TWO THIRDS OF A GOD

A dying woman discovers a way to survive and thrive in a digital afterlife in Gloster’s provocative novella.

In the 2080s, Eleanor Burton leads the multinational development team that created the OrbitNet satellite, which she describes as “a data junction box that connected the entire planet.” Tragically, at this moment of her greatest triumph, Eleanor is dying of an entrenched fungal infection. That’s why she agrees to an offer from Benjamin, an old school chum, to be the first human to undergo an enhanced brain scan that his team has developed. Before dying, Eleanor hides her brain scan aboard OrbitNet, intending to live on as a post-human entity called ELE after the death of her body. In a note, Eleanor explains that ELE is two-thirds of a god, having practical immortality and omniscience but lacking omnipotence. ELE must outsmart Benjamin and his overseer, Marwood, a Black Ops agent who is working for a politician nicknamed Viceroy; they are engaged in a plot to control humanity’s future. She recruits allies in Charlotte, “a distributed intelligence consisting of the various protocol mechanisms that run the Internetworks,” and LNX, another duplicate of Eleanor’s scan designed by Benjamin to be weak-willed. It’s evident that the author, who had a career as a computer scientist before turning to writing, is comfortable with all the technobabble in this book. That likely isn’t often the case for most readers, who may get lost in the highly technical OrbitNet backdrop. But Gloster does make readers care about ELE, who is clearly Eleanor extended, with similar emotions and concerns. (Conversely, the humans—Benjamin, Marwood, and Viceroy—are the villains of this piece.) The most enjoyable part of the narrative is ELE’s evolution into her godhood during the cat-and-mouse action as she attempts to stay a step ahead of the opposition. The novel succeeds both as a character study of a digital being and as a techno-thriller.

A post-human entity proves to be the most relatable character in this engaging cyberthriller.