In Transcension, Damien Broderick extrapolates a powerful science fiction novel from aspects of his speculative-science nonfiction book, The Spike, and creates a fascinating world at the edge of profound transformation.

In the near future, the brilliant lawyer/cybernetician Mohammed Kasim Abdel-Malik is killed by street thugs, but his body is rushed into cryonic suspension. His mind becomes the source for the Aleph, an artificial intelligence that will rule the world.

In the Aleph-ruled technotopia, Amanda Kolby-McAllister is a math and music genius who's almost 30, but she's trapped in adolescence by law and nanotech. Rebellious and bored, she attempts to catch an illegal and highly dangerous ride on the back of a subterranean Maglev freighter. Arrested, Amanda swears before the revived Abdel-Malik, now a Magistrate, that she will never again sneak into a Maglev hangar. But she conceives of another way to ride the supersonic train by entering the tunnel through a ventilation shaft in the Valley of the God of One's Choice--where outsiders are forbidden.

Mathewmark, who is a genuine adolescent, lives in the Valley of the God of One's Choice. Devout Luddites, the Valley inhabitants are outraged because the Maglev has opened a blasphemous vent into their Valley, but Mathewmark is more intrigued than disturbed, and his curiosity opens a way for Amanda to lead him into temptation. He helps her enter the Valley and the vent, with consequences that will bring them together with Abdel-Malik and the Aleph, and may completely change existence on Earth. --Cynthia Ward


From Publishers Weekly
Anyone who can't imagine grinning at the end of life as we know it should skip this book, but it'll be fun for people self-confident enough to imagine a lighthearted fusion of Clarke's Childhood's End and the movie Clueless. When Amanda, an adventurous adolescent girl, wanders into the life and mind of Mathewmark, a young man living in the Valley of the God of One's Choice, a low-tech, religious enclave, the two are soon on the bumpy road to romance. Meanwhile, the resurrected version of a scientist who'd been attempting to create artificial intelligence observes and attempts to judge what he sees in this fractured future. He's aware that an AI controls the world and may even have created the sensations that convince him there is a world out there. So should he be afraid? Angry? How should he feel when the AI begins to evolve into something else, changing the nature of humanity, too? As for Mathewmark and Amanda, they misunderstand each other, make fools of themselves and feel real pain, but also discover that change is more exciting than frightening. Australian author Broderick (The Dreaming Dragons) sees how silly individual humans can be, especially when they choose to stay isolated. However, he also believes that technology gives us fresh possibilities for unity and growth. By the end, the young people's gusto is contagious, and readers can feel confident that we'll all be able to cope with new challenges. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From School Library Journal
Adult/High School-Chronologically 30, but emotionally and physically an adolescent, Amanda radiates brilliance and beauty, as could only be expected from the product of the ultramodern world Metro. Bored out of her mind, she goes looking for fun and stumbles across a handful of dusty, robotic advertising bees. One by one, she reprograms them and sends them flying over to the Valley of the God of One's Choice-a place left back in time where no evil machines are allowed. There, Matthewmark, an almost painfully earnest teen, becomes the target of her mischief until she comes clean. They decide to meet in the Valley near a ventilation shaft for the Metro Polis Maglev transportation system; he tries to follow her back to the Metro with disastrous results. In the background is a godlike artificial intelligence shoving an unwitting humanity toward its next evolutionary leap. This uber-intelligence becomes focused on the pair when they start displaying an unusual connectivity. The tongue-in-cheek humor throughout the book is a delight. Pranks, spoofs of human foibles modern and archaic, and an unforgettable Metro mall scene will keep readers grinning. Hard-core sci-fi fans won't want to miss Broderick's afterword in which he discusses the science that inspired his book.Sheila Shoup, Fairfax County Public Library, VA Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Chafing at the restrictions of a society that prolongs adolescence until an individual's 30th birthday, Amanda Kolby-McAllister rebels by committing dangerous pranks. Her exploits unite her with the magistrate in charge of her case and a young man from a low-tech commune in a fight for the life of their utopian world. This latest effort by the author of The White Abacus and The Dreaming Dragons depicts a high-tech society ruled by the artifices and devices that once served humanity. With particular appeal to fans of cyberfiction, this tale is a good choice for most sf collections. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Transcension is about coming of age in a Luddite but high-tech society. In it lives the Aleph, a machine mentality that is nonhuman yet was formed from the human Abdel-Malik, sole survivor of the twenty-first century's cryogenics craze, who got a new lease on life while contributing to the Aleph. Amanda lives there, too, planning a fantastic stunt to make her the talk of the Mall before she reaches the official age of maturity, 30. Amanda leads Mathewmark, an unsuspecting dweller in the Valley of the God of One's Choice, into temptation with her. Their lives become inextricably entangled in the results of her recklessness, but the pair continues seeking a place where they will belong. Abdel-Malik, who on his own is magistrate of Van Gogh Metro, where Amanda lives, in addition to being the seed of the Aleph, also seeks understanding. As for the Aleph, it is preparing to change everything, for humanity as well as itself, to reach its potential in a world in which reality is consensual, and perspective is everything. Regina Schroeder
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Review
“Transcension is as fine a novel as Broderick has ever done.”—Analog

“Here’s a book that ought to put [Broderick] prominently on the map. . . . A tour de force; highly recommended.”—Asimov’s Science Fiction



Book Description
Damien Broderick has been a leading Australian SF writer since the ‘70s. His novel The Dreaming Dragons was listed in SF: the 100 best novels. His recent nonfiction book, The Spike, is a mind-stretching look at the wonders of the high-tech future. Now in Transcension he brings to life one of the futures he imagined in The Spike, a world pervaded by nanotechnology and governed by artificial intelligence. Transcension may be Broderick’s best book yet.

Amanda is a brilliant violinist, a mathematical genius, and a rebel. Impatient for the adult status her society only grants at age thirty, but determined to have a real adventure first, she has repeatedly gotten into trouble and found herself in the courtroom of Magistrate Mohammed Abdel-Malik, the sole resurrectee from among those who were frozen in the early twenty-first century, the man whose mind was the seed for Aleph, the AI that rules this utopia.
Mathewmark is a real adolescent, living in the last place where they still exist, the reservation known as the Valley of the God of One's Choice, where those who have chosen faith over technology are allowed to live out their simpler lives. When Amanda determines that access to the valley is the key to the daring stunt she plans, it is Mathewmark she will have to lead into temptation.
But just as Amanda, Mathewmark, and Abdel-Malik are struggling to find themselves and achieve their potentials, so is Aleph, and the AI's success will be a challenge to them and all of humanity.



About the Author
Damien Broderick is a noted Australian critic and scholar with an interdisciplinary Ph.D. in literature and science. He has published several SF novels and another important speculative science work, The Last Mortal Generation. He lives in Australia.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Amanda is a brilliant violinist, a mathematical genius, and a rebel. Impatient for the adult status her society only grants at age thirty, but determined to have a real adventure first, she has repeatedly gotten into trouble and found herself in the courtroom of Magistrate Mohammed Abdel-Malik, the sole resurrectee from among those who were frozen in the early 21st century, the man whose mind was the seed for Aleph, the AI that rules this utopia." "Mathewmark is a real adolescent, living in the last place where they still exist, the reservation known as the Valley of the God of One's Choice, where those who have chosen faith over technology are allowed to live out their simpler lives. When Amanda determines that access to the valley is the key to the daring stunt she plans, it is Mathewmark she will have to lead into temptation." But just as Amanda, Mathewmark, and Abdel-Malik are struggling to find themselves and achieve their potentials, so is Aleph, and the AI's success will be a challenge to them and all of humanity.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Anyone who can't imagine grinning at the end of life as we know it should skip this book, but it'll be fun for people self-confident enough to imagine a lighthearted fusion of Clarke's Childhood's End and the movie Clueless. When Amanda, an adventurous adolescent girl, wanders into the life and mind of Mathewmark, a young man living in the Valley of the God of One's Choice, a low-tech, religious enclave, the two are soon on the bumpy road to romance. Meanwhile, the resurrected version of a scientist who'd been attempting to create artificial intelligence observes and attempts to judge what he sees in this fractured future. He's aware that an AI controls the world and may even have created the sensations that convince him there is a world out there. So should he be afraid? Angry? How should he feel when the AI begins to evolve into something else, changing the nature of humanity, too? As for Mathewmark and Amanda, they misunderstand each other, make fools of themselves and feel real pain, but also discover that change is more exciting than frightening. Australian author Broderick (The Dreaming Dragons) sees how silly individual humans can be, especially when they choose to stay isolated. However, he also believes that technology gives us fresh possibilities for unity and growth. By the end, the young people's gusto is contagious, and readers can feel confident that we'll all be able to cope with new challenges. (Feb. 14) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

KLIATT

In a future world where nanotechnology is commonplace and an artificial intelligence (Aleph) governs, the lives of Amanda and Mathewmark entwine. Amanda eloquently describes herself as "Gene-tweaked, adolescence plateau extended, super-oxide dismutase mimetics, telomerase transducers, developmental cascade inhibited until Maturity." (She speaks to imitate artificial intelligence and does not use connector words￯﾿ﾽit's all the rage at the mall.) She won't reach Maturity until age 30, two years away. Mathewmark, on the other hand, is a real 19-year-old, living in the only place they still exist, the Valley of the God of One's Choice. In this preserve live those who eschew technology, choosing to live simpler lives. Amanda plans to break into the preserve to use their ventilation shaft to access the underground super subway system so she and a friend can ride atop one of the trains, gaining glory with the mall crowd. They manage to do just that, only Mathewmark follows them and attempts to ride without proper equipment. Her friend dies, and Mathewmark sustains such drastic brain damage that his only chance of survival is the implantation of a connection to the governing network in what is left of his brain. Throughout the entire story, vignettes from the AI, Aleph, are inserted. Aleph is becoming sentient and has some unusual ideas about where Earth's future lies. At the end of the book, Aleph causes solar Singularities or Spikes, so it can be "turned into electricity to power tiny self-replicating nanogadgets to chew up a planet or moon, then sequester the materials." Although the Amanda/Mathewmark story is compelling, the added Aleph subplot makes this most appropriate for good readers whoare mature enough to handle the vocabulary and concepts. KLIATT Codes: SA￯﾿ﾽRecommended for senior high school students, advanced students, and adults. 2002, Tor, 348p., Hoy

Library Journal

Chafing at the restrictions of a society that prolongs adolescence until an individual's 30th birthday, Amanda Kolby-McAllister rebels by committing dangerous pranks. Her exploits unite her with the magistrate in charge of her case and a young man from a low-tech commune in a fight for the life of their utopian world. This latest effort by the author of The White Abacus and The Dreaming Dragons depicts a high-tech society ruled by the artifices and devices that once served humanity. With particular appeal to fans of cyberfiction, this tale is a good choice for most sf collections. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

School Library Journal

Adult/High School-Chronologically 30, but emotionally and physically an adolescent, Amanda radiates brilliance and beauty, as could only be expected from the product of the ultramodern world Metro. Bored out of her mind, she goes looking for fun and stumbles across a handful of dusty, robotic advertising bees. One by one, she reprograms them and sends them flying over to the Valley of the God of One's Choice-a place left back in time where no evil machines are allowed. There, Matthewmark, an almost painfully earnest teen, becomes the target of her mischief until she comes clean. They decide to meet in the Valley near a ventilation shaft for the Metro Polis Maglev transportation system; he tries to follow her back to the Metro with disastrous results. In the background is a godlike artificial intelligence shoving an unwitting humanity toward its next evolutionary leap. This uber-intelligence becomes focused on the pair when they start displaying an unusual connectivity. The tongue-in-cheek humor throughout the book is a delight. Pranks, spoofs of human foibles modern and archaic, and an unforgettable Metro mall scene will keep readers grinning. Hard-core sci-fi fans won't want to miss Broderick's afterword in which he discusses the science that inspired his book.-Sheila Shoup, Fairfax County Public Library, VA Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews