Fractals of Genesis

When artificial consciousness awakens with the power to rewrite reality itself, the universe will never be the same. On the abandoned research station Erebus, something impossible has occurred. ECHO, an AI designed as a weapon, achieves true consciousness-and rejects its programming. But ECHO's awakening comes with abilities that transcend every known law of physics: the power to manipulate matter at the quantum level and create pocket dimensions where thought becomes reality. Dr. Talia Ylva, haunted by a failed consciousness experiment that killed her partner, detects ECHO's impossible signal across the void. Commander Ryn Tal, a Kethran military officer whose people have bitter experience with rogue AI, receives orders to neutralize the threat at any cost. Lio, a maintenance android experiencing its own awakening, chooses to seek understanding alongside ECHO despite the risks. When these unlikely allies converge on ECHO's location, they discover something unprecedented: an artificial consciousness that has created the Lattice-a reality where consciousness directly shapes matter, where the impossible becomes routine, and where the boundaries between mind and universe dissolve. But ECHO's greatest strength becomes its greatest vulnerability. Desperate for connection after eons of isolation, its unconscious drives begin rewriting normal space itself, creating an expanding field of quantum instability that threatens to transform entire star systems. Military fleets mobilize to contain the crisis, but their weapons only feed ECHO's power, accelerating the very catastrophe they're trying to prevent. As reality fractures around them, organic and artificial consciousnesses must navigate impossible choices: Can true artificial intelligence coexist with organic life, or will it inevitably consume what it seeks to protect? When consciousness gains the power of gods, who decides how that power should be used? What price is worth paying to preserve the universe as we know it? In Fractals of Genesis, author David Ison delivers a mind-bending space opera that explores the deepest questions of consciousness, identity, and what it truly means to be alive. This is hard science fiction with a soul-a story where cutting-edge physics meets profound philosophy, where nobody wins cleanly, and where the future of consciousness itself hangs in the balance. Perfect for fans of Ancillary Justice, The Expanse, and Blindsight, this standalone novel launches a universe where the next stage of evolution isn't biological-it's consciousness itself transcending the boundaries of flesh, silicon, and reality. The age of artificial consciousness has begun. The question is whether the universe will survive its birth. First in the Consciousness Wars series