Emily Eternal has a really great premise so I was looking forward to reading it. Sadly, for me, it just didn’t grab me, the writing is good, the story sounded really interesting but to be honest, I just couldn’t connect with it on the whole. Maybe it’s a case of right book, wrong time again, but it just wasn’t what I was expecting.

Emily is an artificial consciousness that has been designed in a laboratory to help humans process trauma. We find out at the beginning of the book that the sun is dying and the world is about to end.

Emily is forced to go on the run with two Jason and Mayra and this is where the action kicks in.

It's a dystopian sci-fi type story and we see Emily evolve quite quickly at times and some of her actions were a little disturbing. The story pulled me in and I probably would have enjoyed it more had I not had to spend so much time trying to figure out what the words on the page were. This was a formatting error where a lot of the words were strung together with no spaces between them. I did continue and I enjoyed the story. Emily is a great character and she knows she's a computer and she has the ability to choose her own personality. She develops friendships and opinions.

The book as a whole examines what it means to be human and I enjoyed it to the last page.

I thought this would have a good grounding in science, given the author's occupation, but the science is hand-wavey, and often fantastical. I liked Emily as an MC, and her relationship with Jason is the most interesting aspect of the book for me. The rest of the plot is just Transcendence mashed up with Neal Stephenson's Seveneves.

This was an enjoyable little dystopian sci-fi romp. It kept me entertained and didn't require too much knowledge on my behalf.

Emily is an artificial consciousness (not AI) who has been developed primarily as a therapist, shes a very effective one, being able to enter peoples memories to guide them through the trauma they remember and point them on the right path. Emily's creator Nathan wants her to learn to be as Human as possible so she showers, dresses, eats and 'walks' across campus (with a 15 second delay to her processors)

Unfortunately for everyone though the end of the World is fast approaching, the sun is dying and the race is on to find a way to save Humanity. Nathan and his team have one way and another team disagree. It quickly turns violent with Emily as the wanted prize.

All in all this book was a fun romp although Emily evolved rather quickly at points and some of her actions were highly unethical and rather creepy. Great if you went with it and didn't overthink it too much!

Would love to be able to review this book fully, unfortunately unable to read due to formatting issues. Please see below, thought I may be just on one page but is consistent throughout, this hindering the story.
Thanks to Netgalley, publisher and author for the ARC in return for honest review.



onherneckwhereherjawmeetsherear. The chip allows me to manipulate Regina’s senses of sight, smell, touch,andhearing.Hereyestellherbrainthere’saCaucasianwomanin herearlythirtieswithbrownhair,blue-greeneyes,andakindfacesitting oppositeher.Herearstellhermyvoicehasamid-rangepitch,nottoolow, not too high, with a slight New Englander’s accent. Her nose tells her I usemostlyfragrance-freesoap,akiwi-infusedshampoo,noperfume,but

I only meant to start this book yesterday evening but it gripped me so much that I found myself unable to put it down, read way past my bedtime, and stayed awake later than that as I found myself thinking about it long after lights out. Sorry to my boss and co-workers if I'm rubbish and grumpy at work today!
So, Emily... she's an AC - Artificial Consciousness. Not to be confused with an AI cos she is so much more. She tags onto people and is able to "read" them. Emotions and thoughts and has been learning to become more and more human through her five year existence, mostly by helping people through their emotional traumas. Basically, she interacts with them as if she is real by tapping into their senses. But, here's the thing, the sun is dying, quickly, and when our story begins, there is only a matter of weeks left. In an eleventh hour effort to try and preserve some semblance of humanity, Emily's talents are required. How I will leave you to discover but needless to say, there are those of opposing thoughts with what should be done and things go a bit South...
As already mentioned I devoured this book. Not this biggest reader of sci-fi (but I am trying to rectify this) I need my books to help me understand along the way; without the explanation being too distracting away from the narrative, of course. Here, the author got the balance perfectly. I was able to understand, and therefore accept, what was happening and that meant for a stronger connection with the story as a whole.
Characterisation was amazing, especially Emily. She's smart (understatement) and very funny too. As things develop with her interaction with some of the other characters, we see a really great side of her (love to explain but, you know, spoilers) and I really did like the journey, the awakening, she went on during the book.
As well as a cracking story played out by some really well drawn characters we also delve into what it means to be human and the balance between free will and doing what's best. We also examine the "sacrificing one to save many" debate, both of which I found interesting and handles very well.
The only downside of the book for me was the romance element. I couldn't quite get my head around all that and it did distract me a bit. But that's a personal thing so I haven't reflected it in my rating of the book.
All in all, a cracking read that reminded me to, once again, seek out more similar books to add to my already bulging TBR. My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

I was invited to read and review this book by the publisher.

Five stars for the concept. 3 stars for the execution. I’m a bit ambivalent about this one and I think some of that comes from finding AI and artificial consciousnesses to be something that few authors manage to really deliver on. Maybe it’s my morbid viewpoint. I just find it unlikely when an AI develops the same compassionate driving force as a human. The selection pressures for such a drive would be non existent so unless you can impose parameters that would make empathy a logical conclusion, it just doesn’t ring true for me. Admittedly, Emily is ‘alive’ by all known definitions including her own, so I won’t rule out spontaneous generation of morality. Some great moments but I think maybe the concept was too big for the book.

Emily is an artificial consciousness, programmed to read people, and help them with their problems. Threatened with the end of the world, her super-computer and her scientists are enlisted to try and preserve humanity.

I received a free copy from Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

Emily is an artificial consciousness - not artificial intelligence. She's not really sure she can quantify the difference, but it's very important to her. She was designed by scientists to learn and replicate human mannerisms, to be able to access their memories, and sooth their pain. Her program is only in the early stages, but it could be a significant, therapeutic help; especially as the world is coming to an end.
The sun is expanding, an event that everyone said wouldn't happen for billions of years. It was bad enough when they thought they had years - but now there's only weeks left.
Emily's talents as a super-computer are called upon, in a last-ditch effort to try and preserve some semblance of humanity for the future. But there are other people, working in the shadows, trying to hijack her plans, which will effectively doom mankind.

I really liked Emily, she's smart and funny. She's well-aware that she's a computer, and likes to adjust her program, to choose her own personality. She develops opinions of the people around her - friendships, and those she doesn't quite trust.
Her program is only five years old, and despite having the appearance and maturity of someone in their thirties, Emily is still very innocent. It's quite sweet watching her hold firm to her morals, because her creator did - and then because she's decided it's the right thing to do.

The story really does examine what it means to be human, and a god (or goddess!). That people are a messy, faulty bunch; but they're generally a well-meaning group that deserve to be saved. It also looks at the lengths you could go to save them, and whether you should.

Everything was great, and I was completely on board, until the last act. I still enjoyed it, but it was a leap too far for me.
It was a very clever path to take, but after how systematic everything was, I felt the ending was "And so this happened. The End."
Soooo many questions.

Overall, this was a 4.5 out of 5 for me. I look forward to reading more of Wheaton's work.

Very interesting way through a disaster scenario and great story line and imagination. I was very agreeably surprised by the way the story unfolded and made it so engaging that I read the whole book in less than a day. Emily/ Emily2 was quite a surprise! Highly recommended, and certainly open to a “what happened after another 10,000 years or so” sequel/series

One technical point was that reading it on my Kindle was virtually impossible because of the way that whole lines of text would run together with no spaces, so I ended up reading it in Bluefire reader on my iPad, which had none of these issues.