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A quick guide to Singular Dream and Quibble, a cybermonk sci-fi novel
Singular Dream serializes Quibble, a novel set on an otherworldly Earth in the far future, many millennia after a technological singularity.1
Quibble is a heretic in a transhuman theocracy where AIs are worshiped as gods and life is just the waiting room for digital heaven. Heresy has a price in grief and blood. Defying totalitarian dictates to fight for her freedom, her conscience, and her friends, Quibble learns what a fully realized life costs. A science fiction adventure, a love story, a dystopia, and a meditation on transhumanism, Quibble ponders what a technological singularity will mean for humanity’s survival — and what might survive.
49371. Long ago, the transhuman Infinite stripped Earth of resources to build arks for interstellar travel, leaving the planet ravaged. Now, cursed with longevity, unaware they’re enslaved to technology, and awaiting transcendence to the few remaining arks, transhuman Ones inhabit an underground night world ruled by the surreally powerful Zeros and the AI Unity, their god.
Clear-sighted, Quibble sees what no One should see — people’s shadows in the dark. Raised by heretics, she chafes at Unity’s religion. But now she doesn’t want any part of heresy or her preternatural gift. She only wants to find her mother Quiddity, vanished without a trace.
Venturing aboveground with the heretics’ help, Quibble discovers a bewildering new world. She falls in love with Definition, a fragile woman beset with grief. When her gift of sight ignites a war among the Zeros, Quibble is hounded by the phantom-like, similarly gifted Asuja, the messiah of a fascist vision for the Ones’ future. To prevail, she must find her own powers in her unique grasp of reality and human nature.
But when Asuja reveals what became of her mother, Quibble’s loyalties are confused as she struggles for the most elusive human traits — forgiveness, empathy, sacrifice. And in them, she learns, lie the seeds of liberation.
Some praise for Quibble:
It’s rare to find a speculative fiction writer who combines the touch, tone and terseness of Butler, Le Guin and Atwood. . . . such talented world-building and word-wielding . . . Joshua Lavender somehow weaves together old mysteries with new revelations; and both science fact and fiction with fantasy, using a variety of prose and poetic forms. The depth of story implied by his first chapters caused my brain hairs to rise . . .
—Johnathan Reid, author of ReidItWrite and The Consilience Series
Word to the wise: Quibble has its own jargon — words with special definitions as well as the definitions you know. Writing the novel, I tried to explain jargon and/or make it self-defining in context. However, you may find it helpful to keep the glossary open in a separate tab to visit at need.
To read a slightly longer book blurb, my thoughts on the genre (I call it cybermonk), and some background about the writing of Quibble, see the About page.
Audiobook
If you prefer to listen, the first ten chapters appear in audiobook on the Podcast page. I may resume recording audiobook chapters at some future date, time permitting.
Site navigation
On the homepage:
Two important links appear in the navigation bar: Quibble and Reflections.
The first, Quibble, will take you to the novel’s table of contents, containing links and descriptions for all the chapters published so far. Elsewhere, e.g. in the chapters, this is referred to as the index of chapters.
The second, Reflections, will take you to a similar table of contents for all the reflection essays I’ve published at Singular Dream. In these essays, I think about sources which inspired me, important themes, and my writing process.
Links to helpful back matter for the novel also appear in the nav-bar. These include a glossary defining the novel’s specialized jargon, an appendix containing explanations, and a bibliography listing sources.
In a novel chapter:
Two custom button links appear at the top of each novel chapter:
These are self-explanatory. The first button will bring you back to this page; it’s there to help new readers get oriented. The second button links to the aforementioned table of contents for the novel.
A series of separated links appears at the bottom of each chapter, like this:
< Previous chapter | Index | Glossary | Appendix | Next chapter >
Again, this is self-explanatory. Since the nav-bar doesn’t appear in chapters, I provide these links for your convenience — so, for instance, you can look something up in the glossary or appendix and come right back to the chapter.
In a reflection:
When I refer to ideas, themes, or sources I wrote about in another reflection, there’s usually a link. Most of my reflections are about the novel, so they’re interconnected.
Subscriptions
Through the end of the novel, a new chapter will typically appear each Thursday, with a break now and then. I also write at least one new reflection every month. Subscribe to get these by email.
You can read 60% of the novel for free; after that, you can get the rest of the story with a paid subscription.
Chapters are published to a section of Singular Dream specifically for the novel, so if you wish, you can subscribe only to this section, reducing the emails you receive.
Most reflections are only available in full to paying subscribers (the padlock symbol means you need a paid sub to read something in full), but some portion of each will appear above the paywall, so you can read that much for free. And you can read a few reflections in their entirety for free.
Paying subscribers can comment directly on chapters and reflections. Every so often, I post a call for feedback, and everyone can comment there.
Support me with a tip, please?
I’m the very picture of a starving artist. Since 2022, I’ve lived an itinerant life without a permanent home. (You can read about my adventures at Fool in the Woods.) I know about belt-tightening, so I understand if you can’t afford a paid subscription.
But if you like what you read and you want to leave me a one-time tip, you’ve got two options for that! First, there’s Buy Me a Coffee.
Better yet, there’s PayPal, which doesn’t take a cut from your tip — the whole amount reaches me!
I include these links on most posts. So if you’ve just finished a chapter of Quibble, you really loved it, and you want to show your appreciation, look for these links near the bottom of the page. Thank you very much for your generosity!
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If you’re unfamiliar with the concept of a technological singularity, Wikipedia has a fairly informative page about it. You might also read a landmark essay by Vernor Vinge.