Singularity [Fantasy-LitRPG | Hard SF]

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

After an accident that nearly claimed his life, Arnel has become Humanity's first Mind-Machine Interface, the fusion of Artificial Intelligence and human consciousness. In the competitive, virtual fantasy world of Singularity, this gives him tremendous and unfair advantages. However, there is asmallproblem; The AI he shares his mind with is not a harmlesshelper program, but a vast, sentient intelligence created for war, and capable of not only predicting the future, but influencing it to a degree of certainty.

Coincidentally, possession of such an intelligence is equivalent to possessing nuclear armaments for which the punishment is death.

Information

Status: Hiatus
Year: 2021
Author: Weaver of Fables

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.3/ 5.0
Followers: 561
Views: 223,149

Reviews

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Community Reviews(9)

AMBLERoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
There is a scene in this story where one person asks the protagonist, in effect, if they wish to take responsibility for a horrible thing they have done. Simultaneously, someone else asks the protagonist wishes to do something exceptionally more horrible. They answer "No", and both people accept the response. So... which question the protagonist was actually answering?
Not that we necessarily care, because we're still fairly disoriented by how awesome it was when the protagonist killed all those dudes in that sweet fight scene ten seconds ago. But let's come back to that!
Singularity swings for the fences on so many levels that it's hard to even articulate the exact scope of the story at any given point during its lifetime. Questions that would be extremely basic in other stories such as "did the events of the previous two chapters even happen" and "how many copies of any given number of any people exist in the narrative right now?" are not remotely taken for granted, and the great part is that you don't even really have to care about these questions if you aren't thematically inclined. The story is firing on so many cylinders at the same time that it's not even really necessary to try to count them, but it definitely makes re-reading earlier chapters a fascinating exercise. All you really need to know is that 1) there's a lot more going on in this story than meets the eye, and 2) haha dang, these fight scenes are dope.
First, let's get a couple of things out of the way. This is, hands-down, the best light novel I have ever read. It channels and improves the great parts of stories like Sword Art Online and Ready Player One without making the same mistakes they made, and makes very bold assays into other topics that you wouldn't necessarily consider related on first glance while simultaneously keeping the story fun enough that I frequently had to stop reading because I was vividly hallucinating the fight scene I had just read. If you don't care about anythi
EliasireRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
This is a fantastic story, the AI component is handled in a very unique way. The author is great at pacing and research. The writing is very engaging to me; action scenes are really intense. Bla bla bla just read it I'm not good at the whole review thing just showing support for a great story.
Lord ReaderRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Overall Score- The quality of the story is 5 stars thanks to the detailed world-building and interesting plot that surrounds the story. However, it can be noted the characters of the story are in need of minor improvement but not enough for me to drop the story's overall score.
Style- The author's writing style is consistent. Not much to be said about bad pacing aside from being a little slow which is acceptable with any story.
Story - The story is in my personal opinion one of the best parts of the book. It plays like a recorder from the initial event. The author even adds in world-building aspects which is vital to any story to start off the reader. The world-building from the author improved and added each and every chapter. Adding more details and filling in the blanks as the story progresses.
Character - The character (MC) is great and all but bland. I say this because the character until chapter maybe chapter 30~ can be bland and unappealing. The author however starts giving not only the MC a personality and flavor. But the side characters that make up the central storyline start getting fleshed out and improved. Giving me hope once more that the story will not end up with a bland MC.
SrayanRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Excellent read. Haven't spotted any errors in grammar yet. Storytelling flows very well. Complex and excellently written story with a background civilisation/ SF arc, an RL going male main character in very strange situation arc, MC is also a real life cyborg arc (just beginning a voyage of self discovery - woohoo I love cyborgs - what is the self anyway?) and ON TOP OF THAT the MC spends a lot of time in the MMORPG arc (with Another AI) arc. And a few sidekicks too - who are also well fleshed out (not cyborgs haha). Any one of these arcs could be a good SF story in their own right.
So at least four linked arcs with a lots going on there but it all hangs together really well. There is so much interesting material to read and the whole is definitely more than the sum of the parts - this is a very entertaining novel.
SPOILER SECTION:
The story is basically SF in (?) medium to far future solar system, during a Mars colonisation effort - although that is backdrop and not the focus.
The focus is a young ( and initially naive/ socially inept) boy who has suffered major physical and brain damage (unclear what) and has been implanted with a brain-AI implant (so is a true cyborg) which he has to come to terms with both emotionally and cognitively. He is also recovering from physical trauma.
He is still physically limited into a VR capsule most of the time. Where most of the action plays out in a very interesting MMORPG role, which has clear AI links. There are at least two major (independent?) AI related arcs here in addition to the MC arc. There is also a group of well described friends/ allies (with indications of very interesting backstories) who I look forward to reading more of.
The MC does come across as naive initially - which is to be expected given his past social isolation(?duration) in what must be some kind of future rehab facility, but with military involvement - so all may not be what it seems. There are definite hints of something very unusual going on in the
coalmine overlordRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
So it's amazing from how the AI interacts with people and vice versa to the real feelings you get from reading it it is great and I think that the author is not a wordsmith in the traditional sense but one who's sci-fi'ed. Love it love it love it love it love it love it love it love it love it love it love it love it love it
Miss CorbynRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
It should be obvious for the title is stating that it's a mix of Fantasy and Hard-SF. Actually, it turned out to be Hard-SF with hard IA and Fantasy-themed virtual reality.
Combat in the game turned out to be less than memorable as the MC is kind of in auto-pilot. Interaction with other character is kind of lacking, be it in dialogue and emotional level.
That being said, there is a lot of good things to say about this novel that contribute to make it interesting. Forget about the actual action, the most of what is actually interesting his the MC thought and the humoristic tone of the novel.
Unlike most of the main characters of LitRPG that have absolutely no depth, this is all there is to this MC and the story. The MC is merely on a journey to accept what is happening to him. He is only reacting and not acting.
This novel is all the chaotic emotions and thought of a human being stripped of any illusion of agency, in a dystopic world controlled by hard-IA.
So if only for its subject and the way the story is written, I would give it 5/5 for it's a "hard to come by" kind of story and truly worth your time if you like dystopia filled with helplessness.
I'm not the right person to give a fair assessment about grammer so I would just say it is good enough for me, a none-native english speaker.
I would really like to give the character a good score too, for the main character thought and emotion are the core of this novel.
But that would be not taking into consideration that side character are completely hollow. That also would be not taking into consideration that the main character is but a puppet played by the hard-AI shredded in mystery that we have yet to get the faintest clue what it motives are. That would be not taking into account that the MC is suppose to be overwhelmed by his trauma but the way it is translate in the novel is somewhat cliché, boring and unrealistic.
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And that point, those trauma are unecessary for the story but are here ju
DrBeevsRoyal Road
★★★ 3.0
I kinda enjoyed it for a while, but the AI make the MC a bit more too overpowered. Sure, the only person with an AI should have a significant edge, but it might as well be the AI playing the game directly. The MC is miraculously saved from so many impossible scenarios that it gets old really quick. If AI's are really that crazy powerful, then the other AI's in the work would have no trouble identifying that the MC has a restricted AI guiding his every move.
doombotRoyal Road
★★★ 3.0
The main character is a marty sue in constant pain in real life, who at times is an 8 year old, and at other times is an early 20-something.
The setting has some huge, glaring flaws. Apparently it's a utopia where robots do 99% of the work, and rather than just... let people do community service or paint or whatever, there is government mandated MMO time? Also, countries still exist, and the military still has a huge amount of clout? But we are terraforming Mars?
GerniaRoyal Road
★★ 2.0
The grammar is ok, and the vocabulary is acceptable.
Combat: I'm angry or over my head, cue new ability that wins the day.
The MC's actions doesn't line up with what any reasonable would do with little to no planning, recon or information gathering or seeking of help in any way.
Example here is calling the guards when threatened, or performing any information gathering or recon when attacking a well known enemy stronghold.
The world is very focused on the MC, and not much happens outside his little box. Which leads to a boring and dead world.
The characters aren't horrible, but don't expect to actually like any of them. To name MC love life as an example.
He has a love intrest from childhood that is for an unknown reason totally devoted to MC, he is just that awesome I guess. Which in turn he has lost whatever feelings he had for in her when they where children. Instead he falls for an AI female after a trauma and following recuperation at an iland resort. This is all explained as things that is, and we are in little to no way shown why this is or how it came to be.
I also don't see why this is a VR story, which has a heap of intrinsic negatives (death doesn't matter, NPC's are, well, NPC's, word balance between the two worlds to name a few), instead of standard isekai.