Emily Eternal by M.G. Wheaton
Meet Emily – she can solve advanced mathematical problems, unlock the mind’s deepest secrets and even fix your truck’s air con, but unfortunately, she can’t restart the Sun.
She’s an artificial consciousness, designed in a lab to help humans process trauma, which is particularly helpful when the sun begins to die 5 billion years before scientists agreed it was supposed to.
So, her beloved human race is screwed, and so is Emily. That is, until she finds a potential answer buried deep in the human genome. But before her solution can be tested, her lab is brutally attacked, and Emily is forced to go on the run with two human companions – college student Jason and small-town Sheriff, Mayra.
As the sun’s death draws near, Emily and her friends must race against time to save humanity. But before long it becomes clear that it’s not only the species at stake, but also that which makes us most human.
Rating: 
I received a copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. And this book sounded right up my street, so I said yes.
Emily is quite interesting, she is an Artificial Consciousness developed to help psychological issues in humans, therefore she has to be as “human” as can be, and the focus isn’t in her being “Intelligent” and robotic but rather to be able to develop feelings and empathy.
From the get go, this book reminded me of Paprika by Yasutaka Tsutsui, which I read eons ago and loved (it is a classic Japanese story, that mixes reality with something else, if you’re not really into Japanese writing style, there’s a good film you can watch). I digress.
Both Paprika and Emily have a lot of similarities, but in Paprika we go slightly into the fantastical and blurring lines between dreams and reality. Emily Eternal, is more of a dystopia, near apocalypse tale.
It doesn’t pose the question of what we do after the end of the world, but rather, what do we do when the end of the world is inevitable? And of course, leave the figuring out to smart humans, government and Emily to figure it out.
This book has a lot of science (which sadly deteriorates as the book progresses, and that was what I struggled the most with in this book, the science being less there and just fitting the narrative, whereas at the beginning the science was making it work SO well). It touches on psychology, biology (lots to do with DNA, which was fascinating), a little on computer science and related, and of course robotics.
Emily as a concept was fascinating to me, and it was very interesting the way the author tried to show how a machine trying to emulate humanity would try to do so. Probably one of my favourite things of the book was the whole “Emily is trying to be human”.
This book has a bit of everything, assassinations, end of the world, space stuff, robots, an artificial consciousness, romance, action, adventure… conspiracy theories even get a little bit and even things like cancer and sickness. And family, and relationships in general.
If you like techie science fiction that isn’t a space opera and has the end of the world in it, I can definitely recommend this one. It left me with a good feeling after finishing.
Thanks for your review – I’ve seen this about and wasn’t too sure on whether I’d enjoy it but I definitely think I’ll give it a go now ☺️
I enjoyed it more than I initially expected to, for sure!