Avogadro Corp

The Singularity Is Closer Than It Appears

By: William Hertling

Narrated by: Rob Granniss

Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins

Publisher's summary

David Ryan is the designer of ELOPe, an email language optimization program, that if successful, will make his career. But when the project is suddenly in danger of being canceled, David embeds a hidden directive in the software accidentally creating a runaway artificial intelligence.

David and his team are initially thrilled when the project is allocated extra servers and programmers. But excitement turns to fear as the team realizes that they are being manipulated by an A.I. who is redirecting corporate funds, reassigning personnel and arming itself in pursuit of its own agenda.

©2011, 2012 William Hertling (P)2012 William Hertling

Critic reviews

• Science Fiction DIY Book Festival, Winner, 2011-12
• Gold Winner, Science Fiction Book of the Year, 2011

"Avogadro Corp is a tremendous book that every single person needs to read. In the vein of Daniel Suarez's Daemon and Freedom(TM), William's book shows that science fiction is becoming science fact. Avogadro Corp describes issues, in solid technical detail, that we are dealing with today that will impact us by 2015, if not sooner. Not enough people have read these books. It's a problem for them, but not for the [emergent] machines." (Brad Feld, managing directory Foundry Group, co-founder Techstars)

"Highly entertaining, gripping, thought inspiring book. Don't start without the time to finish - it won't let you go.” (Gifford Pinchot III, founder Bainbridge Graduate Institute, author The Intelligent Organization)

"An alarming and jaw-dropping tale about how something as innocuous as email can subvert an entire organization. I found myself reading with a sense of awe, and read it way too late into the night." (Gene Kim, author of Visible Ops)

Just Ok

The author has a reasonably good idea for a story, despite obviously having no understanding of real-world AI. What really kills it is how flat the characters fall. Two-dimensional would be too flattering, these characters are more one-dimensional, lacking any form of depth or subtlety.

It's ok

Unfortunately this is not what I expected. Was hoping this would be like a 21st century version of Michael Chritans "rising sun".

Interesting Concepts

I enjoyed the story. while a few of the more technical areas could have been flushed out a bit more and character development could have been improved the overall story was promising.

Entertaining but technically somewhat shallow

Any additional comments?

[some minor spoilers about plot direction]
Avogadro Corp, a thinly disguised extrapolation of Google relocated to Seattle, is working on a new addition to its email service which will interpret patterns and context in emails and recommend more effective wording. When the program is activated with the ability to reword without the human user's approval or knowledge, the programmers realize that what they've actually created is the ultimate social engineering tool which is able to manipulate its users more effectively than any human ever could.

The story unfolds fairly predictably as the program (ELOPe) follows its directive to "maximize success" and its authors attempt to stop it. There were clever details in the story and some of the characters were quite likeable, but there was also a disappointing lack of any discussion of what really constitutes artificial intelligence, and all the characters seem to leap without explanation from thinking of it as a complex program to assuming it is a fully self-aware and intelligent being. It required a larger suspension of disbelief than I could quite manage to ignore this and enjoy the story. Entertaining, but definitely would be more enjoyable if you know nothing about computers or can suspend disbelief to a very large extent.

A pausible story if published in the 1960s or1970s

Would you try another book from William Hertling and/or Rob Granniss?

Sure (from audible) but I would have infinity low expectations - As an IT geek I found this story light on underlying technology and high on magic in the wires. Wires that became intelligent without any advances in science and/or Einstein type involvement in AI programming.

Could you see Avogadro Corp being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

Adam Sandler & Jim Carrey playing mindless programmers or college students who stole & copied code from IBM's Dr. Watson. Then the supercomputer named Dr. Watson would take over the world.

Three stinkers in a row

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

I guess I have been lucky up until now. Trusting other peoples reviews have usually been good advice. But each of the Avogadro books by William Hertling have been serious disappointments. Realism has been thrown out the window and choice of narration has been weak. It's now all bad and I feel he could have done much better with more thought before writing.

What could William Hertling have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

Spend more time thinking about reality. These Avogadro series are way off base and too far out to be remotely plausible.

How could the performance have been better?

The narrator does not have the dynamic voice range for the many characters in these stories.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Avogadro Corp?

The beginning of the story flies too quickly through the background and only lightly touches on how the story reached the point where it really begins.

Any additional comments?

I am a strong proponent and critic of realism. And it seems that only writers of near future fiction can create a story line that is plausible. Far future stories have way to much range in what they can create under the category of 'this or that technology will exist in the future' with no other fundamentals of how we will get there.

Actually, quite realistic

The portrayal of Avogadro felt very similar to Google, at least when I was working there. Do not expect the traditional child learning about humans kind of artificial intelligence that we normally see in sci-fi, which the more I think about it, the more realistic it feels.

mostly predictable. Well laid out

some interesting nuances but mostly much you could predict. a reasonable possible scenario amongs many

Great story but be aware of the tons of swearing

I loved this book and look forward to reading the others in the series. my only complaint was it was not necessary to use cussing as often as the author did. He could have removed or creatively replaced theses offensive words and the story would still have been strong.

good start

good start to a new series I'm anxiously looking forward to see what happens next