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2054

A Novel

Author Elliot Ackerman, Admiral James Stavridis, USN
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Hardcover
$28.00 US
Penguin Adult HC/TR | Penguin Press
On sale Mar 12, 2024 | 304 Pages | 978-0-593-48986-4
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From the acclaimed authors of the runaway New York Times bestseller 2034 comes another explosive work of speculative fiction set twenty years further in the future, at a moment when a radical leap forward in artificial intelligence combines with America’s violent partisan divide to create an existential threat to the country, and the world

It is twenty years after the catastrophic war between the United States and China that brought down the old American political order. A new party has emerged in the US, one that’s held power for over a decade. Efforts to cement its grip have resulted in mounting violent resistance. The American president has control of the media, but he is beginning to lose control of the streets. Many fear he’ll stop at nothing to remain in the White House. Suddenly, he collapses in the middle of an address to the nation. After an initial flurry of misinformation, the administration reluctantly announces his death. A cover-up ensues, conspiracy theories abound, and the country descends into a new type of civil war.

A handful of elite actors from the worlds of computer science, intelligence, and business have a fairly good idea what happened. All signs point to a profound breakthrough in AI, of which the remote assassination of an American president is hardly the most game-changing ramification. The trail leads to an outpost in the Amazon rainforest, the last known whereabouts of the tech visionary who predicted this breakthrough. As some of the world’s great powers, old and new, state and nonstate alike, struggle to outmaneuver one another in this new Great Game of scientific discovery, the outcome becomes entangled with the fate of American democracy.

Combining a deep understanding of AI, biotech, and the possibility of a coming Singularity, along with their signature geopolitical sophistication, Elliot Ackerman and Admiral James Stavridis have once again written a visionary work. 2054 is a novel that reads like a thriller even as it demands that we consider the trajectory of our society and its potentially calamitous destination.
13:57 May 07, 2054 (-5 GMT)
São Paulo

Chowdhury awoke gradually. He’d taken a journey of weeks, in which he’d been dead or as close to death as a person can come. The cocktail prescribed by his doctors at Neutronics had slowed his body function to undetectable levels, and now they were bringing him back.

It took a while before he once again became cognizant of where he was and what he was doing there. A clock hung on the wall of the dimly lit recovery room. Vague silhouettes flitted in and out of the room, but Chowdhury had no capacity to focus on anything except the clock. Its stubby hour hand. Its long minute hand. Chowdhury tried to concentrate on its movement, but it appeared frozen. He had to look away and look back to gauge the passage of time.

Minutes . . . hours . . . days . . . Chowdhury couldn’t say necessarily how long he stared at the clock as his faculties returned to him.

He heard a voice calling his name.

“Dr. Chowdhury . . .” A light flashed in his eyes, painful, startling. As he flinched, a muscle in the back of his neck spasmed. “. . . it’s Dr. Bakari,” said the voice, which sounded like it was underwater. “You’re in the recovery room. Can you hear me?”

Yes, he thought he said. But no sound came.

She repeated the question.

“Yes,” he said. It came out as a dry whisper.

Gently, she propped up his head and placed a plastic cup of water to his lips. When she tilted the cup forward, he began to choke and sputter. Then his body remembered itself and he swallowed a mouthful of the water. “Well done,” said Dr. Bakari as she wiped up what had dribbled down his chin and onto his chest. With great effort, he could feel himself smile at her. Spent, he shut his eyes.

When he opened them again some time had passed, and the room appeared different. It was no longer dim; it was illuminated under harsh, bright lights. The clock still hung on the wall. He felt refreshed, as if he’d simply woken from a decent night’s sleep. Sitting on a chair at his bedside was Ashni. When he turned toward her and said her name, she startled. “You’re awake,” she said, allowing a little sob of relief to blend with her words. She took his hand and kissed his dry, tissue paper-like skin, near where the doctors had connected an intravenous port. Ashni reached across his bed to press the call button that would summon one of the attending physicians.
Chowdhury stopped her.

“How many days has it been?” he asked.

“It’s been two weeks, Bapu.”
Copyright © 2024 by Elliot Ackerman. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
© Huger Foote
Elliot Ackerman is the author of the novels Halcyon, Red Dress in Black and White, Waiting for Eden, Dark at the Crossing, and Green on Blue, and the memoirs The Fifth Act and Places and Names. His books have been nominated for numerous awards, to include the National Book Award, the Andrew Carnegie Medal in fiction and nonfiction, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. He is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and a Marine veteran, having served five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he received the Silver Star, the Bronze Star for Valor, and the Purple Heart. View titles by Elliot Ackerman
Admiral James Stavridis, USN (Ret.) spent more than thirty years in the US Navy, rising to the rank of four-star admiral. He was Supreme Allied Commander at NATO and previously commanded US Southern Command, overseeing military operations through Latin America. At sea, he commanded a Navy destroyer, a destroyer squadron, and an aircraft carrier battle group in combat. He holds a PhD from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, where he recently served five years as dean. He received fifty medals in the course of his military career, including twenty-eight from foreign nations. He has pub­lished twelve other books and is chief international analyst for NBC News and a Bloomberg Opinion weekly columnist. He is currently partner and vice chair, global affairs of the Carlyle Group and the chair of the board of the Rockefeller Foundation. View titles by Admiral James Stavridis, USN

About

From the acclaimed authors of the runaway New York Times bestseller 2034 comes another explosive work of speculative fiction set twenty years further in the future, at a moment when a radical leap forward in artificial intelligence combines with America’s violent partisan divide to create an existential threat to the country, and the world

It is twenty years after the catastrophic war between the United States and China that brought down the old American political order. A new party has emerged in the US, one that’s held power for over a decade. Efforts to cement its grip have resulted in mounting violent resistance. The American president has control of the media, but he is beginning to lose control of the streets. Many fear he’ll stop at nothing to remain in the White House. Suddenly, he collapses in the middle of an address to the nation. After an initial flurry of misinformation, the administration reluctantly announces his death. A cover-up ensues, conspiracy theories abound, and the country descends into a new type of civil war.

A handful of elite actors from the worlds of computer science, intelligence, and business have a fairly good idea what happened. All signs point to a profound breakthrough in AI, of which the remote assassination of an American president is hardly the most game-changing ramification. The trail leads to an outpost in the Amazon rainforest, the last known whereabouts of the tech visionary who predicted this breakthrough. As some of the world’s great powers, old and new, state and nonstate alike, struggle to outmaneuver one another in this new Great Game of scientific discovery, the outcome becomes entangled with the fate of American democracy.

Combining a deep understanding of AI, biotech, and the possibility of a coming Singularity, along with their signature geopolitical sophistication, Elliot Ackerman and Admiral James Stavridis have once again written a visionary work. 2054 is a novel that reads like a thriller even as it demands that we consider the trajectory of our society and its potentially calamitous destination.

Excerpt

13:57 May 07, 2054 (-5 GMT)
São Paulo

Chowdhury awoke gradually. He’d taken a journey of weeks, in which he’d been dead or as close to death as a person can come. The cocktail prescribed by his doctors at Neutronics had slowed his body function to undetectable levels, and now they were bringing him back.

It took a while before he once again became cognizant of where he was and what he was doing there. A clock hung on the wall of the dimly lit recovery room. Vague silhouettes flitted in and out of the room, but Chowdhury had no capacity to focus on anything except the clock. Its stubby hour hand. Its long minute hand. Chowdhury tried to concentrate on its movement, but it appeared frozen. He had to look away and look back to gauge the passage of time.

Minutes . . . hours . . . days . . . Chowdhury couldn’t say necessarily how long he stared at the clock as his faculties returned to him.

He heard a voice calling his name.

“Dr. Chowdhury . . .” A light flashed in his eyes, painful, startling. As he flinched, a muscle in the back of his neck spasmed. “. . . it’s Dr. Bakari,” said the voice, which sounded like it was underwater. “You’re in the recovery room. Can you hear me?”

Yes, he thought he said. But no sound came.

She repeated the question.

“Yes,” he said. It came out as a dry whisper.

Gently, she propped up his head and placed a plastic cup of water to his lips. When she tilted the cup forward, he began to choke and sputter. Then his body remembered itself and he swallowed a mouthful of the water. “Well done,” said Dr. Bakari as she wiped up what had dribbled down his chin and onto his chest. With great effort, he could feel himself smile at her. Spent, he shut his eyes.

When he opened them again some time had passed, and the room appeared different. It was no longer dim; it was illuminated under harsh, bright lights. The clock still hung on the wall. He felt refreshed, as if he’d simply woken from a decent night’s sleep. Sitting on a chair at his bedside was Ashni. When he turned toward her and said her name, she startled. “You’re awake,” she said, allowing a little sob of relief to blend with her words. She took his hand and kissed his dry, tissue paper-like skin, near where the doctors had connected an intravenous port. Ashni reached across his bed to press the call button that would summon one of the attending physicians.
Chowdhury stopped her.

“How many days has it been?” he asked.

“It’s been two weeks, Bapu.”
Copyright © 2024 by Elliot Ackerman. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Author

© Huger Foote
Elliot Ackerman is the author of the novels Halcyon, Red Dress in Black and White, Waiting for Eden, Dark at the Crossing, and Green on Blue, and the memoirs The Fifth Act and Places and Names. His books have been nominated for numerous awards, to include the National Book Award, the Andrew Carnegie Medal in fiction and nonfiction, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. He is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and a Marine veteran, having served five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he received the Silver Star, the Bronze Star for Valor, and the Purple Heart. View titles by Elliot Ackerman
Admiral James Stavridis, USN (Ret.) spent more than thirty years in the US Navy, rising to the rank of four-star admiral. He was Supreme Allied Commander at NATO and previously commanded US Southern Command, overseeing military operations through Latin America. At sea, he commanded a Navy destroyer, a destroyer squadron, and an aircraft carrier battle group in combat. He holds a PhD from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, where he recently served five years as dean. He received fifty medals in the course of his military career, including twenty-eight from foreign nations. He has pub­lished twelve other books and is chief international analyst for NBC News and a Bloomberg Opinion weekly columnist. He is currently partner and vice chair, global affairs of the Carlyle Group and the chair of the board of the Rockefeller Foundation. View titles by Admiral James Stavridis, USN

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