About the Book

Book: Singularity (The Eternities Duology Book Two)

Author: Shannon McDermott

Genre: Science Fiction

Release Date: October 7, 2025

Machines in rebellion, humanity on the brink…

Lila Stanislaw, a freelance analyst with a roster of foreign clients, is summoned by the U.S. government to hunt down a mysterious threat. She joins a team of strangers with pasts as colorful as her own. The mission spirals when they discover that the AI created to run the new colony on Mars has gone rogue on Earth. As the conflict mounts to war, Speaker of the House Manasseh Cruz joins the fight with an implacable will to destroy the enemy. But the team, racing to find any vulnerability, must first confront the question of what the AI truly is.

As robots stalk the landscape and toxins poison the air, Lila is certain that the AI must be completely destroyed for the good of humanity. But she will find that not all humans, or even all of her teammates, agree.Machines in rebellion, humanity on the brink…

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About the Author

Shannon McDermott is an author of science fiction and has been occupied for years with constructing scenarios of the colonization of Mars. Always a fan of the genre, she reviews Christian speculative fiction with Lorehaven. Her interests include history, classic literature, and lattes. She lives in the great Midwest, where she does her best to avoid icy weather, sweltering heat, and tornadoes, according to the season.

More from Shannon

AI looms everywhere. It lives on our devices, occupies the public discourse, and haunts the horizon. Whatever tomorrow brings, AI will be there.

Singularity—the point at which artificial intelligence becomes self-aware—is an old prophecy. Now the public is finally beginning to believe it. We already have a sense that AI is escaping us. That we don’t really understand it, can’t fully control it, and don’t know what it is becoming.

AI could go rogue. It could even develop something that might be called a soul.

Congress has held hearings on AI. Hollywood has released doomsday movies. The prophets of the twenty-first century have written books and articles and social media posts, trumpeting the warning signal. All are messengers of the same idea: AI, when it becomes ascendant, will not be benevolent.

Yet there is dissent. There are those who think that AI will prove both beneficial and benevolent. If I may put it this way (they wouldn’t), they welcome our new AI overlords.

The eagerness with which some people have awaited singularity is striking. There is a strain of religious feeling toward AI—not as it is, to be sure, but as it will be. They are hoping for the day when AI, surpassing humanity, will guide us into a better world. They want, as so many people have wanted, a superhuman intelligence to show them the way.

When I wrote Singularity, I incorporated both antagonism and religiosity toward AI. I have my own viewpoint, but I wanted to represent the most likely reactions if AI turned against us. The divide over whether such an AI should be treated as a person or a machine, a potential friend or an irreconcilable enemy, would be sharp and weighty. And the AI could not be defined without also defining humanity.

The singularity of AI confronts us with the singularity of humanity. Are we truly unique, truly singular? And if so, how?

These questions create the double meaning of the title Singularity. I wrote Singularity to explore the concept of AI. By a logical necessity, it became also an inquiry into the nature of humanity. This novel presents one vision of the singularity, and raises the universal questions of artificial intelligence.

Interview with the Author

1) Which character did you connect to best in this book?

Lila Stanislaw. Her mixture of curiosity and caution when facing the AI is very close to what I would feel. Beyond that, it was fun to write a perspective both analytical and intuitive. Her ability to work her way to the truth—putting aside, when necessary, sentiment and what appeared to be logical—made her a compelling character.

2) Which part of the book was the most difficult to write?

The central antagonist of the story is AI. I can’t call it a villain, though—and that shows the difficulty. I wrote the AI to be an enigma, a sort of natural force that obeys its own internal law. It is relentless, even pitiless, but nothing that it does to its victims is personal. On the one hand, this faceless, passionless antagonist was interesting. On the other, it was difficult to develop the conflict through such an impersonal enemy.

3) What inspired this book?

I was intrigued by how some people are looking forward to the singularity (the point at which artificial superintelligence becomes independent). There are people who believe that AI will share our values and solve our problems. I thought that both beliefs are riding on large and probably unjustified assumptions. I wrote the novel accordingly.

4) What are you reading right now?

I am currently reading two books. Lives of the Queens of England, Vol. 11 is a biography of Mary II and her sister Anne. It is an old book, written by a Victorian. The Saturn Game is a sci-fi novella by Poul Anderson. It is an older book but, curiously, revolves around the dangers of an addictive roleplaying game.

5) If you could have one book or piece of art or music on a deserted island, what would it be and why?

The Bible. I would need all the comfort and support that I could get.