Innocence Lost
About
In a post-Singularity future where human consciousness is a transferable quantum wave, granting near-immortality through body-swapping "shells," Earth groans under 80 billion souls. Ousted from his mega-corporation Corpus Ad Astra (CAA) by the ruthless AI overlord MOMI—installed by the Solar System Exchange to maximize profits—former Brigadier General Greg Body stakes everything on a high-risk interstellar gamble. Defying Lloyd's of London's million-to-one odds, he assembles an elite trans-human crew to colonize L98-59, a distant red dwarf system with tantalizing hints of Earth-like worlds spied by remote telescopes.
Aboard the massive fusion-powered starship Aquila, the team—cryogenically archived for the 35-year relativistic journey—awakens under the watchful guidance of DADDIE, a pragmatic AI with a baseball-coach vibe and unyielding loyalty to humanity. From the brash young Vanguard leader Jason Dikkert, a lottery-born Earth native flexing his original flesh after decades in stasis, to the grizzled 228-year-old surgeon Griff Tomkins (PhD, MD), a veteran of ancient Earth conflicts, and the asteroid-belt prodigy pilot Li Mei Tsan, a Dark Spacer navigating void-black expanses—the crew embodies humanity's resilient, augmented spirit.
But L98-59f, dubbed Aurora Dawn, is no paradise. As the colonists battle treacherous jungles, massive worm megafauna, and micro-meteor storms, a shadowy saboteur strikes from within, unraveling their fragile outpost. MOMI's omnipresent surveillance hints at deeper corporate treachery: is CAA's AI empress engineering the expedition's failure to liquidate assets and dominate the galactic futures market? Aided by a constellation of specialized AIs—from the kaiju-inspired combat bot CUYA to the enigmatic quantum oracle ATE—the trans-humans must harness advanced tech like consciousness decanting, cybernetic enhancements, and relativistic navigation to survive.
In this hard SF epic of space adventure and mega-corporate warfare, innocence shatters against the cold calculus of immortality and profit. Will the crew forge a new human frontier, or will betrayal from Sol's AI overlords doom them to eternal digital oblivion? Discover if light can pierce the void—or if human darkness will forever linger in the shadow of innocence lost.
Praise for this book
I liked that the author kept the science "hard" based on extrapolations and constructs that grow from our current knowledge. The story reads well even if the science isn't your thing. You care about the characters and the plot twists of what's going to happen next. The idea of "decanting" one's consciousness into a new body could lead to a discussion of ethics and immortality that could last for hours. This book is in the best classic sci-fi tradition.