Coming soon: The Downloaded 2!

I’m thrilled to announce that The Downloaded 2: Ghosts in the Machine, the sequel to my wildly popular Audible Original The Downloaded, will drop on Audible on Thursday, October 23. Once again, Academy Award-winner Brendan Fraser is the lead narrator. You can pre-order it now, and if your Audible subscription includes the Plus Catalogue, it’s free for you:

• Canada: https://www.audible.ca/pd/The-Downloaded-2-Ghosts-in-the-Machine-Audiobook/B0FNRYLF6L

• US: https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Downloaded-2-Ghosts-in-the-Machine-Audiobook/B0FNRXBKG1

• UK: https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/The-Downloaded-2-Ghosts-in-the-Machine-Audiobook/B0FNRXT971

• Australia: https://www.audible.com.au/pd/The-Downloaded-2-Ghosts-in-the-Machine-Audiobook/B0FNRZM6YW

And in other Audible markets worldwide!

Here’s the blurb from Audible:

If they upload again, what will they find?

Audible’s blockbuster original series returns with the much-anticipated sequel.

It’s 2555 and the remaining members of the Phoenix colony, both convicts and astronauts, have fully integrated since they were originally downloaded from cryogenic suspension.

Now, as the countdown to Earth's final day approaches, two groups of colonists prepare to leave on separate missions.

One group, led by Captain Letitia Garvey, will re-upload to the quantum computer as they head to Zeta Tucanae to complete the original astronaut mission, while the other, led by Mayor Roscoe Koudoulian, will begin a new colony on Mars, safely away from the asteroid about to hit Earth. But tragedy strikes on the day Roscoe is set to leave, forcing him to upload his consciousness as well. Back inside their virtual silos, the astronauts and convicts alike encounter mysterious digital duplicates that could destroy their stored consciousnesses forever. In a race against time, they are forced to make impossible choices in order to exist in a world where the line between human and digital reality has blurred.

From Canada's most decorated sci-fi author Robert J. Sawyer and featuring Brendan Fraser (Academy Award winner) and Vanessa Sears (Dora Award winner), The Downloaded 2: Ghosts in the Machine is a thought-provoking sci-fi thriller that takes you on a mind-bending journey where identity, memory, and morality collide in a collapsing digital future.

(Yes, there will be print and ebook editions, too — but those won’t come until May 23, 2026.)

This Saturday, September 13, I’ll be celebrating the 26th anniversary of the moon being blasted out of Earth’s orbit by appearing at the Mississauga Literary Festival from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., on the third floor of the Hazel McCallion Central Branch of the Mississauga Public Library, 301 Burnhamthorpe Rd W, Mississauga, Ontario.

And on Saturday, September 27, from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., and Sunday, September 28, from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., I’ll be at the Pulp Literature both in Magazine Alley at Toronto’s annual open-air book festival The Word on the Street, which has a new location for this year only: David Pecaut Square (next to Roy Thomson Hall), 215 King St W, Toronto, Ontario.

Feel free to bring your own copies of my books to either event, and I’ll be happy to sign them. I’ll also be selling copies of my books — autographed books make great Christmas presents! — but if there’s any particular older or special edition you want me to bring along, do let me know. (At both events, I’ll have copies of the fabulous new 25th-anniversary hardcover edition of Calculating God.)

On Saturday, November 8, Carolyn and I are hosting the annual party in our penthouse apartment in Mississauga for my Patreon patrons. If you’re not already one of my supporters on Patreon, sign up for as little as US$5 a month, and join us at the party — plus get all sorts of goodies (including the only available .mp3 files of the three-hour history of science fiction I wrote and narrated for CBC Radio’s Ideas series, featuring my interviews with Isaac Asimov, Samuel R. Delany, Ursula K. Le Guin, Judith Merril, Frederik Pohl, and Spider Robinson) as well as free ebooks, early looks at my works in progress, and candid posts about my life, my career, and the state of publishing:

https://www.patreon.com/robertjsawyer

Photo: Brendan Fraser recording his narration for The Downloaded 2: Ghosts in the Machine with the rest of the team zooming in: author Robert J. Sawyer, director Kc Wayland, script supervisor Vicky Lucas, and audio editor Jino Jang: