Artificial

by C.W. Briar, Angela Watts (editor), Lily Wasielewski

We were so concerned about AI taking over the world, we forgot to protect something much more our humanity.

CW Briar combines his technical background with imaginative, unsettling storytelling to examine the potential horrors of AI. Four stories, four explorations of being at the mercy of something that knows everything about us yet doesn't understand what it means to exist, to be alive, to fear, or to die. The terrors and madness are real even if the thing creating them is ARTIFICIAL.

“CW Briar’s version of Black Mirror is beautiful and brutal, as classic as the best Twilight Zone episodes and as bleak as your most skin-crawling nightmare. ARTIFICIAL will make you want to weep and scream into the void simultaneously. I couldn’t get enough.” – Sam Rebelein, Bram Stoker Award-Nominated Author of Edenville & The Poorly Made

"I'm going to make you pay my therapy bills." – CW Briar's mom after reading ARTIFICIAL

"Blood and oil, fingerprints of flesh and pixels.
Autogenerated suicide epistles.

Faces peeled from skulls by cutthroat zeroes and ones.
Dreams disemboweled into mouths of corporate funds.

Labor pains of human experience gave birth
to usurpers, mutants parasitizing worth.

Our creations, butchered and glued, homunculus,
their souls, fetid roadkill on the path to progress.

We manufactured madness and devastation,
turned reality into hallucination.

Forgive or forsake, we lost our humanity,
not to computers but to curiosity."

181 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 2, 2024

About the author

C.W. Briar writes dark fantasy stories that fuse the suspense and creepiness of horror with the senses of wonder and adventure from fantasy. His first book, Wrath and Ruin, is a collection of haunting short stories from a variety of genres. His next book, Whispers from the Depths, is coming January 2019.

Briar is a graduate of Binghamton University and works as an engineer on trains and aircraft. His lives near Binghamton, NY with his wife, kids, and corgis.

Reviews

[John Collins · Rating 5 out of 5]

C.W Briars collection of the horrors ( real or potential) of artificial intelligence is a chilling dive into the unknown and potential future. Each story is well crafted and chilling. Highly recommended.

[SJRLibrary · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book that I tried to read slowly to savor it but I ended up finishing it in a couple days because I could not put it down. I was impressed by the use of imagery and analogies which helped to paint a (sometimes grqphic) mental image of the words on the page. Briar is an excellent story-teller. All the stories were great but in my opinion, he saved best for last.

[Sophia Vecc · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the second and last stories! I found this book through a local book signing at my Barnes and Nobles and I'm so glad I did. Thoroughly enjoyed!

[Juliana Cobb · Rating 4 out of 5]

fabulous and scary. I couldn't put it down. but sometimes I had to read by peaking through my fingers...