The Great Shift is Coming...Are You Ready to Jump (again)???
All three covers for the upcomig eHuman Trilogy
In the summer of 2008, I had a dream in which I was a man wearing a blue Brooks Brother’s suit, running through a city at night, a beautiful blonde woman at my side. We were afraid, panicking. As we’d turn onto a new city street, all of the lights would go out, block by block, as if someone was turning off the electricity across the city with the flick of a switch. With each power failure, we’d run faster, trying desperately to find a building that still had power.
When the last block went out and the city was utterly dark, I realized that she and I were robots—beautiful, human-like, battery-powered robots—and we needed to find a plug to recharge, otherwise we were going to die.
I woke knowing I had a story to tell.
It would take me two years to pen the first novel about these synthetic humanoids I named eHumans. It would then take a year to find an agent who would then take a year editing with me and then another year before he’d sell it to a publisher. Thus, in 2012, eHuman Dawn, book one of the eHuman Trilogy was released. That was also the year I launched my blog, eHumanity. Later, my blog would move to my own author’s website, but back then, it was a chance to share my ideas on technology and human consciousness, a duo I’ve long been obsessed with. In 2013, the second book in the eHuman Trilogy, eHuman Deception, was released.
By 2014 however, I was losing faith in two things. First, my publisher wasn’t supporting me as an author and I learned some things about my agent I probably should have known before I signed with him. Second, I wasn’t sure I knew how to end the trilogy. In true Marvel fashion, I assumed I’d have the “good guy” vanquish the “bad guy” and all eHumans would live in a Singularity utopia that would make even Kurzweil drool. However, that fall I attended a workshop at Esalen with Charles Eisenstein, the author of The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible, where Eisenstein challenged those of us who claimed to be storytellers to find new ways of writing the endings of our sagas. He hypothesizes that as a collective, we’re in the space between stories and it falls to the storytellers to create the new stories that embrace a different future—on that is more beautiful. Rather than kill off the “bad guys” and allow the “good guys” to take over who will probably eventually become just as bad in their own way, perhaps we could try something new? Like redeeming the bad guy, or having the bad guy see the error of his ways and joining forces with the good to create a more beautiful world. This idea took hold within me, yet it also blocked me to the ending of the eHuman Trilogy. I couldn’t see how to evolve Edgar Prince, the “bad guy” in the story, into something redeemable.
Instead of writing that last book, in 2015 I began to write The Song of the King’s Heart Trilogy—the story of the last native Egyptian Pharaoh—something completely different that took place 2000 years ago, rather than a Singularity event in the future. I would tell people I had to go back in time to Jump forward, and I do believe that’s partially true. However, in September of 2015, as I fell into Ankhmakis and Natasa’s story, I forgot Adam and Dawn and the eHumans in general. I wasn’t even sure I’d ever return to their story. In the meantime, me, my publisher, and my agent all broke up, I got back all rights to the eHumans and their story, and I began the excruciating experience of falling in love with a new set of characters and pitching them for two years until I found a publisher for the ancient Egyptians. The querying process is so time consuming, the eHumans faded from my consciousness.
But not entirely. I’d still dream about them. In 2017, I sold the Egyptian series and began work with a new publisher. In 2019, the first book, Origins, was released. I was working on the edits for the second book, Blood and Chaos, when Covid arrived and locked down the world. Suddenly, the eHumans became relevant again. As businesses and churches and schools were shuttered, Adam and Dawn racing through the darkened city began to haunt me. Their story of a networked humanity forced upon a global society had always seemed far fetched to me for two main reasons. The first was I’ve never thought all of the governments of the world could join together, united under something as extreme as creating a robotic society. Hell, we can’t even agree to use bio-degradable packaging for our food supply, there was no way every government would ever submit to something like Jumping all humans into machines and initiating entirely new ways of living and associating within the world.
Never.
Moreover, I’d always assumed there was no way humanity itself would choose a fully networked existence as an eHuman; they would rebel against their government for such a willful attempt to mechanize them.
The Covid event proved me wrong on both counts.
First, the entire global governmental system can unite together quickly to enact new laws and ways of being, for in the blink of an eye, everything from air travel to houses of worship were shut down. People were no longer allowed to be near the dying. Children couldn’t go to school. Most of the population was fine with this, and I watched the world change as emotions flared, families and friendships fractured, and people attacked one another for their beliefs and means of navigating the crisis.
Whatever side you found yourself on during the Covid crisis isn’t the issue here; rather it was the fact I heard our leaders using the exact same words from the villain in my eHuman novels that gave me pause. It was eerie. The anger people had against those who didn’t comply was also familiar, for the eHumans absolutely dealt with such vitriol during the Great Shift to machine existence.
The eHuman novels aren’t meant to solve this divide, rather the Great Shift represents a different concern. It isn’t a Great Reset nor Great Turning that I explore with eHumanity, but rather what would it mean to give up our freedom to live forever in safety? In the end, I don’t think the choice is to live or die, but rather how would I like to live—In a body with all my sensory experiences or in a machine that allows me access to every bit and byte of information as well as eternal life? The price of the flesh is death, but what is the price of a fully networked society? What does one give up to live forever if that forever world is in the hands of those who created the technology? Is that worth it? Would you even realize the deception? Would you be angry with anyone who pointed out the deception to you? Do we have the right to prevent someone from Jumping into a machine, should the technology be invented? Either “side” on this is valid, for what we do to our bodies is the ultimate property rights issue. Preventing technological advance in the name of safety isn’t really different than forcing it upon others under the same banner.
Finally, after years, I saw the ending to the eHuman Trilogy. Since I own the story outright, I decided to rewrite eHuman Dawn and eHuman Deception in order to bring them up to speed with current technological and political events as well as to align with my new ending; not one where Adam kills Edgar, but rather an ending where people understand and respect choice in all its truth, beauty, and goodness.
Thus, I present to you the eHuman Trilogy, starting with Bootstrap (formerly known as eHuman Dawn) available on Amazon and at my website starting 10/1/23. Quantium (formerly known as eHuman Deception) will follow with a 12/31/23 release date. The final installment, Reboot, a brand-new novel, never seen before, will be released on 4/2/24. Yes, all these dates have personal significance, but mostly I wanted to give readers the installments one after the other in approximately three-month intervals. Over the next year or so, my essays will take on a more techno-consciousness feel, with me revisiting many of the themes and topics I addressed back in 2012-19 on my original blog. With the advances of AI combined with the global governments’ now obvious ability to act as one unit when it serves them, as well as the death of independent journalism and a geriatric USA leadership clinging to power as their minds deteriorate, we should think on these things very deeply. It’s time to consider what humanity means to each of us, as well as how we can respect others who may have a difference of opinion, for soon even the right to die may be debatable.
Some will think the vanquishment of death is the purest cause.
Others will think it the greatest of sins.
The battle will challenge our species more than any other in the history of the world.
It is my hope that the eHuman Trilogy will spark the conversation and open minds to all the possibilities for life-extension. Visit www.nicolesallakanderson.com for more information.
The Great Shift is Coming…Are You Ready to Jump?