Uncanny
Valley
Uncanny
Valley Book 1
by
C.A. Gray
Genre:
YA Dystopian, Coming of Age
**Dystopian
coming-of-age with superintelligent A.I.**
Rebecca
Cordeaux knows exactly what her future will hold: she will marry
Andy, her crush of the last five years. Once Andy is ready to settle
down, she’s sure he will discover that she is his soulmate. After
several small parts on stage, Rebecca knows she can become a renowned
actress. Her writing also shows promise as a future author. Robots
perform most human jobs that can be automated, leaving many free to
pursue their personal creative interests.
But
Rebecca's mother Karen fears the new world of robots, and insists her
brilliant daughter join a university research team, studying the
hazards of a complete robotic economy. Rebecca's father Quentin was
obsessed with the subject to a degree that even her mother considered
absurd, prior to his untimely death. So long as she can reserve
enough of her time to pursue her true passions on the side, Rebecca
half-heartedly agrees to join the research team, if only to please
her widowed mother. There she joins a post-doc named Liam, whose
conspiracy theories rival even those of her late father. Liam is
convinced that world Republic leader William Halpert’s worldwide
challenge for researchers to develop synthetic creativity will lead
not to the promised utopia, in which every kind of human suffering
has been eradicated, but rather to an apocalypse. Rebecca, whose best
friend is her own companion bot Madeline, writes Liam off as a
bot-hating conspiracy theorist, just like her father was… until she
learns that her father’s death might not have been due to mere
happenstance.
With
Liam’s help, Rebecca learns of an underground organization known as
The Renegades, where Quentin Cordeaux was considered a legend. While
Liam attempts to stop Halpert’s challenge if he can, Rebecca tries
to unravel the mystery of what happened to her father. Did he and
many of his contemporaries die for something they knew? Who is the
mysterious informant who calls himself John Doe, and only seems to
want to drive her out of harm’s way? And if Halpert’s challenge
is answered, will it usher in a brave new chapter in humanity’s
history… or were Quentin Cordeaux’s dire predictions right all
along?
Goodreads
* Amazon
Prologue
Everyone
was there—all five-hundred and fifty-four residents of Casa Linda, the rural
suburb of Phoenix, Arizona. Babies cried while mothers shushed; children who
didn’t know any better chased each other on the artificial grass turf of the
park. All of the adults stood in stony silence, resentful of the man whose
image was shortly to appear.
“I
dunno why we’re all so upset,” muttered Roy Benson to no one in particular.
“Not like he can take anything else away from us at this point, can he?”
Benson
wore a white wife beater that gaped open over his protruding belly, like he
always did ever since he’d lost his job as a labyrinth connection
consultant.
“I
think we’re all just holding our breath, for fear he might come up with
something else to take away—‘for our own good,’ of course,” replied Lyle
Hopper, seated on a folding chair below him. Hopper, once a good looking and
vigorous businessman, was now missing a few teeth. He also breathed heavily, as
if the exertion of conversation was too much for him. “Although frankly I’m not
sure killing me would be much worse than stealing my business.”
“That’s
what I’m saying,” Benson replied. “We’re useless, we have no purpose, and we’re
subsisting on the damn charity of a bunch of bots and the elite few like
Halpert. How much worse—”
William
Halpert’s holographic projection interrupted Benson, appearing on the
amphitheater stage of the little park. He was surprisingly short, only about
five foot four, though the politician was a giant in other respects. He grinned
in magnanimous greeting, spreading wide his hands to encompass everyone who had
gathered before both this stage and every other in the world. They all knew
that his words would be simultaneously translated into every language across
the globe. Mothers hissed at their scampering children to quiet down so that
everyone could hear.
“Friends,”
Halpert said, “thank you for gathering here today as one global community. I
know you are all busy with your active lives—”
Benson
snorted and Hopper gave a derisive laugh. “Sure, I’m so busy I ran out of
crossword puzzles this morning,” muttered Hopper.
“—so
I will get right to the point. I gathered this global community together to
make a very special announcement.
“As
you all know, twenty years ago the Council of Synthetic Reason determined that
in order to protect humanity, all bots must be limited by two rules: they must
serve only a single core purpose in the service of humanity, and they must be
readily identifiable as bots.
“The
advancement of bots since then has changed the face of our world. It’s changed
the way we do business.”
“Or
don’t do business,” muttered Benson.
“But
we have come upon a significant limitation which those of us in the Capital
have been working on for years. It is this: while the bots are excellent at
learning facts and applying information, and can do so faster and more
accurately than the most intelligent human, they lack the critical ingredient
of creativity which would allow them to apply the information they know—within
their core purpose, of course. For that, we still require humans, and an
inevitable disconnect occurs between the bots as they transfer their wealth of
knowledge, and the humans who are expected to utilize it for new
breakthroughs.
“Now
I come to the reason why I have gathered you together today. The major tech
companies and universities of the globe have all agreed that creativity
requires emotion. It is impossible to have one without the other. The problem
is twofold, however: we barely understand the natures of human emotion and
creativity, let alone how to translate them both into circuits and program our
bots with such abilities.
“But
I believe, and I know you all do too, that the group mind is vastly superior to
that of any one individual. Therefore, in an act of stunning generosity, these
great companies and universities have all agreed to open source their research
thus far. This means everything the human race has ever amassed in the
neuroscience of human emotion and creativity, as well as all advances toward
algorithms to encode the same, will now be freely available via the labyrinth
in the hopes that universal access will yield much quicker results.
“This
is a big task. I’m asking us to come together and find the answer to a question
that has perplexed philosophers for millenia: what is it that makes us human?
But in a world where knowledge doubles every six hours, I believe we are up to
the task.
“Thank
you very much for your time and attention. I will personally update you of any
breaking news in this field. I wish you all a very good morning, good day, or
good evening—whatever time it is where you are!”
Halpert’s
image vanished from the stage.
As
the people began to disperse, one woman in her fifties stood alone, frowning at
the now-empty amphitheater. She tapped her temple to access the Artificial
Experience chip implanted there.
“Call
Rebecca,” she said, fishing her AE goggles out of her purse and putting them
on. She saw a few of the townspeople shoot her dirty looks, but she ignored
them. To a person, they disapproved of any flashy show of the technology which
had so changed the face of their world.
A
few minutes later, she was in her twenty-one year old daughter’s dormitory room
in Dublin. The room was dark, until Rebecca sat up and flipped on the
light.
“Mom!
Really?” she looked at the analog clock hanging on her wall, which she had
found at an antique store. Her auburn hair stuck up in every direction, and she
rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. “Do you know what time it is
here?”
“Why
weren’t you up watching Halpert’s address?”
“Because
it’s four am, and I was performing last night, and then I was at the cast party
until like midnight! I’ll find out what he said soon enough—”
“How
close are your experiments to finding the source of human emotion?” her mother
cut her off.
Rebecca
blinked. “What? Not close at all, why?”
“Get
on the labyrinth and watch the replay of Halpert’s address and call me back.
You might want to put your musical theater and novelist careers on hold. Turns
out your senior thesis is now the hottest topic in the
world.”
Rebecca Cordeaux lives in a world where robots are being
manufactured to do the jobs that humans no longer wish to do. They are being
placed in high end jobs among others. Rebecca is studying the emotions of
robots and how to make them have real emotions like humans at the University of
Dublin.
Rebecca and her friend Liam are lab partners and they trying
to figure out how to give robots feelings. They are studying the human brain
trying to figure out where emotions are and how to replicate them into robots.
Rebecca and Liam learn that world Republic leader William
Halpert wants to reproduce the human emotion in robots hoping for a new and
improved world but Rebecca and Liam are not sure that robots with emotion will
be the outcome everyone is looking for it could lead to a dystopia and not a
utopia.
I loved all the characters in Uncanny Valley even though
they all have their own little quirks and their own reasons for doing the things
they do. The plot and world building was just awesome. I loved Rebecca’s little
friend Madeline a very small short robot. Rebecca talked to her as if she was
human and Madeline tried her best to give back in feelings as much as she was
programmed to do. I loved the fact that she would throw out her arms and give
Rebecca a hug when she thought that was what she needed and she would tell
Rebecca she loved her. It was so cute.
Rebecca also has her love interest too as a matter of fact
she has two of them. She just can’t seem to make up her mind which one she
liked. Oh it was so cute when Madeline would give her advice on love. There
wasn’t any romance actually going on well because it didn’t seem as if either
of the two guys has any interest any Rebecca in a romantic kind of way.
I really enjoyed reading Uncanny Valley it was a fun fast
paced read that kept me hooked from the very beginning although I would have
like to have known more about some of the other robots than just Madeline. Uncanny
Valley is filled with twists and turns right up until the end oh and let me
tell you that ending blew me away I never saw that one coming. I can’t wait to
read the next book in the series The Silver Six.
I would recommend Uncanny Valley to all fans of science fiction
or dystopian in a world with robots.
The
Silver Six
Uncanny
Valley Book 2
What
is it that makes us truly human?
Rebecca
Cordeaux’s entire world has been turned upside down. In a single
day, she’s learned that Senate Leader Halpert and his Board of
Advisors are actually illegal humanoid robots created underground
twenty years ago—and they tried to have her killed. Her mother
Karen, whom she always believed to be passionately against the cause
of the Renegades, turns out to be their leader. And Liam, a man she
never thought she cared for, is now fighting for his life—and she
finds that she cares desperately.
Fortunately
Karen, known to the Renegades as M, has planned for exactly this sort
of eventuality. Using Rebecca’s father’s blueprints, Karen
patiently built an underground compound in an abandoned part of the
Americas where they can regroup and plan for the coming war. The
compound becomes an unlikely oasis as their number grows, both on
accident and on purpose. In attempting to recover her best friend and
companion bot Madeline, Rebecca gets what she thought she’d always
wanted: Andy arrives at the compound too, along with her friends Jake
and Julie. But with the sudden addition of an old flame from Liam’s
past, Rebecca discovers just how little acquainted she has been with
her own heart.
Meanwhile,
the Silver Six are running a worldwide campaign of indoctrination to
ensure that the people are on their side. In the name of peace, they
want nothing more than to wipe out every shred of resistance, while
pursuing their ultimate goal of robotic superintelligence. With the
assistance of a neuroscientist who helped to build the Silver Six
decades ago, Rebecca attempts to understand how synthetic minds work,
hoping this information can be used against them. She’s sure that
the mysterious, brilliant, and beautiful Alessandra Russo is the key
somehow, but Alex’s hatred for the Silver Six is only matched by
her hatred for the Renegades. Can the Renegades find and exploit the
weakness of the Silver Six before synthetic intelligence passes the
point of no return?
Goodreads
* Amazon
Prologue:
Alessandra Russo
“Miss...Rochelle
Denning,” the neurosurgeon bot read from the screen displayed on his retinas,
glancing at the young woman sitting before him. She was beautiful, with long
dark hair and eyes the color of cornflowers, startling against the caramel
color of her skin. But the bot was, of course, unimpressed. She knew in advance
that she’d have to find another way to get the creature to do what she wanted.
He read from her carefully fabricated medical chart, “You are here for
migraines?”
The
woman, whose real name was Alessandra Russo, grimaced, clutching her forehead
theatrically. “I had my first chip replaced two months ago because it malfunctioned,”
she choked out. “Ever since they put the new one in, I've had a nonstop
migraine, literally every day for two months! Please, you have to help me. I’m
not suicidal, but I’ve considered it because I just can’t live like this.
Please!”
The
bot glanced at her, unmoved, and then back at her chart. She might have known
she could save the emotional appeals; they were as wasted here as was her
beauty. “I see. Your notes request no replacement?” The implication was clear:
removal of an Artificial Experience chip, without replacement of another, was a
peculiar request. Suspicious, even.
“I
had problems with the first one too,” Alex asserted without missing a beat,
knowing everything she was about to say was already corroborated in her
chart—since she’d hacked in and written it. “I've had headaches for as long as
I can remember, but never as bad as they were after they put the new chip in. I
can just use a handheld, I don’t want to risk another A.E. chip. Please, I just
want it out!”
The
neurosurgeon bot was incapable of facial expressions, but Alex read in its
rapidly moving eyes that it didn't take her assertion at face value. It was
accessing the labyrinth, checking her story. Had she made a mistake in the
chart somehow—used the wrong language, maybe, or said something a real primary
care medical bot would never say in a referral? She held her breath.
At
last the bot's digital eyes refocused on her, extending its silver arm to the
surgical bed. “Arm out,” it instructed, and Alex breathed a sigh of relief. A
medical assistant bot wheeled over, adjusting the head of the table to a
convenient height for the surgeon. But just as the M.A. sterilized her arm for
anesthesia, the neurosurgical bot commanded, “Wait!”
Alex’s
heart stopped just as the M.A.’s silver arm froze in midair. Back and forth,
back and forth went the neurosurgeon’s eyes. They focused inward, then on her
face, and then inward again—comparing. She knew he was matching every square
millimeter of her flesh to the pixels in the image in his mind.
“Go
ahead and sedate her,” he said, and Alex winced with the tiny invasive pain of
the needle. She watched, almost crying with relief as the M.A. attached the
needle to an IV, and cool liquid mingled with the blood in her veins. But even
as the effects began to blur the edges of her consciousness, she heard the
neurosurgeon declare to his M.A., “Her records have been falsified. She is a
Renegade, wanted for spreading propaganda about William Halpert and his Board.
Alert the police that we have her in custody.”
No, Alex wanted to
scream. But she could no longer move her lips.
Rebecca has learned quite a few secrets that her mother was
keeping from her like she is the leader of the Renegades an underground group
of people who are trying to stop robots from taking over the world and putting
an end to humanity. Rebecca finds out that her mother is the person she knows
as M.
Rebecca, Liam and a few of her friends have gone underground
as they say or into hiding from the people who are trying to kill them. Karen
Rebecca’s mom has planned for this day for a while using her father’s plans.
Karen has set up an underground compound in caves in some remote part of
America.
Rebecca, Liam and Frances are all trying to figure out how
the human emotions work in the brain and how they can relate it robots. They
want to see if robots can ever be programmed with emotions. They also want to
find a way to stop The Silver Six a group of robots that was created twenty
years ago. These robots are living as humans in a high position and are known to
the world and no one has ever figured it out until now. If they don’t find out
soon what part of the human brain contains emotions and how they work then war
may be imminent.
The Silver Six picked up right where Uncanny Valley left off
with one of the guys Rebecca has feelings for fighting for his life. Rebecca is
having to deal with the secret that she learned at the ending of Uncanny
Valley.
The Silver Six was just as fantastic as Uncanny Valley if
not more so. It read just as fast if not faster it kept me glued to the pages
wanting to know where everyone was going to go next and all the science fiction
stuff about the brain really interested me. The character were all just as
amazing as before and I think that most of them did grow more after that the
ending in Uncanny Valley but who wouldn’t have? I can’t wait to read what
Rebecca and the rest of the characters have instore for us in the next book Jaguar.
I would recommend The Silver Six to all fans of science
fiction and dystopia.
Jaguar
Uncanny
Valley Book 3
The
Silver Six have blown the Renegades’ underground compound to bits,
killing several of Rebecca’s best friends in the process—and to
her horror, the boy Rebecca had convinced herself she loved for all
these years was the one to betray them all. At the same time, General
Specs, the company Liam was once slated to inherit, has developed a
superintelligent robot called Jaguar which is quickly becoming
godlike in her omniscience. As the remaining Renegades flee to their
last bastion of safety in the Caribbean, Liam makes his way back to
London, in a last ditch effort to convince his father to destroy
Jaguar before it’s too late.
Rebecca,
meanwhile, finally understands her own heart: she never loved Andy.
He was merely a ‘safe’ choice who would never require anything of
her. Liam, on the other hand, exasperating as he was, had seen past
her defenses. All of his teasing and provoking had been his attempt
to get her to be real with him—but the more he made her feel, the
further she had retreated. She had even substituted her companion bot
Madeline for real, deep human friendships, and for the same reason:
she’d been avoiding love to protect herself from another loss like
the one she had experienced when her father was killed for the
Renegades’ cause. Ironically, she only realizes this once Liam is
on his way to a similar fate. But she’ll be damned if she lets him
go without a fight.
This
high stakes conclusion to the Uncanny Valley Trilogy envisions a
world not too far off from our own, in which superintelligence is a
reality, humanoid bots have supplanted human power and influence, and
there are eyes watching and reporting our every move. If humanity is
to survive, the Renegades will have to galvanize support across the
globe, under the radar—and it will require every last bit of
ingenuity they possess. But is attempting to outwit a
superintelligent being really the answer? Or will it require
something much more fundamentally human?
C.A.
Gray is the author of three YA Amazon bestselling trilogies:
PIERCING THE VEIL (magic and quantum physics meet Arthurian legends),
THE LIBERTY BOX (dystopian metaphysics and mind control technology),
and UNCANNY VALLEY (dystopian coming-of-age with neuroscience and
super intelligent A.I). She starts with some scientific concept that
she’s interested in learning more about herself, and then creates
lots of epic chaos and high-stakes action to go along with it. Her
stories are free of gratuitous violence, language, and sexual
content, and she abhors depressing endings… but they’re not all
kittens and rainbows either! She also listens to and reviews
audiobooks on her website, here on Goodreads, on Instagram, and on
her podcast, Clean Audiobook Reviews, where she also
occasionally interviews other authors.
By
day, C.A. Gray practices naturopathic medicine, podcasts, and writes
medical non-fiction under her maiden name (Dr. Lauren Deville). She
lives in Tucson, AZ with her husband Frank, and together they
maintain an occasionally contentious film review blog (under her real
name: Lauren Baden. Three names. Yes.) She’s kind of the queen of
multitasking—so in her spare time, she creates whatever meals or
crafts she found most recently on Pinterest, drinks lots of coffee
(Aeropress btw) and occasional wine (reds—and she saves the corks
for craft projects), works out (while listening to audiobooks), and
studies the Bible—about half of the podcasts on Christian Natural
Health are scripture meditations.
She
does sleep, too. Promise.
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