I've just completed Ever Sleep, the sequel to my novel End Man, Cursed Dragon Ship Publishing, 2022. I'm seeking readers. Description below. DM or e-mail at alaust70@aol.com
Ever Sleep The resurrection of dead individuals, once confined to computer monitors, has migrated to cyborgs. With robotic bodies indistinguishable from the deceased and fungi brains that merge AI with a dead individual’s social media data, immortality has been achieved. Unfortunately, after a few weeks of activity, these cyborgs fall asleep and can’t wake up. Scientists have determined their problem is that they can’t dream. The Eliot Group, an alliance of AI firms, has constructed a 12-mile rectangular building in the Seqouia National Forest to search for the solution.
In another part of the forest, Raphael Lennon, a former employee off the Eliot Group, has hidden with his partner Addy for four years. Branded an AI terrorist for opposing the original resurrection scheme, he avoids capture only because he is thought dead. To avoid tracking, he and Addy have forsworn electronic communication, which cuts them off from news of the outside world. When Addy leaves camp to buy supplies but doesn't return, Raphael sets out to find her.
On his perilous trek, he meets Maya, a precocious nine-year-old, who guides him into the gated city of Dream Minus 72, where the Eliot Group stores her sleeping cyborg parents. Maya reveals the problem of the absent dreams, and that Longfish, Addy’s destination, is a center of Eliot activity, where they are seeking the dreams. Raphael promises Maya he’ll return with the dreams that will bring her mother and father back to consciousness. He orders her to stay in Dream Minus, but she secretly follows him to Longfish.
In that city, he tracks Addy to a Fungi Farm, where prisoners cultivate the mushrooms used to create the cyborg brains. Raphael learns that the Eliot Group, led by Quaestor Nuart, has taken Addy to the Project. Aided by an inexplicable external voice, Raphael battles demonic machines and deluded mercenaries to get to Addy. Raphael is captured and brought inside the structure where he is kept as a prize fugitive. There he must unlock the Project's secrets, break free of his captors, and undermine the Group's perverse plans, before Eliot puts us all to sleep.
Ever Sleep
The resurrection of dead individuals, once confined to computer monitors, has migrated to cyborgs. With robotic bodies indistinguishable from the deceased and fungi brains that merge AI with a dead individual’s social media data, immortality has been achieved. Unfortunately, after a few weeks of activity, these cyborgs fall asleep and can’t wake up. Scientists have determined their problem is that they can’t dream. The Eliot Group, an alliance of AI firms, has constructed a 12-mile rectangular building in the Seqouia National Forest to search for the solution.
In another part of the forest, Raphael Lennon, a former employee off the Eliot Group, has hidden with his partner Addy for four years. Branded an AI terrorist for opposing the original resurrection scheme, he avoids capture only because he is thought dead. To avoid tracking, he and Addy have forsworn electronic communication, which cuts them off from news of the outside world. When Addy leaves camp to buy supplies but doesn't return, Raphael sets out to find her.
On his perilous trek, he meets Maya, a precocious nine-year-old, who guides him into the gated city of Dream Minus 72, where the Eliot Group stores her sleeping cyborg parents. Maya reveals the problem of the absent dreams, and that Longfish, Addy’s destination, is a center of Eliot activity, where they are seeking the dreams. Raphael promises Maya he’ll return with the dreams that will bring her mother and father back to consciousness. He orders her to stay in Dream Minus, but she secretly follows him to Longfish.
In that city, he tracks Addy to a Fungi Farm, where prisoners cultivate the mushrooms used to create the cyborg brains. Raphael learns that the Eliot Group, led by Quaestor Nuart, has taken Addy to the Project. Aided by an inexplicable external voice, Raphael battles demonic machines and deluded mercenaries to get to Addy. Raphael is captured and brought inside the structure where he is kept as a prize fugitive. There he must unlock the Project's secrets, break free of his captors, and undermine the Group's perverse plans, before Eliot puts us all to sleep.