Skip to main content

story identification - Trying to remember a book where a young man refuses to upload his mind digitally



A young man lives in an abandoned town where almost everyone has uploaded their mind into a network (which I think was based on crystals somehow?) so that they can live forever in peace and prosperity. His parents left him as a kid to join the network and left him in the care of a manufactured creature, which I believe was lizard/dinosaur like in appearance because that what the man liked as a kid. He occasionally visits his parents, who are always worried because they want him to "live" forever as they do, and they end up secretly creating a woman for him to fall in love with so that he will want to join them. Turns out that they did this by smushing together copies of his grandmother from a bunch of different times in her life. Apparently someone does this often, because I know the woman has a conversation with another being created the same way, who's basically enslaved


I have no idea when it was published, it could have even been in the last few years. I think the cover was mostly white? Any help would be much appreciated



Answer



This seems very close to Circuit of Heaven, and it has a sequel.


From Circuit of Heaven:



Plot Summary- In the future, most of the Earth's population have abandoned their bodies and permanently uploaded their personalities to "the Bin": a vast network of silicon crystals that supports a perfect, peaceful, deathless virtual society. Only the creeps, the crazies, the religious fundamentalists, and a few righteous rebels remain behind. One of these last is 21-year-old Nemo, forsaken by his parents' quest for cyber-utopia. Nemo is determined to live, age, and die in the bleak hell that the Earth has become rather than sacrifice his soul to a technological purgatory. But all of Nemo's hard-won convictions are shaken when, on a visit to the Bin, he meets his soul mate, a beautiful woman newly arrived in the virtual paradise who is struggling to recall her mysterious, dreamlike past.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.
Post a Comment
Read more

harry potter - Did Dolores Umbridge Have Any Association with Voldemort (or Death Eaters) before His Return?

I noticed that Dolores Umbridge was born during the first Wizarding War, so it's very likely she wasn't a Death Eater then (but she is pretty evil -- who knows?). After that Voldemort was not around in a way that could affect many people, and most wouldn't know he was planning to rise again. During that time, and up through Voldemort's return (in Goblet of Fire ), did Umbridge have any connection with the Death Eaters or with Voldemort? Was she doing what she did on her own, or was it because of an association with Voldemort or his allies? Answer Dolores Umbridge was definitely not a good person. However, as Sirius points out, "the world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters". Remember that he also says that he doesn't believe Umbridge to be a Death Eater, but that she's evil enough (or something like that). I think there are two strong reasons to believe that: Umbridge was proud to do everything according to the law, except when she trie...
Post a Comment
Read more

aliens - Interstellar Zoo story

I vaguely remember this story from my childhood: it was about an interstellar zoo that came to Earth with lots of bizarre and unusual species, and humans would file through and gape at all the crazy looking creatures from other planets. The twist came at the end when the perspective shifted to the other side of the bars and we discovered that the "creatures" were traveling through space on a kind of safari. They thought they were the visitors and we were the animals. Neither side knew that the other side thought they were the zoo creatures. Answer Got it. Zoo, by Edward D. Hoch. Published in 1958. Link to Publication History Link to PDF
Post a Comment
Read more

Could one of Voldemort's Death Eaters have killed or harmed Harry at Privet Drive?

In Order of the Phoenix , Dumbledore explains to Harry the protection that the Dursleys' home provides: While you can still call home the place where your mother's blood dwells, there you cannot be touched or harmed by Voldemort. He shed her blood, but it lives on in you and her sister. Her blood became your refuge. You need return there only once a year, but as long as you can still call it home, there he cannot hurt you. Your aunt knows this. I explained what I had done in the letter I left, with you, on her doorstep. She knows that allowing you houseroom may well have kept you alive for the past fifteen years. Dumbledore says that he cannot be "touched or harmed by Voldemort". Does this mean that he could have sent a Death Eater to just bust down the door and kill Harry, assuming that Voldemort would allow them to? And even if he didn't want them to kill him, could they have harmed him in some other way (e.g. the Cruciatus Curse)? Answer No. Harry was protect...
Post a Comment
Read more