Please help identify this book I read as a youngster!
I read the book in the early to mid 90s. It may have been written a decade or two earlier, but I got the impression it was pretty recent.
A male person lives on earth, where not a lot of people are left (there are very few other flesh and blood humans in the book, iirc). He has to use a personal generator because there’s no longer a power grid.
Almost all other humans are essentially immortal in digital form, with their consciousness uploaded to a computer that is in orbit around the earth (they don’t have actual bodies anymore, and basically just live in a big simulation program). I believe the main character can communicate with the people who have been uploaded to the computer, and they’re trying to convince him to just go ahead and upload his own consciousness already. He’s reluctant even though they’re all saying it’s not scary at all and is totally safe.
He has a friend/sidekick who is either an android or some kind of genetically engineered creature. Not human (unless I’m way off). Also, I vaguely recall that he may have joined his friends and family in the computer by the end.
Thanks for helping me with this! I wanted to give it another read. I suspect I had bad taste in books as a child, and I’d like to confirm it.
" In the late 21st century, nearly everybody (12 billion!) has opted to shuck off their bodies and hop into “The Bin,” a vast silicon network housed where the Pentagon used to be. For the soul inside, it is virtual nirvana – pretty much the kind of world John Lennon was talking about in “Imagine.” "
and
"So, Nemo grew up on the outside with his “Construct” named Lawrence – basically, a robot nanny who has three distinct (and formerly real) human personalities melded into its brain – and other folks who wished to keep their physical bodies. Among them, the aforementioned Fundamentalists who believe the Bin is the cyber-road to Hell. "
Glad to help. This time my trick was looking at the “Brain Uploading” page on Tvtropes here Brain Uploading - TV Tropes (danger! Tvtropes page), and checking the descriptions under “Literature.”
Never thought of tvtropes myself. I just tried every variation of descriptive terms I could think of in Google, but I think the “orbital computer” part I was mis-remembering threw off the results too much to be useful.