Singularity

The New God Of Science Fiction Outdoes Even Avengers: Endgame. First off, let me tell you up front: This isn't the book for you if you haven't read the other 12 books in the Infinite Timeline first. That noted... you NEED to read those books, because you NEED to read this book.

Why?

Because it is quite possibly *THE* unique novel in all of human history. Certainly in my own expansive, yet *very* tiny relative to all novels, few thousand book reading history. Here, Robinson openly takes inspiration from the "event" form comic books have taken for decades and which movies finally got a taste of with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and brings this structure into novels - hence, the Infinite Timeline itself.

SINGULARITY, this book, is its "Avengers: Endgame", and Robinson is able to execute on the things that Endgame does well *even better* than it did... *and* add several instances of depth, fan service, and meta commentary that Endgame could never have attempted, let alone fit in.

The darkness in this book is intense. The world is about to end, and our ragtag group of simple humans, enhanced humans, and outright Greek Gods has to come together to stop it... with enough humor to make one think your favorite group of comedians had somehow written a dark and gritty scifi action epic. You're going to *feel* the world ending, the threat growing and becoming impossible to defeat. Even through this, you're going to laugh your ass off at the antics of our heroes as they fight with all the (considerable) might and talent they can bring to bear.

Are there any outright "Avengers! Assemble." moments here? For me, there was in fact one. The moment we encounter the titular Singularity. The moment the MCU could never hope to replicate (even though it has tried, post-Endgame).

This is quite possibly *the* unique novel in all of human existence.

It will very likely be *quite* some time - if ever - that I encounter a *better* novel.

Do yourself a favor. Read the Infinite Timeline. Just so you can experience this particular OHMYGODAMAZEBALLSAWESOMESAUCE novel yourself.

Very much recommended.

Singularity, absolutely awesome!

From the moment I started listening to Singularity I couldn't stop listening and luckily for me I was on a long drive.

Once again RC Bray has done a fantastic job of bringing Jeremy's vision to life.

Don't forget to listen all the way through the credits, the bloopers are worth the listen!

I discovered the Infinite Timeline last year while looking for book series that mimic the MCU concept of shared universes. And I don't think I've found any that get as close as Robinson does. I gave them all between 3-4 stars, none of them are literary masterpieces, but they're all fun popcorn reads with wacky ideas. I doubt I would have read them all if not for the promise of the shared universe, and I think the crossover books do deliver on that promise. I think Singularity was a satisfying conclusion, bringing together all the characters across the other 12 books, and a 5 star read relative to the series. Almost every character feels like a different person to me so watching them interact in the final book is delightful, however I do think Robinsons character work across all his books is pretty surface level. All in all, I liked how it wrapped the shared universe up, although the defeat of the villain is kind of anti-climactic?

My other gripes are again the author brings up the Infinite Worlds theory, but fundamentally doesn't understand it. Infinite worlds does not mean every world exists!! And also the author writing himself into the book while I thought was kinda cringe bc really, self inserting yourself into your book...but it was actually handled in a kinda sweet way. My gripe there is that it made no sense like Will creates the universe but somehow the author self insert is writing it into being so like..I don't even know I'm confused just thinking about how it worked and honestly felt like the author was really hand wavey about it just to self insert into the book.

I don't really think I would recommend these books to someone unless they like shared universes or like B action movies (I very much doubt this gets a big screen adaptation because with how saturated the market is these would def flop as adaptations. And the plots are way closer to direct to dvd like movies). However, I will most likely read what Robinson writes in the future.