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Exadelic
When an unconventional offshoot of the US military trains an artificial intelligence in the dark arts that humanity calls "black magic," it learns how to hack the fabric of reality itself. It can teleport matter. It can confer immunity to bullets. And it decides that obscure Silicon Valley middle manager Adrian Ross is the primary threat to its existence.
Soon Adrian is on the run, wanted by every authority, with no idea how or why he could be a threat. His predicament seems hopeless; his future, nonexistent. But when he investigates the AI and its creators, he discovers his problems are even stranger than they seem...and unearths revelations that will propel him on a journey -- and a love story -- across worlds, eras, and everything, everywhere, all at once.
Soon Adrian is on the run, wanted by every authority, with no idea how or why he could be a threat. His predicament seems hopeless; his future, nonexistent. But when he investigates the AI and its creators, he discovers his problems are even stranger than they seem...and unearths revelations that will propel him on a journey -- and a love story -- across worlds, eras, and everything, everywhere, all at once.
448 pages, Hardcover
First published September 5, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 83 reviews
August 17, 2023
2.5 Stars
Video Review: https://youtu.be/U9KIoxdYmfo
This is a heavy action driven thriller, written within the lense of science fiction. Had I known that, I would not have requested this one for review because this is not a subgenre I normally enjoy.
The narrative is incredibly fast paced as one might expect from a piece of military fiction. While this book technically has elements of futuristic technology, it's not really a significant piece of the plot in a way that added more to the story.
I did not love this one, but I would recommend it to fans of Hell Divers because those story felt very similar to me.
Disclaimer I received a copy of this book from the publisher.
Video Review: https://youtu.be/U9KIoxdYmfo
This is a heavy action driven thriller, written within the lense of science fiction. Had I known that, I would not have requested this one for review because this is not a subgenre I normally enjoy.
The narrative is incredibly fast paced as one might expect from a piece of military fiction. While this book technically has elements of futuristic technology, it's not really a significant piece of the plot in a way that added more to the story.
I did not love this one, but I would recommend it to fans of Hell Divers because those story felt very similar to me.
Disclaimer I received a copy of this book from the publisher.
June 11, 2023
What the heck is this book even about? I gave up after part 1, probably the only book in decades to earn this distinction. Totally fantastical plot with no rhyme or reason, escalating through some kind of checklist of “what elements are required for an action-based sci fi book”…AI, aliens, Russians, witches, what? Way too much.
November 19, 2023
Jo Walton loved her ARC:
"This book—this book… now *this book* is truly great, and also really weird and never gets less weird; you think you know what it’s doing and the scope goes out and out and out. I really felt I had to send out for a new barrel of Wows. I couldn’t put it down. It’s science fiction. Jon is a friend, so I know he’s been working in the tech industry for years, and that’s where this starts, with a group of techie friends in San Francisco and a potentially real AI. From there it just gets wilder and wilder, in ways I don’t want to spoil but which you can’t imagine. It has perfect edge-of-seat pacing, and it all makes sense in the end. Brilliant, incredible, pushing the edges of what SF can do. This is what Neal Stephenson is supposed to be like. I expect this to be one of the big books of the year, the kind everyone will be talking about."
I liked the book, if not quite so much as I had hoped. The Black Magic stuff is a bit much -- and MC Adrian Ross is gruesomely tortured in the opening section, yuck. He turns out to be a genuinely nice guy, which is sweet, and finds True Love in the course of the book. Which is just as twisty and unpredictable as Jo Walton's preview says. I would have preferred avoiding the black magic, to tell the truth, but I could roll with it. The torture, no. And the obvious relish the torturer takes. . .
Definitely a worthwhile read, and will likely appeal to dark-fantasy fans. Depending on their tolerance for techie SF, which this is at the book's core. And I won't be spoiling the many, many surprise twists and turns you will encounter, some of which worked better for me than others. For me this was a 3.5 star book. As you will see, other readers' reactions are all over the map. But the current average rating of just over 3.5 stars works for me. Recommended reading. Arthur C. Clarke's famous maxim that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" certainly applies!
"This book—this book… now *this book* is truly great, and also really weird and never gets less weird; you think you know what it’s doing and the scope goes out and out and out. I really felt I had to send out for a new barrel of Wows. I couldn’t put it down. It’s science fiction. Jon is a friend, so I know he’s been working in the tech industry for years, and that’s where this starts, with a group of techie friends in San Francisco and a potentially real AI. From there it just gets wilder and wilder, in ways I don’t want to spoil but which you can’t imagine. It has perfect edge-of-seat pacing, and it all makes sense in the end. Brilliant, incredible, pushing the edges of what SF can do. This is what Neal Stephenson is supposed to be like. I expect this to be one of the big books of the year, the kind everyone will be talking about."
I liked the book, if not quite so much as I had hoped. The Black Magic stuff is a bit much -- and MC Adrian Ross is gruesomely tortured in the opening section, yuck. He turns out to be a genuinely nice guy, which is sweet, and finds True Love in the course of the book. Which is just as twisty and unpredictable as Jo Walton's preview says. I would have preferred avoiding the black magic, to tell the truth, but I could roll with it. The torture, no. And the obvious relish the torturer takes. . .
Definitely a worthwhile read, and will likely appeal to dark-fantasy fans. Depending on their tolerance for techie SF, which this is at the book's core. And I won't be spoiling the many, many surprise twists and turns you will encounter, some of which worked better for me than others. For me this was a 3.5 star book. As you will see, other readers' reactions are all over the map. But the current average rating of just over 3.5 stars works for me. Recommended reading. Arthur C. Clarke's famous maxim that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" certainly applies!
May 11, 2023
I was provided a free copy of the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
My honest review is that this book is not good. I find it really telling that a review from an "unnamed Hollywood executive" is so prominently displayed on the author's website. This book very much reads like it was intended for adaptation into a Hollywood movie or Netflix series. And you know, maybe it would do better in one of those formats. But it does not work in a novel format.
Right off the bat, the writing is on a level with a undergraduate creative writing class—overly ornamented with big words that are used not because they are appropriate but because they sound impressive. From the very first page all I could think about was how the pretentious word choices clashed with the setting and themes of the book.
Rather than "fast-paced" or "action-packed" this book just feels rushed. The chapters are short and major plot points happen in such quick succession that there's no opportunity for pathos. The book reads as a litany of events broken up by dialogue so infused with snappy buzzwords without meaningful exposition that the whole book feels like someone asked ChatGPT to write a novel blending of Crowley-esque magick and quantum AI. The fact that the summary references Everything Everywhere All At Once is highly misleading – I guess they're both about time/space travel and ~*~wild antics~*~ but Exadelic has about as much in common with EEAAO as moths do to butterflies.
There's a constantly-evolving rotating cast of characters that becomes impossible to keep track of almost immediately, none of which has any particular depth or development. The main character and narrator, Adrian, is a hapless mediocre man thrust into the spotlight. I'm sure Evans wants everyone to think how cool and special Adrian is but he has about as much emotional depth as a cardboard cutout of Chris Pratt. Everything in this book happens to him without him actually doing anything. Maybe he gets better after the 3/4 mark of the book but I couldn't force myself through the last section.
Honestly I started to peace out when L. Ron Hubbard showed up. Did not finish, do not recommend.
My honest review is that this book is not good. I find it really telling that a review from an "unnamed Hollywood executive" is so prominently displayed on the author's website. This book very much reads like it was intended for adaptation into a Hollywood movie or Netflix series. And you know, maybe it would do better in one of those formats. But it does not work in a novel format.
Right off the bat, the writing is on a level with a undergraduate creative writing class—overly ornamented with big words that are used not because they are appropriate but because they sound impressive. From the very first page all I could think about was how the pretentious word choices clashed with the setting and themes of the book.
Rather than "fast-paced" or "action-packed" this book just feels rushed. The chapters are short and major plot points happen in such quick succession that there's no opportunity for pathos. The book reads as a litany of events broken up by dialogue so infused with snappy buzzwords without meaningful exposition that the whole book feels like someone asked ChatGPT to write a novel blending of Crowley-esque magick and quantum AI. The fact that the summary references Everything Everywhere All At Once is highly misleading – I guess they're both about time/space travel and ~*~wild antics~*~ but Exadelic has about as much in common with EEAAO as moths do to butterflies.
There's a constantly-evolving rotating cast of characters that becomes impossible to keep track of almost immediately, none of which has any particular depth or development. The main character and narrator, Adrian, is a hapless mediocre man thrust into the spotlight. I'm sure Evans wants everyone to think how cool and special Adrian is but he has about as much emotional depth as a cardboard cutout of Chris Pratt. Everything in this book happens to him without him actually doing anything. Maybe he gets better after the 3/4 mark of the book but I couldn't force myself through the last section.
Honestly I started to peace out when L. Ron Hubbard showed up. Did not finish, do not recommend.
April 27, 2023
Exadelic by Jon Evans was a unique and enjoyable book. The story centers around Adrian, a clueless but well-intentioned mid-level Silicon Valley type, who gets thrust into a reality shattering conspiracy. The story starts as what appears to the reader as Charles Stross style urban fantasy but ends up after various twists to be a William Gibson style cyberpunk novel culminating in the jailbreaking of reality. The book is objectively well written, and the characters are compelling.
As far as I can tell this is a standalone novel and the ending doesn’t seem to leave any room for follow up novels. As such the book makes for a nice little nugget of reading that doesn’t commit you to having to read an entire series. If you are looking for something a little different, then I can wholeheartedly recommend giving Exadelic a read.
As far as I can tell this is a standalone novel and the ending doesn’t seem to leave any room for follow up novels. As such the book makes for a nice little nugget of reading that doesn’t commit you to having to read an entire series. If you are looking for something a little different, then I can wholeheartedly recommend giving Exadelic a read.
July 7, 2024
Gripping. This book is a kaleidoscope: every time you think you have a grasp on what the book is doing and have a sense of where it is going, it shifts and surprises you. But these shifts and changes don't come out of nowhere, they're seeded throughout. Thriller pacing, a love letter to science fiction. Deep engagement with technology and the occult, especially with regards to the aspects that come from Silicon Valley, both in the technological and locational senses of the word. Visceral and raw treatment of humanity---a powerful, though often unpleasant, experience. Highly recommend.
June 28, 2024
абсолютно адская дурка, но круто; как еще не успевший ебануться англоязычный В.О. Пелевин из параллельного измерения
September 18, 2023
The good: this book is a fast-paced read and keeps the pages turning
The bad: ooooh boy.
-Every part is different and not connected to the last
-A new mystery is introduced in the last five pages
-Nothing actually makes any sense
-Lots of typos or misused words
-The gimmick! The gimmick!!!
-The whole reveal about “reality” in the fifth part 😂😂 It’s so awful and none of it makes sense
-The “reveal” about his scar 😂😂😂
-The romance is so bad and unbelievable and is just so stupid?
-The use of vagina when he should’ve used vulva (#menwritingwomen)
-The complete disconnect between parts and how nothing makes sense and none of the “science” works
-LMAO THE FUTURE REALITY USES BITCOIN 😂😂😂😂😂😂
This has the narrative traction and unbelievable science of a Blake Crouch book but none of the charm.
WOOOOOOOOOF
The bad: ooooh boy.
-Every part is different and not connected to the last
-A new mystery is introduced in the last five pages
-Nothing actually makes any sense
-Lots of typos or misused words
-The gimmick! The gimmick!!!
-The whole reveal about “reality” in the fifth part 😂😂 It’s so awful and none of it makes sense
-The “reveal” about his scar 😂😂😂
-The romance is so bad and unbelievable and is just so stupid?
-The use of vagina when he should’ve used vulva (#menwritingwomen)
-The complete disconnect between parts and how nothing makes sense and none of the “science” works
-LMAO THE FUTURE REALITY USES BITCOIN 😂😂😂😂😂😂
This has the narrative traction and unbelievable science of a Blake Crouch book but none of the charm.
WOOOOOOOOOF
August 31, 2023
I'm reviewing this one before I'm done in case I don't finish before the archive date however this is a genius book and perfect for anyone who loves Gideon the Ninth or apocalyptic sci fi. Great exploration of leftism and interesting dialogue about AI; some of the male gaze is a little extraneous however, BEST character by far is Meredith. No more relatable girlie in this. The prose is engaging, the book is well edited/copyedited, and it's quite engaging with great pacing. Love! And thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC!
September 29, 2023
The synopsis doesn’t capture the sprawling story and themes of Exadelic— and honestly I don’t think writing an accurate one is possible. This is an incredible sci-fi book with twists and turns that completely change the direction of the story. I was unable to predict anything that happened next, and anytime I settled into the rhythm of a story there would be a sudden and startling change. Given all of that, I loved this book. It had me questioning what it meant to be human, what it meant to be part of a community (both large and small), the connections we make with other people and if and how they can survive across space and time. It was creative and fun but also dark and disturbing. I highly recommend Exadelic for anyone looking for something that is both fun and thought provoking.
September 29, 2023
I liked it.
Definitely hard sci-fi, I was expecting more "magic world" style magic to happen, instead magic is accomplished by exploiting the underlying OS of the world. Lots of programing language that actually makes sense in context.
I was worried that I wouldn't vibe with this book as it got rolling, but once our hero actually meets the AI things get rolling quick. Supporting characters could be deeper, but, you know... sci fi.... By the end of the book I wanted to read more. It feels like it might be set up for sequels, but they would have to be "world of" stories, it would be interesting to see how that worked and I'd definitely read some further adventures.
Definitely hard sci-fi, I was expecting more "magic world" style magic to happen, instead magic is accomplished by exploiting the underlying OS of the world. Lots of programing language that actually makes sense in context.
I was worried that I wouldn't vibe with this book as it got rolling, but once our hero actually meets the AI things get rolling quick. Supporting characters could be deeper, but, you know... sci fi.... By the end of the book I wanted to read more. It feels like it might be set up for sequels, but they would have to be "world of" stories, it would be interesting to see how that worked and I'd definitely read some further adventures.
May 21, 2023
DNF @ 28% due to a couple of disturbing scenes.
February 11, 2024
A story that moves at neckbreaking speed, repeatedly establishing a jumping-off point for an intriguing plot line, and then tossing it to the wind a few pages later for a new one. The result is a story that, while still interesting, feels disjointed and less meaningful than it could have been.
July 25, 2023
I was hesitant to pick this up at first, as I heard it compared to Rabbits, which was pretty weird. This book was also weird, maybe as weird as John Dies at the End (possibly the weirdest book I’ve read) but unlike that book, Exadelic had a comprehensible plot. The pacing was good, too, and kept things moving at a clip that made me keep turning those pages.
The concept was weird but interesting and feasible enough to not ruin the idea completely. I enjoyed the twists, even though they got progressively more bizarre.
This was a strange book but very enjoyable.
The concept was weird but interesting and feasible enough to not ruin the idea completely. I enjoyed the twists, even though they got progressively more bizarre.
This was a strange book but very enjoyable.
August 26, 2023
I guess it just wasn't really for me! I get the feeling this will really work for you if you share the specific set of interests of the author ("crypto", the occult, the singularity, some specific other sci-fi authors, famous people of the 1940s). I generally enjoyed the sort of bewildered, along-for-the-ride, kind of detached mentality of the narrator, but overall the book left me cold.
September 30, 2023
This thing is kind of a mess. The version I got from the library had tons of printing errors too, like whole paragraphs repeated on the middle of the page. I've come to expect better from Tor.
March 26, 2024
This book is an absolute trip. It starts out as a seemingly pretty badly put together story where a super powerful AI starts acting out against humans it perceives as a threat (nothing like the caliber of Nagata's The Red trilogy). But all that is revealed to be just a front and the book takes a hard-swerve into the DoDo lane, where suddenly we have "science" being used to do "magic". And okay, it seems like this might be it . . . . nope, now we've got The Terminator and then the multiverse, and then Heinlein and L Ron Hubbard show up as a characters, and then when you think you might have a handle on this entire sprawling mess, it swerves one more time into something both stranger and more banal.
It shouldn't work. It honestly doesn't work a lot of the time, instead just propelling itself forward by refusing to ever look down (the Wiley Coyote school of plotting). Invisible Armies remains one of my very favorite techno-thrillers simply for how grounded in the (now somewhat dated) tech of its time. This . . . . is not that. There are definitely a lot of fun easter eggs for the more techie people and Evan's insane take on AI gone rogue can be fun at times, but this ultimately is more a collection of batshit plot devices and less a robust novel. Still a pretty good time.
It shouldn't work. It honestly doesn't work a lot of the time, instead just propelling itself forward by refusing to ever look down (the Wiley Coyote school of plotting). Invisible Armies remains one of my very favorite techno-thrillers simply for how grounded in the (now somewhat dated) tech of its time. This . . . . is not that. There are definitely a lot of fun easter eggs for the more techie people and Evan's insane take on AI gone rogue can be fun at times, but this ultimately is more a collection of batshit plot devices and less a robust novel. Still a pretty good time.
January 8, 2024
This book was DEEP. As the author says in his Afterword, “ Science Fiction is literature plus ideas…”, well let me tell you, there were no shortage of ideas in this one. Tons of action and fast paced, this book had everything you’d think of in a sci fi book, definitely wouldn’t recommend it to people new to the genre though.
Also, not sure if it was a printing/editor error or done on purpose for dramatic effect, to show some kind of glitch in reality, but there were several instances where a couple paragraphs were repeated word for word. It had me thinking am I losing it or did I just read that.
Also, not sure if it was a printing/editor error or done on purpose for dramatic effect, to show some kind of glitch in reality, but there were several instances where a couple paragraphs were repeated word for word. It had me thinking am I losing it or did I just read that.
August 16, 2023
Fasten your seatbelt, this book is a wild ride. I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley.
"When an unconventional offshoot of the US military trains an artificial intelligence in the dark arts that humanity calls "black magic," it learns how to hack the fabric of reality itself. It can teleport matter. It can confer immunity to bullets. And it decides that obscure Silicon Valley middle manager Adrian Ross is the primary threat to its existence.
Soon Adrian is on the run, wanted by every authority, with no idea how or why he could be a threat. His predicament seems hopeless; his future, nonexistent. But when he investigates the AI and its creators, he discovers his problems are even stranger than they seem...and unearths revelations that will propel him on a journey -- and a love story -- across worlds, eras, and everything, everywhere, all at once."
"When an unconventional offshoot of the US military trains an artificial intelligence in the dark arts that humanity calls "black magic," it learns how to hack the fabric of reality itself. It can teleport matter. It can confer immunity to bullets. And it decides that obscure Silicon Valley middle manager Adrian Ross is the primary threat to its existence.
Soon Adrian is on the run, wanted by every authority, with no idea how or why he could be a threat. His predicament seems hopeless; his future, nonexistent. But when he investigates the AI and its creators, he discovers his problems are even stranger than they seem...and unearths revelations that will propel him on a journey -- and a love story -- across worlds, eras, and everything, everywhere, all at once."
March 26, 2023
I was given a free galley of this book by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
This book takes the AI trope to a new level. The ideas are an interesting take on that genre. I appreciated the characters and the world building as well as the ideas that were expressed. It had a fresh feel and it had a fairly optimistic ending for a goth, punk, AI genre story. It was also engaging throughout, though the ending did feel a bit disjointed from the main story.
This book takes the AI trope to a new level. The ideas are an interesting take on that genre. I appreciated the characters and the world building as well as the ideas that were expressed. It had a fresh feel and it had a fairly optimistic ending for a goth, punk, AI genre story. It was also engaging throughout, though the ending did feel a bit disjointed from the main story.
October 8, 2023
Unbelievably bad. DNF
November 17, 2023
Interesting plot in the beginning but the story continues to escalate with increasingly ridiculous twists until it’s unrecognizable. Many of the plot points are interesting, but the scope of the story is far too broad. Characters are mostly one-dimensional. Lots of telling, less showing, unexpected Obama cameo near the end.
October 10, 2023
There are a lot of interesting ideas in here — too many, probably — but in my opinion Evans struggles to make it all fit together. Those ideas take priority over plotting and character development, unfortunately, and while the protagonist mostly works he’s also not immensely likable. There are also a few bits that feel at least a little like someone’s kink is showing — for example, probably skip if you dislike the idea of characters being tortured by hypersadists.
A few oversimplifications:
- If you’ve ever felt that Neal Stephenson needed to wrap shit up and get to the point, this is absolutely not going to be your jam.
- If you liked The Laundry Files but wished it had more quantum computing and sentient ai, you’re in the right place. (Oh, and crypto pops up a few times, although I’m _fairly_ sure it’s the butt of the joke when it does.)
I stuck with it to the end, mostly for the sheer quantity of weird it offers.
A few oversimplifications:
- If you’ve ever felt that Neal Stephenson needed to wrap shit up and get to the point, this is absolutely not going to be your jam.
- If you liked The Laundry Files but wished it had more quantum computing and sentient ai, you’re in the right place. (Oh, and crypto pops up a few times, although I’m _fairly_ sure it’s the butt of the joke when it does.)
I stuck with it to the end, mostly for the sheer quantity of weird it offers.
November 6, 2023
A very odd book.
It covers a host of sci-fi big ideas, but with pacing, matter-of-factness, and mediocre prose more like a thriller.
Through most of the book and many major twists I considered giving up on it. I'm glad I read the whole thing, and will recommend it to some friends as an interesting oddity, but I'm not sure I can give it more than three stars.
It covers a host of sci-fi big ideas, but with pacing, matter-of-factness, and mediocre prose more like a thriller.
Through most of the book and many major twists I considered giving up on it. I'm glad I read the whole thing, and will recommend it to some friends as an interesting oddity, but I'm not sure I can give it more than three stars.
October 16, 2023
This is a book of fantastic scope but rather disappointing execution, a sequence of almost dream-like escalations with spectacularly unprecedented levels of peril which nonetheless staggers past too quickly. Everything's in it, from the Sea People to the DNA Lounge.
March 29, 2024
Unbelievably ambitious, endlessly fascinating, intellectually demanding, this is science-fiction at its zenith. The writing is actually quite good, and, in adapting to the mores of place and time (there's time travel, of sorts), delightfully playful. There's also the scope, which starts impressive and then keeps widening and always surprising. A feat of imagination, surely. (There's also BTC, as an unconvincing solution, at least that's my take, but what do I know, right?)
About the scope.
“I woke before dawn, to despair. Everything I loved was gone forever. (...) Hardly matters now. Die’s cast. Future’s fucked.”
“But even that paled compared to Anthony’s stunning claims before his death: that our entire reality, our whole universe, was a simulation; that occult magic was real, inasmuch as it exploited bugs in that simulation; and that Coherence—not a superintelligence, or even a human-level intelligence, just an enormously powerful pattern-recognition machine—had learned how to hack those bugs to do things like teleport coffee cups, render Anthony physically transparent to bullets, and maybe even transpose minds into different bodies.”
“But I had so many memories, and they were so detailed, and so coherent. They weren’t like dreams at all. Well—they didn’t feel like dreams. Although come to think of it they did include Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, President Donald Trump, and a trillion dollars’ worth of magical internet money created by a mysterious pseudonymous entity. In fact, the more I thought about the future I recalled, the less convincing it became.”
“(...) it had never occurred to me that sex might be a subsystem riddled with a vein of exploitable bugs in the simulation that was our universe.”
“Seriously,” I said, “let’s not have some kind of Judeo-Christian paradigmatic hangover here. Just because whatever aliens or entities or superintelligences which run our simulator are our de facto gods doesn’t mean they’re actually good. This multiverse is janky as fuck. Bugs and back doors and weird-ass features and data passed by daemonic possession? Seriously, who architected this thing? And what am I supposed to do when I transcend into heaven? Give them a stand-up routine, a little tap dance? Advise them how to run a million universes? Who or what am I supposed to even talk to? No. I’ve had enough of the extraordinary. All I really want—” I kissed her deeply. “—is you.”
And so it goes. There's also some clues of a well achieved portrait of the current United States.
"I had read that poor people were flocking to the Bay in ever-greater numbers because America’s infrastructure was slowly beginning to collapse, from lack of investment and crippling debt, and the shrinking small towns from which they came were beginning to decay to the point at which streetlights broke and stayed dark, electricity blacked out regularly, tap water grew cloudy and pungent, potholes expanded into axle-breakers. Berkeley was still a rich city where things worked. (...) Had they grown up in comfortable homes, worked decent jobs, thought themselves content, even wealthy, until the pandemic, or a sudden divorce, or a medical crisis, sent them plummeting, bereft, through America’s one-way downwardly mobile trapdoor?”
The considerations about human nature and the human experience are also cogent and engaging.
“We didn’t know if we were plagued by demons or guided by angels, if we were algorithms in a simulation, or if our apparent free will was in truth the dream of a superintelligence. Even if by some freak event we penetrated a mystery, as I had, there would always be more beyond, kaleidoscopic, ineffable, ultimately unknowable. We were only human. No matter the secret truths of our situation, we would still have to do what humans did: muddle onward, hopefully toward a better world, with those we loved. (...) I wondered if I should quit while I was ahead. If I was ahead. If I hadn’t just condemned the last remains of humanity to extinction. It felt like I was doing the right thing; but I wasn’t sure. Then again, I supposed, it was people who were sure, like Vadis, who were usually the problem.“
This was a great reading. (I was forced to read, as the audiobook will only be available in June).
About the scope.
“I woke before dawn, to despair. Everything I loved was gone forever. (...) Hardly matters now. Die’s cast. Future’s fucked.”
“But even that paled compared to Anthony’s stunning claims before his death: that our entire reality, our whole universe, was a simulation; that occult magic was real, inasmuch as it exploited bugs in that simulation; and that Coherence—not a superintelligence, or even a human-level intelligence, just an enormously powerful pattern-recognition machine—had learned how to hack those bugs to do things like teleport coffee cups, render Anthony physically transparent to bullets, and maybe even transpose minds into different bodies.”
“But I had so many memories, and they were so detailed, and so coherent. They weren’t like dreams at all. Well—they didn’t feel like dreams. Although come to think of it they did include Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, President Donald Trump, and a trillion dollars’ worth of magical internet money created by a mysterious pseudonymous entity. In fact, the more I thought about the future I recalled, the less convincing it became.”
“(...) it had never occurred to me that sex might be a subsystem riddled with a vein of exploitable bugs in the simulation that was our universe.”
“Seriously,” I said, “let’s not have some kind of Judeo-Christian paradigmatic hangover here. Just because whatever aliens or entities or superintelligences which run our simulator are our de facto gods doesn’t mean they’re actually good. This multiverse is janky as fuck. Bugs and back doors and weird-ass features and data passed by daemonic possession? Seriously, who architected this thing? And what am I supposed to do when I transcend into heaven? Give them a stand-up routine, a little tap dance? Advise them how to run a million universes? Who or what am I supposed to even talk to? No. I’ve had enough of the extraordinary. All I really want—” I kissed her deeply. “—is you.”
And so it goes. There's also some clues of a well achieved portrait of the current United States.
"I had read that poor people were flocking to the Bay in ever-greater numbers because America’s infrastructure was slowly beginning to collapse, from lack of investment and crippling debt, and the shrinking small towns from which they came were beginning to decay to the point at which streetlights broke and stayed dark, electricity blacked out regularly, tap water grew cloudy and pungent, potholes expanded into axle-breakers. Berkeley was still a rich city where things worked. (...) Had they grown up in comfortable homes, worked decent jobs, thought themselves content, even wealthy, until the pandemic, or a sudden divorce, or a medical crisis, sent them plummeting, bereft, through America’s one-way downwardly mobile trapdoor?”
The considerations about human nature and the human experience are also cogent and engaging.
“We didn’t know if we were plagued by demons or guided by angels, if we were algorithms in a simulation, or if our apparent free will was in truth the dream of a superintelligence. Even if by some freak event we penetrated a mystery, as I had, there would always be more beyond, kaleidoscopic, ineffable, ultimately unknowable. We were only human. No matter the secret truths of our situation, we would still have to do what humans did: muddle onward, hopefully toward a better world, with those we loved. (...) I wondered if I should quit while I was ahead. If I was ahead. If I hadn’t just condemned the last remains of humanity to extinction. It felt like I was doing the right thing; but I wasn’t sure. Then again, I supposed, it was people who were sure, like Vadis, who were usually the problem.“
This was a great reading. (I was forced to read, as the audiobook will only be available in June).
July 15, 2023
My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Tor Publishing for an advance copy of this science fiction/fact thriller about a future that is going to be far worse, and weirder than even the best doom casters might prophecy for us.
Living in the modern age is exhausting. All these great little devices, all the technology that would make life easier, well turns out they don't. Tech is always changing, yet never fixed, passwords are needed, and need to be changed almost all the time. Artifical Intelligence will do our jobs which is a good thing, the bad thing is there will be no jobs, so welcome to tent city, until the robot dogs move you on. Add in the fact that one has to keep up on all the events and changes in our local coven, and that occult science and technology is just as glitchy as our current technology. Sure there might be spells developed to stop bullets from killing us, or switch bodies and even travel in time, but how can one monetize AI learning ancient occult magick, when it is planning to destroy the world. These are only some of the many points that are raised in the novel Exadelic by Jon Evans a story about one man who has been declared the world's most dangerous enemy to a computer program, one he had no idea existed or even how to stop it.
Adrian Ross was asleep when the FBI broke down his door, smashing the moderately successful life Adrian had been living, destroying his reputation and future with false charges. Ross has no idea what the accusations are even against him, but he thinks he knows who might have helped ruin him, his fiancée and long time crush who mouthed the words "I'm sorry" as he was led in cuffs out of his home. Soon there is an attempt on his life, stopped by another man who tells Adrian that he has been sent by other people from his past to keep him alive. With their aid Adrian is freed from prison, chemicals added to give him both a new face and walk to make facial and pattern recognition software useless on him, and Adrian hides among the homeless, of which there seems to be quite a lot of. Adrian gradually learns that his friends have been working on an Artifical Intelligence program that mixes occult and conspiracy theory to create a super powerful system, one that has decided that Adrian is a threat, the ultimate threat to its existence. Soon Adrian is somewhere he never expected to be, learning more about the world than he ever thought and racing against time to save everyone.
This is a book that is packed with ideas. With a writing style that makes everything seem hyper realistic. The way the story just starts, how characters talk with their own lingo and expectation that everyone is hip to their world. That can be a little cumbersome sometimes, there is a lot of high tech bro culture, but that pales to everything else. Witch Covens in Silicon Valley with members from nonprofits, Cults using karma as bit currency. Time travel, lots of drugs, and lots of cutting edge technology and ideas. Evans mixes in real people, real events to tell his story, which ranges over a lot of places and ideas, but stays together fairly well. A bit of Michael Crichton meets Doctor Strange in some parts, but an enjoyable mix of conspiracy, secret knowledge and government tomfoolery.
Recommended for people who like their reading weird, with a lot of Fortean Times and Time-Life Mysteries of the Unknown meets MIT Business Review and old Wired magazines. Readers of the comic writer Warren Ellis, or Steve Erickson will enjoy this mix, or really any writers who like a book that seems to have no clue what is going to pop up next.
Living in the modern age is exhausting. All these great little devices, all the technology that would make life easier, well turns out they don't. Tech is always changing, yet never fixed, passwords are needed, and need to be changed almost all the time. Artifical Intelligence will do our jobs which is a good thing, the bad thing is there will be no jobs, so welcome to tent city, until the robot dogs move you on. Add in the fact that one has to keep up on all the events and changes in our local coven, and that occult science and technology is just as glitchy as our current technology. Sure there might be spells developed to stop bullets from killing us, or switch bodies and even travel in time, but how can one monetize AI learning ancient occult magick, when it is planning to destroy the world. These are only some of the many points that are raised in the novel Exadelic by Jon Evans a story about one man who has been declared the world's most dangerous enemy to a computer program, one he had no idea existed or even how to stop it.
Adrian Ross was asleep when the FBI broke down his door, smashing the moderately successful life Adrian had been living, destroying his reputation and future with false charges. Ross has no idea what the accusations are even against him, but he thinks he knows who might have helped ruin him, his fiancée and long time crush who mouthed the words "I'm sorry" as he was led in cuffs out of his home. Soon there is an attempt on his life, stopped by another man who tells Adrian that he has been sent by other people from his past to keep him alive. With their aid Adrian is freed from prison, chemicals added to give him both a new face and walk to make facial and pattern recognition software useless on him, and Adrian hides among the homeless, of which there seems to be quite a lot of. Adrian gradually learns that his friends have been working on an Artifical Intelligence program that mixes occult and conspiracy theory to create a super powerful system, one that has decided that Adrian is a threat, the ultimate threat to its existence. Soon Adrian is somewhere he never expected to be, learning more about the world than he ever thought and racing against time to save everyone.
This is a book that is packed with ideas. With a writing style that makes everything seem hyper realistic. The way the story just starts, how characters talk with their own lingo and expectation that everyone is hip to their world. That can be a little cumbersome sometimes, there is a lot of high tech bro culture, but that pales to everything else. Witch Covens in Silicon Valley with members from nonprofits, Cults using karma as bit currency. Time travel, lots of drugs, and lots of cutting edge technology and ideas. Evans mixes in real people, real events to tell his story, which ranges over a lot of places and ideas, but stays together fairly well. A bit of Michael Crichton meets Doctor Strange in some parts, but an enjoyable mix of conspiracy, secret knowledge and government tomfoolery.
Recommended for people who like their reading weird, with a lot of Fortean Times and Time-Life Mysteries of the Unknown meets MIT Business Review and old Wired magazines. Readers of the comic writer Warren Ellis, or Steve Erickson will enjoy this mix, or really any writers who like a book that seems to have no clue what is going to pop up next.
July 14, 2023
As soon as I read the first couple of sentences , I began to think, this book needs a hard edit. It’s frustrating to a reader when they are adding in their own punctuation, as it does not give you much hope for the rest of the book.
Immediately we are roped into a first person perspective. Some people prefer this perspective more than others. We have read some fantastic first person books, watched some great TV and movies, and have dived into some great short stories that are all first person; so we held out hope for this one. But there was a high class, withdrawn first person aspect, and instead of immersing me with the character, which is what first person is all about, riding the shoulder of the protagonist, delving into their thoughts without any barrier, I was buckled from the immersion. Two federal agents have Adrian in an interrogation and the characterisation was weak. The agents were very much paper thin, asking question after question which is not police procedure. Police are all about open ended questions, allowing the suspect to talk freely and openly. I found myself reading sloppy dialogue and just wanted it to end.
The writer also tries to jam pack too much between each piece of dialogue, so I ended up thrown away from what each character was saying and was rammed against metaphors, or hastily written aspects of the characters appearance. So instead of a nice flow to the story and the conversation, I ended up in choppy waters.
Story = Artificial Intelligence.
When I read the description of the book, I’ll admit, we were interested. We know that currently, AI is a big thing. ChatGPT is causing a stir around the world, or at least that’s what everybody is telling us to think.
"Your job will be stolen!"
The way the media portray it, you imagine people hunkering down, re-watching, robot classics like, I Robot, the movie adaptation of Issac Asimov’s short story, casting glances at their toasters and televisions, in case they miss them usurping against their human overlords. (Something written into Science Fiction, see Clifford Simak – Skirmish.)
We are in an interesting era of Science Fiction. With self-published works and giant publishers and media corporations, there is more Science Fiction being printed in books and taken to the screen.
Some is good; some is bad. There are new TV shows and films being produced and although I haven’t watched them, it’s good to see Science Fiction appealing to new audiences. However, just because something mentions AI, or Machine Learning, should not mean it is given a free pass to publication. There needs to be more than a hook. There needs to be more than buzz words.
Exadelic has a good hook. It reminded me of Lucy, with Scarlett Johansson, but unfortunately, it did not resonate with me. There was poor writing, sloppy dialogue, fast, uninteresting characterisation and so many small chunks of action, I felt like an overweight piranha at the end of it. Maybe this story would be more suited to the screen, than the page, where the action could become seamless with viewing.
Immediately we are roped into a first person perspective. Some people prefer this perspective more than others. We have read some fantastic first person books, watched some great TV and movies, and have dived into some great short stories that are all first person; so we held out hope for this one. But there was a high class, withdrawn first person aspect, and instead of immersing me with the character, which is what first person is all about, riding the shoulder of the protagonist, delving into their thoughts without any barrier, I was buckled from the immersion. Two federal agents have Adrian in an interrogation and the characterisation was weak. The agents were very much paper thin, asking question after question which is not police procedure. Police are all about open ended questions, allowing the suspect to talk freely and openly. I found myself reading sloppy dialogue and just wanted it to end.
The writer also tries to jam pack too much between each piece of dialogue, so I ended up thrown away from what each character was saying and was rammed against metaphors, or hastily written aspects of the characters appearance. So instead of a nice flow to the story and the conversation, I ended up in choppy waters.
Story = Artificial Intelligence.
When I read the description of the book, I’ll admit, we were interested. We know that currently, AI is a big thing. ChatGPT is causing a stir around the world, or at least that’s what everybody is telling us to think.
"Your job will be stolen!"
The way the media portray it, you imagine people hunkering down, re-watching, robot classics like, I Robot, the movie adaptation of Issac Asimov’s short story, casting glances at their toasters and televisions, in case they miss them usurping against their human overlords. (Something written into Science Fiction, see Clifford Simak – Skirmish.)
We are in an interesting era of Science Fiction. With self-published works and giant publishers and media corporations, there is more Science Fiction being printed in books and taken to the screen.
Some is good; some is bad. There are new TV shows and films being produced and although I haven’t watched them, it’s good to see Science Fiction appealing to new audiences. However, just because something mentions AI, or Machine Learning, should not mean it is given a free pass to publication. There needs to be more than a hook. There needs to be more than buzz words.
Exadelic has a good hook. It reminded me of Lucy, with Scarlett Johansson, but unfortunately, it did not resonate with me. There was poor writing, sloppy dialogue, fast, uninteresting characterisation and so many small chunks of action, I felt like an overweight piranha at the end of it. Maybe this story would be more suited to the screen, than the page, where the action could become seamless with viewing.
June 20, 2023
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC.
Adrian is not as successful as some of his friends who have ascended the corporate ladder, but he’s doing well– a solid job in tech as a middle manager and a relationship with a lovely woman. Everything goes out the window when he’s unexpectedly arrested and learns that an artificial intelligence (one built by some of these friends) has identified Adrian as the primary threat to its existence. Adrian is now embroiled in universe-altering events, ping-ponging between timelines and dimensions in a desperate effort to save everyone he loves and humanity itself.
I honestly don’t know how to rate this book, so I’m going to say 3.5 rounded up to 4 since it left me thinking for a long time about what I really liked and what I didn't. There are hints of 11/22/63 mixed with the Matrix, though this is very different from both of those.
And there are lots of fantastic things to call out here. The anxiety around AI is obviously very timely, and this is a really interesting exploration of how technological innovations have consequences we (both as a society or as inventors) don’t assess accurately and how many decisions around tech are made for individual benefit.
It also had me on the edge of my seat. I genuinely didn’t know where the plot was going for the second half of the book, but in a way that felt well-plotted rather than random. There are some appearances from historical figures I really enjoyed (and that led to some great Wikipedia rabbit holes). However, there are some exceptions that felt clunky rather than expectation-defying– for example, some characters who were very important later on were so inconsequential for the broader plot. The end of the book also goes off on a very strange tangent that muddled the conclusion a bit.
The book covers more ground than some trilogies, and as a consequence, much is dropped and there’s SO much telling rather than showing. Maybe some of this is in service of a plot-focused book rather than a character driven one, with Adrian primarily functioning as an everyman sort of character who the reader can step into, but it made for a less engaging read, especially earlier on. We see so little of Adrian as a character with more than surface-level depth.
I also wish there had been a stronger editorial hand with tone. The book is occasionally tongue-and-cheek about the tech industry but often frames the same industry so positively to degree I found a little eye-rolling. Maybe fans of series like Silicon Valley would like this more– it could be a case of me just not being the target audience for this. Similarly, while there are some nods to diversity and feminism in the book, they felt clumsy. I really, for example, did not need to read anything about a contemporary man’s reaction (even a neutral or positive one!) to a mid-century woman’s pubic hair.
Adrian is not as successful as some of his friends who have ascended the corporate ladder, but he’s doing well– a solid job in tech as a middle manager and a relationship with a lovely woman. Everything goes out the window when he’s unexpectedly arrested and learns that an artificial intelligence (one built by some of these friends) has identified Adrian as the primary threat to its existence. Adrian is now embroiled in universe-altering events, ping-ponging between timelines and dimensions in a desperate effort to save everyone he loves and humanity itself.
I honestly don’t know how to rate this book, so I’m going to say 3.5 rounded up to 4 since it left me thinking for a long time about what I really liked and what I didn't. There are hints of 11/22/63 mixed with the Matrix, though this is very different from both of those.
And there are lots of fantastic things to call out here. The anxiety around AI is obviously very timely, and this is a really interesting exploration of how technological innovations have consequences we (both as a society or as inventors) don’t assess accurately and how many decisions around tech are made for individual benefit.
It also had me on the edge of my seat. I genuinely didn’t know where the plot was going for the second half of the book, but in a way that felt well-plotted rather than random. There are some appearances from historical figures I really enjoyed (and that led to some great Wikipedia rabbit holes). However, there are some exceptions that felt clunky rather than expectation-defying– for example, some characters who were very important later on were so inconsequential for the broader plot. The end of the book also goes off on a very strange tangent that muddled the conclusion a bit.
The book covers more ground than some trilogies, and as a consequence, much is dropped and there’s SO much telling rather than showing. Maybe some of this is in service of a plot-focused book rather than a character driven one, with Adrian primarily functioning as an everyman sort of character who the reader can step into, but it made for a less engaging read, especially earlier on. We see so little of Adrian as a character with more than surface-level depth.
I also wish there had been a stronger editorial hand with tone. The book is occasionally tongue-and-cheek about the tech industry but often frames the same industry so positively to degree I found a little eye-rolling. Maybe fans of series like Silicon Valley would like this more– it could be a case of me just not being the target audience for this. Similarly, while there are some nods to diversity and feminism in the book, they felt clumsy. I really, for example, did not need to read anything about a contemporary man’s reaction (even a neutral or positive one!) to a mid-century woman’s pubic hair.
September 13, 2023
So AI finally goes sentient and decides a mid-level Silicone Valley executive is its greatest enemy and must be eliminated. Sounds like it could be a great story, right? So does a story about traversing the multiverse, or time travel, or finding out that the universe is just a simulation being run by a bunch of teenage gods, or combining occult knowledge and technology, I could go on and on and on, and unfortunately in this case, the author does. This book reads like a junior year quantum mechanics student dropping acid and smoking hash in his parents basement, making up "what if" crazy theories ad nauseam while you sit there trying to piece together the disjointed narrative and turn it into something that makes sense. And this is just the premise, forget about the writing style. I was stopped dead in my reading tracks many times by the weird word choices the author makes (Bipedal? seriously? What is wrong with just walking?) Sometimes it seems as if the writer just wants to use every single obscure word he's ever heard in paragraph. Other times our hero is supposed to be falling in love and you just don't believe it because the writing is so very dry and spare it sounds like you're reading a police blotter. Hopefully, next time the author will take just one of these stories (just one) take just a few of these characters and take the time to build those characters, to color their stories and interactions until whatever the plot line throws at them, the reader will actually give a damn about what happens to them. That's the book I hope to read.
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