{"id":27184,"date":"2026-09-22T11:19:37","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T15:19:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.davidmswitzer.com\/blog\/?p=27184"},"modified":"2026-09-22T11:19:37","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T15:19:37","slug":"the-downloaded-2-ghosts-in-the-machine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davidmswitzer.com\/blog\/2026\/09\/the-downloaded-2-ghosts-in-the-machine\/","title":{"rendered":"The Downloaded 2: Ghosts in the Machine"},"content":{"rendered":"

{4.5\/5} “Maybe he was right. What he believed — that it was December 2059, that the world was at peace, and that we were contentedly cisgender — seemed so much more plausible than what I believed: that a third world war had broken out, five hundred years had passed, an extrasolar asteroid was on a collision course with Earth, and that he — I — we<\/strong> had come to realize we really were female, not male, and had fallen in love with a murderer.”<\/p>\n

The Downloaded 2: Ghosts in the Machine<\/strong> by Robert J. Sawyer, published in 2026<\/p>\n

In a few weeks the asteroid Brimstone will hit Earth. Most people who are left are heading out before then, some to Mars and some even further — a ship is going to Zeta Tucanae. A few of the original crew have decided not to go on the longer voyage — some of them have kids now and some of them just changed their minds. When Captain Letitia gets back to the ship she uploads her consciousness — but when she gets to her virtual space there’s another younger version of herself there who thinks she’s the real Letitia.<\/p>\n

This is the sequel to The Downloaded<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

It’s about people who are having trouble with their physical bodies and people who are having trouble with their virtual selves.<\/p>\n

What would you do if you disagreed with another version of yourself? What if you found out that you weren’t a real person but just a backup?<\/p>\n

I like how they call the younger versions of themselves “prequels.” The references to things like Star Trek<\/strong> and Planet of the Apes<\/strong> are superb.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve read all 28 of Sawyer\u2019s books. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{4.5\/5} “Maybe he was right. What he believed — that it was December 2059, that the world was at peace, and that we were contentedly cisgender — seemed so much more plausible than what I believed: that a third world war had broken out, five hundred years had passed, an extrasolar asteroid was on a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,28,5,8],"class_list":["post-27184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","tag-book","tag-novels","tag-review","tag-science-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmswitzer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmswitzer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmswitzer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmswitzer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmswitzer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27184"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmswitzer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27312,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmswitzer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27184\/revisions\/27312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmswitzer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmswitzer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmswitzer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}