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What if the cataclysmic Tunguska explosion of 1908 was caused, not by a meteor or a comet, but by a microscopic black hole?

What if that fantastic object - smaller than an atom, older than the stars, heavier than a mountain - is still down there, orbiting deep inside the earth, slowly consuming the planet?

What if only a rookie government agent and an uncannily-insightful consultant stand between a renegade Russian billionaire and his plans to use the black hole to change history - or end it?

What if it's all true?

For an alternative view of the Tunguska event and to explore the science behind Singularity, visit the Vurdalak Conjecture website.

Accolades
* Winner of the Gold Medal for Science Fiction in Foreword Magazine's Book of the Year Awards

* Winner of the Independent Publishers Association's Ippy prize for Best Fantasy/Science Fiction novel of 2004

"Singularity is a swift, gripping novel with a goose-pimple mix of scary science and near-future action. An excellent debut from Bill DeSmedt - and I'll be looking forward to his next one!"- Greg Bear, Hugo and Nebula award-winning author

"DeSmedt veers an action-packed thriller into perilous realms of black hole physics. The combination of adrenaline and intellect sizzles."
- David Brin, Hugo and Nebula award-winning author

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Overall Rating: Out of 171 ratings

By: Tom Heydt-Benjamin
Wow! Thanks for the great answer. (I did know the author's background, I read his CV before reading the book). I withdraw my objections (except for the one about the telnet server ;-) Now that I think about it more, there is another way in addition to those you mentioned: a vulnerability has recently been demonstrated in which NICs have been reflashed with malicious code. If the device driver contains any bugs (and what code doesn't?) this would allow a machine to be reinfected after a reimiging.

By: Mycroft
Tom, I'm not THAT Mycroft (although Finley Lawrence is a thinly disguised version of my real name), but I am the computer scientist/consultant who provided some of the technical input and review for Singularity (also the consultant for the flying scenes). For reference, Mr. DeSmedt is also a computer scientist specializing in AI and speech recognition. We have worked together in the past on telecom security. All of your points are well taken. First, let me say I'm happy that you accepted my Trojan that intercepted Jon's email. As an aside, when Bill asked me how difficult it would be to forge an email message the reply he got was from Jon.Knox@archon.com. I realize that this would not pass close inspection of headers, but it would have fooled the average user. On the lack of encryption for the cameras on Rusulka that is an oversight that the head of security should have been shot for (remember, this is the KGB we're talking about). But it probably never occurred to him that anyone on board would have incentive to intercept the signals from the devices. In the same scenes, to have a simple switch to reveal the secret entrance was a serous blunder; it should have had at least a keypad code, and probably some sort of biometric scanner. As far as the persistence of the Trojan after re-imaging I'll admit that it would be impossible for me, but not necessarily for my namesake. However, there are a couple of ways I can think of to do it (at least theoretically). One would be to infect a document or documents on a shared drive that would reinstall the Trojan if the system was reimaged and an infected file then opened. Another would be to infect the Master Boot Record (MBR); if the reimaging was not done carefully track zero might not be reinitialized. Consider that the reimaging would have been done by the same IT group that had guaranteed that the system was secure the first time. Yet another approach would have been to reflash the BIOS. So it would have been difficult, but not impossible. You are correct that a telnet server would not have behaved as described, but I think this was more to keep the tedious technical details from interrupting the plot. Dr Lawrence, would, of course, have initially Telnetted in, then installed additional functionality over the Telnet connection such as a remote access bot. The science is quite impressive; it even got a thumbs up from Kip Thorne. Based on currently available information on the Tunguska Event the Vurdalak Hypothesis is still in the realm of possibility, and there are no other explanations that have been verified.

By: Tom Heydt-Benjamin
This was an unexpectedly good book. I have previously listened to Brin's Earth on audiobook, and was at first afraid that Singularity would be too similar to enjoy. While based on a similar premise Singularity was a completely different book. If anything it increased my enjoyment to see how two different authors could handle some of the same material in such different ways. --- minor spoilers below --- I am a computer scientist specializing in computer security. I was gratified that Mr. DeSmedt's portrayal of computer security and hacking had remarkably few errors. The lack of encryption on the video surveillance devices was a bit surprising, and the persistence of the Trojan horse after re-imaging of the computer system stretched suspension of disbelief. Also I seem to recall that the trojan acted as a "telnet" server, which would not behave as described. Still, the science behind this book is better than one might expect in a Hollywood movie, and better than most genre fiction.

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