Why this book. Selected by my Sci Fi book club and it is the sequel to 2034,which I’d previously read (my review of it here.)

Summary in 5 Sentences: The setting is the United States 20 years after the nuclear exchange between the US and China described in their novel  2034.  The US government is strongly divided between the left and the right, and a constitutional crisis is erupting, exacerbated when the President suddenly dies.  The government lies about it and the opposition party assumes he was assassinated by a secret bio-tech capability under development to do “remote gene editing.”  The remainder of the book bounces between the effort to track down the bio-technicians developing remote gene-editing, and the explosive crisis developing in our government – reminiscent of 6 January 2022.  Current longevity guru Ray Kurzweil plays a role as the genius working to achieve “the Singularity” – the merging of biological and technological evolution to create the next generation of humans. 

Impressions;   A quick and fascinating read – though it starts out a bit confusing early on, as each section introduces new characters in new settings – I initially had trouble keeping track.  But soldiering on, I knew (from having read 2034) that eventually they would all somehow be connected and I’d be able to follow the multiple converging stories.  And indeed, that did happen. 

The political dimension is an important part of the story – something of a cautionary tale about the direction the US is heading.  In 2054, the increasingly extreme measures that the left and right ends of the political spectrum resort to in order to retain power are painfully reminiscent of the news today.  2054 takes them to an ugly extreme – certainly driven by the authors’ perception of events of Jan 2022. I thought it was a shortcoming that the book failed to explain changes in our political process – for example, multiple (more than 2) terms of a charismatic, populist President who would not give up power, and the President simply naming his VP. 

In parallel with and connected to that drama, is the effort to find out who and how someone on the cutting edge of bio technology was able to remotely edit the President’s genes to engender a fatal heart attack.  As that international crime conspiracy develops, we find players in China, Japan, Brazil, India and  Nigeria and ultimately learn that the assassination of the President thru remote gene editing is not the most important issue at stake.  As those who’ve followed the development of AI  have certainly read, the country that first is able to develop Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) often called “the Singularity”  will essentially rule the world.  “The Singularity” is when “computer programs become so advanced that AI transcends human intelligence, potentially erasing the boundary between humanity and computers.” (from Google definition of “the Singularity”) 

Ray Kurzweil  – a real human being and bio tech scientist in Silicon Valley (look him up) has been on a quest to find the cure for aging and thus extend human life indefinitely.   In 2054, that quest has led Kurzweil to eventually finding (or approaching) ‘the singularity,’ but he is also fully aware of the power it holds – and he goes into hiding.  Finding Kurzweil becomes a sub-theme of the story. 

2054 was a page turner, once I got through the initial chapters during which I was a bit disoriented,  and I very much enjoyed reading the book. 

That said, in addition to the constitutional shortcomings I previously mentioned, there were a couple of other times I had to suspend disbelief.   Ackerman and Stavridis had two legitimate and very compelling warnings to convey in this book, but I thought their effort to combine them into one novel was a bit strained.  Those two messages/themes were:  the dangers US faces as the vitriol between our political extremes increases;   and the very political and international implications and threats that accompany the accelerated development of AI toward AGI and “the Singularity.”