I'm seeking beta readers for my just completed novel Ever Sleep, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, 71 K. You can respond here, or email me at alaust70@aol.com
Ever Sleep Blurb (any feedback on the blurb would also be helpful).
The resurrection of dead individuals, once confined to computer monitors, is now available in mobile units. With robotic bodies indistinguishable from the deceased and fungal brains that merge AI with a dead individual’s social media data, immortality has been achieved. Unfortunately, these facsimiles fall asleep after a few weeks of activity and can’t wake up. Scientists have determined their problem is they can’t dream. The Eliot Group, an alliance of AI firms, has constructed a 12-mile-long building in the Sequoia National Forest to access the largest mycelia growth on the planet. They intend to change the mycelia into a powerful LLM computer that will solve the missing dreams problem.
In another part of the forest, Raphael Lennon, a former employee of 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 facsimile 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 devilish machines and off-kilter 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 with the help of Addy, Maya and the mycelia, undermine the Eliot Group's perverse plans, which if successful will reduce humanity to dirt.
Ever Sleep Blurb (any feedback on the blurb would also be helpful).
The resurrection of dead individuals, once confined to computer monitors, is now available in mobile units. With robotic bodies indistinguishable from the deceased and fungal brains that merge AI with a dead individual’s social media data, immortality has been achieved. Unfortunately, these facsimiles fall asleep after a few weeks of activity and can’t wake up. Scientists have determined their problem is they can’t dream. The Eliot Group, an alliance of AI firms, has constructed a 12-mile-long building in the Sequoia National Forest to access the largest mycelia growth on the planet. They intend to change the mycelia into a powerful LLM computer that will solve the missing dreams problem.
In another part of the forest, Raphael Lennon, a former employee of 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 facsimile 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 devilish machines and off-kilter 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 with the help of Addy, Maya and the mycelia, undermine the Eliot Group's perverse plans, which if successful will reduce humanity to dirt.