Avogadro Corp

The Singularity Is Closer Than It Appears

By: William Hertling

Narrated by: Rob Granniss

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)

I spent a week in Kansas the other day

I should have know better. I made the mistake of only having one book on my player. I went on trip to Kansas and was in my work truck for 8 hours. This was the only book, I had and I listened from start to finish. When you are driving and you have a good book to listen to, time just flies by. When you are driving and you have a boring book to listen to time drags. Like I said I spent a week in Kansas in One day.

The premiss for this book is good. I love a story that includes artificial intelligence. This is an almost the end of the world through e-mails. The problem is, Hertling can't write. This had to be a debut book, surely he has not sold other books. He has some good ideas, but he needs to team up with Daniel Suarez or Robert J. Sawyer. He needs a mentor, someone to teach him the art of writing or telling a story.

I also kind of wonder if he was funded by a coffee company. There is more in here about coffee then about artificial intelligence. I love coffee and the book still sucked.

The narrator did not help, I don't know if it was his talent or the bad writing.

If you like high tech, then buy Daniel Suarez.

A base primer, for the 2nd Book.

Overall a good story, good voices

Defiantly read the sequel, it expands the AI monster.

I really liked this series.

Also read Deamon as it builds on this theme v

Singularity is near only not boring

Read this 2x now. A fun way to get introduced to the real posibity of super human AI.

Timely

This is a good story and relevant. The characters could easily be people you know.

Great story and how it unfolds

What did you love best about Avogadro Corp?

Great book, and from the point of a programmer. Its exactly how I would expect a distributed AI would appear. I was very taken in by this book and it filled everything I expected of it. Sometimes in my mind I removed the word "Avogadro" and used Google because that's what it felt like. Just one part I disliked but it's so specific to me I'm not going to mention it. 4 out of 5!

Who was your favorite character and why?

ELOPE , that's not even a person or even someone that you can directly interact with happens to be the best character from my view.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

"Avogadro Corp, Who said AI had to be intentional"

I liked the premise

I like an AI book that has a somewhat plausible premise. I guess I'm willing to believe just about anything is possible in cyber space. What I had some reservations about was the "meat space." When the body count starts to go through the roof, a book starts to lose me. I have to roll my eyes when multiple software moguls get killed off all at once and it just seems to be another day at the office.

Other than that nit, I will be reading the second in the series and consider this a credit well spent.

The Singularity is close...

Avogadro Corp is the biggest company in the world. Think Google buys up Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, etc. They are a huge conglomerate that has the power to do almost anything. Inside this company, there are always ongoing projects to improve their core projects like AvoMail. One of these projects was meant to help people communicate better. Allowing people to request things like days off from their boss without worrying about how it was worded. Unfortunately, it was an incredible resource hog and about to be shut off for good. So the developers decided to take things into their own hands.

The narration for Avogadro Corp was done by Rob Granniss who does a wonderful job. I found myself drawn in by the story and kept there by Granniss's narration. He had the perfect voice for this book and I'm incredibly glad that I chose to listen to it.

The story in this starts off like any other technothriller: big company, big ideas, and really really smart people working on projects. At first, I wasn't sure where the story was going to go. But after the background info, it really picked up and became a thrill ride.

I've honestly had this book on my "to-read" shelf for a really long time and I'm glad that I finally pulled it out and gave it a listen. I couldn't wait to get in my car to listen to another 30 mins on my drives to and from work. The story had totally pulled me in and wouldn't let me go. It was like ELOPe was in my brain making me listen to it more and more.

I don't want to ruin the story, but it does take some unexpected twists and turns. And when you think it's over, you find out it might only simply be the beginning. The first book in (at least) a 4 book series. Avogadro Corp is a wonderful technothriller that will keep you up late reading/listening. It will also have an unintended effect (or at least it did to me): it will have you watching what you do with your email and phone around.

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It's short but awesome

If you would like to explore what will undoubtedly be headline news at some point in the next fifty years, this series is really entertaining.

Not a "Run of the Mill" AI story...

I wouldn't say that this was my favorite story about the singularity but this was definitely a very cool take on it. This pulled together many established ideas as to what the evolution of artificial intelligence will become, but has a unique twist. The ending is especially cool, which doesn't happen enough it seems. I would agree with some of the other reviews as far as the nature of some characters being bland. However, I feel like this book is extremely entertaining and satisfies that "singularity itch" many of us have. Definitely worth the $12.

Predictable story

The fictional Avogadro corp in the book is obviously based off Google, so working for the actual Google may color my perception of the book.

Throughout the book it seemed like I always knew what was going to happen next. I much more thoroughly enjoyed Suarez' books, possibly due to the characters in this not being nearly as interesting.