A few years back, WIRED did a cool—and scary—thing. One of our favorite writers, Elliot Ackerman, and one of our favorite admirals (who doesn't have a favorite admiral?) James Stavridis, were about to publish their first co-written novel. Ackerman is a Marine who served five tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Stavridis spent 37 years in the Navy, retiring as a four-star admiral and serving as Supreme Allied Commander of NATO. The book, 2034: A Novel of the Next World War, was an edge-of-your seat, terrifying imagining of geopolitical events, the kind we think about a lot at WIRED (national security, the unintended consequences and complications of advanced technologies, that kind of stuff). So we took over a whole issue of the magazine to bring part of that book to you. You can read it here.
Now Ackerman and Stavridis are back with the second book in their trilogy, 2054: A Novel. This week, in a WIRED exclusive, we published five installments of the book—which you can read by clicking here—with a sixth excerpt coming on Monday. We also wanted you to hear straight from the authors, in this Little Interview, to find out why they keep scaring the bejesus out of us.
WIRED: A sequel? Wasn't the first book terrifying enough?
Elliot Ackerman: With 2034 we picked a threat that felt like it was on our near horizon, which was war with China and the role that cyber would play in that war. We received an enormous and very positive response, so we decided to keep the story going. In 2054, we wanted to look even more broadly, not only at national security threats but also threats to our existence. The new novel has some of the same characters, but it's a stand-alone work that can be enjoyed even if you haven't read 2034. It probably feels more sci-fi than its predecessor and is the story of a civil war within the United States and the role that artificial intelligence would play in that war.
James Stavridis: It was always our plan to do a trilogy which dealt with some of the big challenges of the 21st century. We knew the second would have a strong cyber and AI component, but as the real potential of civil conflict in America has emerged, that became another motif for 2054.
WIRED: Which one of you got obsessed with the singularity, or in this case, remote gene editing, as the next big threat? And should we be worried?
JS: I've always been fascinated by Ray Kurzweil, and from the very beginning I knew I wanted him as a character—off stage of course, but deeply embedded in the story.
EA: Jim was pretty quick out of the holster with the idea of making this book about AI and a democratic crisis. We'd both read about the singularity, particularly Ray Kurzweil's book The Singularity Is Near, and as you'll see, 2054 bridges many of the concepts in that book—such as remote gene editing—and places them into the context of American political life. Julius Caesar is one of my favorite Shakespeare plays, and I hope 2054 has that same type of political tension running through it but set in the future. The Brutus in our novel doesn't wield a dagger, but a weapon equally as sinister.
WIRED: Jim, what should we really be worried about that we aren't? And what are we worried about that we shouldn't be?
JS: In a word, cyber. I think AI is ultimately going to reshape the entire cyber world, and we don't as yet have a clue as to how far that will go. The word cyber is from Greek (isn't everything?) and means roughly, the mind, the steersman, the leader. In many ways, we are in a boat, drifting down a river, content with all we are seeing in our little world. But the dangerous rapids are just head, just out of earshot. 2054 is designed to alert us to that.
WIRED: Any hints for readers about the second half of the book? Elliot, teasers?
EA: We've loved our partnership with WIRED, and I think these excerpts take the temperature of the novel up pretty high. In the second half of the book, the reader starts getting some answers. I think they'll be surprised by who (or what) is behind the president's assassination. And I think by the end of the book you'll be asking yourself under what conditions (if any) are forms of political violence, like the assassination of a president, ever appropriate.
WIRED: What's next for your partnership?
JS: The third novel, 2084, has always been designed to focus on the threat of global warming and a decaying environment, and how that would affect global politics.
EA: We are at work on that novel right now. It will continue with many of the same characters. At the end, readers will see what the world looks like at the dawning of the 22nd century.
WIRED: What else should readers know?
EA: Our goal in these books has always been twofold: first, to create works of speculation, not prediction—the idea being that if you can imagine the worst-case scenario, you can avoid it. And second, to tell a great story with memorable characters that's a lot of fun.
JS: I want readers, at the end of the book, to feel, "No we can't let that happen." I hope the books will be, in that sense, a call to action. If we can reverse engineer these crises, maybe we can figure out how to avoid them.
