling forward with robotics and nanotechnology and artificial intelligence in everything from our browsers to our games—the idea of an AI rampaging against humanity was already long overdue for a reimagination. I had my own ideas, but I didn’t get far in my research before stumbling upon Ray Kurzweil’s The Singularity is Near… and found myself nodding at nearly every page. Ray’s optimistic view of the future was only one of its allures—it was Ray’s vision of the nature of the Singularity and what it would mean for humanity’s soul that captivated me. Because what is Pinnochio’s quest to become a real boy other than the desire to claim that quintessential thing that makes us human? And how does that thing change when we become more than ourselves, as Pinnochio wished? These are the questions we face when we peer into a future where organic-only humans are but one of the options for intelligence on our planet.
Two years ago, I set about building a fictional world based on the idea of enhanced intelligence as the basis for the Singularity. I drafted the prequel (Day Zero, which covered the Singularity event) as a screenplay at roughly the same time that I wrote The Legacy Human (the first novel in the post-Singularity world). The two stories were inextricably linked, and writing them together was illuminating to both. (I’m in the process of converting Day Zero to a novel, which will be published later in 2015.) Meanwhile, I watched the movie industry begin to reimagine the Singularity as well, moving beyond Terminator and into stories like Transcendence and Her and Lucy (and soon Ex_Machina and Chappie). I cheered this development, even as Hollywood seemed to stumble a bit, trying to wrap their storytelling minds around this new idea. But each story added to the lexicon of our imagination (something I hope mine will do as well).
My children are growing up in a world where Artificial Intelligence isn’t about science fiction—it’s about the technology in their present and near future. In the end, it will take the form of a question: what exactly do we mean when we call ourselves human? It’s a question humanity has been asking for a long time, and one that will continue to challenge us.
This series is one attempt to answer it.
This book has been a special, terrifying, and amazing journey. The people who helped make it happen were equally special and amazing (but not terrifying, except for Bryon Quertermous and his teaser emails about impending editorial letters). It feels like the universe sent me just the right people at just the right time to help me bring this story into the world the way I originally envisioned it, way back in the fall of 2012.
The Editor: Bryon Quertermous. I first contracted with Bryon to freelance edit this book… then promptly forced him to edit an entirely separate trilogy first. (This is partly his fault, for insisting I should expand on the first book and make it into a series.) When we finally got to work on Legacy together, we were a seasoned team… which was exactly what this book needed. Thank you, Bryon, for sticking with me until we could get here.
The Artist: Zachary Mueller. Zack was an actor on the Mindjack trailer, volunteering his time to help bring that story to life. When I noticed some artwork on his phone in the cast room, we quickly dived into talking about Legacy, even though it was just a glimmer of an idea at the time. As we spoke about his art and my story, it was as if the two were destined to cross paths. Zack’s critique of Legacy, two years later, reassured me that I had captured the essence of Eli’s artist nature the way I had wanted. Thank you, Zack, for having an open heart for this story.
The Cognitive Scientist: Daniel Smith. A recent friend, brilliant mind, and invaluable discussion partner on the finer points of philosophy, religion, duality, and artificial intelligence. Beyond the sheer pleasure of our conversations, and my frequent trips to the dictionary and Wikipedia so I could keep up with him, Daniel helped me take the raw stuffs of theme that were rife throughout the story and work through all the myriad implications. Thank you, Daniel, for jumping in with both feet. I can’t wait for your thoughts on Day Zero!
The Treasured Writer-Friends: Adam Heine and Rebecca Carlson. When the prospect of writing this story was terrifying me—not just the complexity of the topic, but the hot-button issues of religion and spirituality—Rebecca and Adam gently encouraged me to have faith, work hard, and write it anyway. And once it was written, they both lent their considerable talents in the craft of storytelling to make it better. Thank you, Rebecca and Adam, for having faith that I could actually pull this off… and for helping me get there.
The Borrowed Husband/YA Reader: Tim Sussman. The husband of a writer-friend, Tim is an avid YA reader as well as enjoying SF, which put him square in my “adults who read YA and/or SF” target audience. Tim was my mini market-test of both the story and the cover, seeing whether they had crossover appeal for adult readers (especially males) and if the story left them wanting more (always key). Thank you, Tim, for being my guinea pig!
The Kid: Adam Quinn. My sixteen-year-old son is a seasoned writer in his own right, with a trilogy of novels and two novellas under his belt. (I highly recommend raising your own critique partners. There are many benefits to this.) Not only is Adam in my target audience now, but his notes are always insightful and entertaining. You haven’t been properly critiqued until you’ve been taken to task about
the viability of your world’s monetary system! Thank you, Adam, for being willing to read your mom’s stuff and for catching my plot holes before they make it out into the world!
The Alpha Reader: Liz Masterson Searle. A good friend and fellow writer, Liz is relentlessly supportive in all my publishing antics. This kind of moral support is invaluable to writers. The fact that she loved Eli as much as I did from that very first, raw chapter flung across email, just solidified her as a treasured alpha reader (the one who gets everything first). Her encouragement and enthusiasm have been a constant source of inspiration over the long stretch of time it took for this story to come into the world. Thank you, Liz, for being Eli’s first and best fan!
Some projects feel like there are larger forces at work, nudging it into the world. This was one of those.
Final thanks go to Dale Robert Pease for the gorgeous cover and Jason Anderson at Polgarus for the formatting. Thanks especially to my readers for taking a chance on Eli’s story.
I promise you, there is much, much more to come.
Susan Kaye Quinn is the author of the bestselling Mindjack Trilogy and the Debt Collector serial, as well as other speculative fiction novels and short stories. Her work has appeared in the Synchronic, Telepath Chronicles, and AI Chronicles anthologies and has been optioned for Virtual Reality by Immersive Entertainment. Her business card says "Author and Rocket Scientist" but she mostly sits around in her PJs in awe that she gets to write full time.
Susan grew up in California, got a bunch of engineering degrees (B.S. Aerospace Engineering, M.S. Mechanical Engineering, Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering) and worked everywhere from NASA to NCAR (National Center for Atmospheric Research). She designed aircraft engines, studied global warming, and held elected office (as a school board member). All her engineering skills come in handy when dreaming up dangerous mind powers, future dystopian worlds, and slightly plausible steampunk inventions. For her stories, of course. Just ignore that stuff in the basement.
Susan writes from the Chicago suburbs with her three boys, two cats, and one husband. Which, it turns out, is exactly as much as she can handle.
Susan loves to connect with readers online! Stop by her SKQ Facebook Group or check out her website to learn about all her books. She also has a For Writers page for her fellow scribes on the journey. Subscribe to her newsletter to be notified about her next release in the Singularity series.
Table of Contents
The Legacy Human (Singularity #1) One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Thirty-Two
Thirty-Three
Thirty-Four
Thirty-Five
Thirty-Six
Thirty-Seven
Get the Next Singularity Book
A Note From Susan Kaye Quinn
Acknowledgments
About the Author
The Legacy Human (Singularity #1) (Singularity Series) Page 31
