Emily Eternal
M.G. Wheaton
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Meet Emily – she can solve advanced mathematical problems, unlock the mind’s deepest secrets and even fix your truck’s air con, but unfortunately, she can’t restart the Sun.
She’s an artificial consciousness, designed in a lab to help humans process trauma, which is particularly helpful when the sun begins to die 5 billion years before scientists agreed it was supposed to.
So, her beloved human race is screwed, and so is Emily. That is, until she finds a potential answer buried deep in the human genome. But before her solution can be tested, her lab is brutally attacked, and Emily is forced to go on the run with two human companions – college student Jason and small-town Sheriff, Mayra.
As the sun’s death draws near, Emily and her friends must race against time to save humanity. But before long it becomes clear that it’s not only the species at stake, but also that which makes us most human.
The first thing I thought when reading Emily Eternal was “why is this AI speaking similar to how a teenager is expected to sound like?”. This threw me completely – because why is this AI (she’s actually an artifcial concsiousness which is different) speaking like how a 40 year old man mimics a teenage girl? The scientists surely didn’t teach her this, and I doubt she’d have picked it up from the campus they’re on. So it was really odd.
On top of this – Emily just did not feel like an AI/Artificial Consciousness. This book could have been pretty much the same if Emily was just another human. I’m not sure if this was on purpose due to the discussion about humanity and what it means to be human… the lack of knowing whether this was on purpose really bugged me.
Despite this, I found Emily to be a likable as a character. Because she’s been train to be empathetic towards humans, I find that she’s good at interacting with others. Although there were moments where she’s flawed – but I do think it’s because of how she’s been nurtured. And again – the best part of this book is more about the discussion it has than the plot.
Emily Eternal kind of sold itself to me as a sci-fi book – but I found it to be a bit more of a romance. The romance is very heavily focused on in the book, it just so happens that there’s an apocolypse at the same time… and that Emily is an AC.
Overall, the romance felt very off. Emily seemed a little stalker-ish with her crush at first and there’s also a point where *minor spoiler* she edits his memories to overwrite another person *end of spoiler*. So it just wasn’t healthy or good.
By the end of the book, Emily Eternal goes off the deep end. It moves from a very based on AI and science stuff sci-fi to a more fantasy sci-fi. But this is right at the end – and it does feel like it goes so fast that you’re not fully sure what’s happening. Overall the book wasn’t the best it could be and I think the author had an idea and then didn’t know how to end the book.
Positives of
- Very good discussion about Humanity raised
Negatives of
- Romance focus
- Poor ending
