When reading the blurbs on the book jacket of Singularity's Ring, I'm struck with the recurrent use of the term "posthuman" and that this book is written of that time. I found the characters quite believably human and never thought of the "pod" Apollo Papadopulos as not being human. They (it) are five genetically engineered (is this the posthuman aspect?) people who have been trained since the cradle to work as one entity: sharing thoughts, making decisions, etc. Melko, however has presented them most strongly as individuals Strom, Meda, Manuel, Quant and Moira. He shows their personal strengths and weaknesses, and their humanity. The five very different personalities are what make Apollo Papadopulos unique, even in a culture where pods (usually only collectives of 3 or 4 people) are the norm.
For me the story, presented almost as an odyssey, was how someone with a narrow, but vastly intellectual focus (the AP pod) reacts when faced with circumstances and realities from which it had been sheltered. The five of AP pod, even while mentally bonded, are continually challenging each other as they are challenged to survive in world that is more multidimensional than they imagined. They are living in an era five or six decades after four-fifths of humanity died in a cataclysmic disaster of their own making (not nuclear weapons or environmental disasters, but an electronic catastrophe affecting the billions who were "wired"-they were wasted simultaneously by a cyber virus [something to think about, ipod users]); those remaining were early pods and "singletons" (those who weren't bred for collective thinking).
For me, the "wired" ones who died were posthuman-locked into a single mindset by an offworld Artificial Intelligence. This AI was a human construct, and continues a non-intrusive existence in the space Ring which encircles the earth. AP pod and others of their pod culture believe that the humans left the Ring for another realm, or to travel space. AP pod learns differently as various attempts to destroy it put the members outside their comfort zones; they see parts of the world they barely knew existed and learn truths of which they were ignorant. Several times, they must function as individuals, without the "comfort" and collective decision-making of the pod. They do quite well.
So the point of the story? A rogue and sociopath human who survived the devastation is attempting to wire up humans and reconstitute the Ring AI. It takes human thought to get it to a fully functioning level. But since the wired human thought is being driven by only one person who controls their thinking, the future looks grim. The Ring has all kinds of devastating weapons which he would use to threaten the whole world to his control. Only the AP pod have the ability to stop the megalomaniac from his goal.
Does the story work? I'm not sure. I was interested in the concepts Melko presented; he's a very good writer. Each adventure of AP pod was rich in action and character development. The science of gene engineering was without detail but believable, and so was the space portion of the book. The "save the world" concept showed up late in the book and it seemed Melko was scrambling to get all the whys and wherefores in place. Without this aspect of the story, however, I don't know where it would have lead. Something was necessary to give AP pod a focus.
TOR Books published Singularity's Ring, and they tag it "a Sci Fi essential book." I consider it an intriguing "future thought" book.