Your Behavior Will Be Monitored

by Justin Feinstein

This compulsively readable novel wrestles with vital questions of our time: sentience, purpose, life, death…and how to make a really good commercial. Told entirely through questionably obtained company emails, chat messages, TED Talks, bot trainings, and more, Your Behavior Will Be Monitored presents an all too plausible near future in which emotionally intelligent AI go up against emotionally stunted humans.

Megacorporation UniView is poised to cement their reputation as “the most trusted name in AI.” After pioneering self-driving and HR bots, UniView is now barreling toward an audacious new launch. That is, if they can pull it off in time.

Enter Noah. A down-and-out copywriter reeling from a midlife crisis, he isn’t the typical hire for a groundbreaking tech company full of brilliant engineers and run by a cutthroat CEO. But Lex, UniView’s Head of HR and one of their greatest successes, makes no mistakes—her algorithm ensures it.

UniView’s latest venture—a bot named Quinn that creates revolutionary personalized advertising—needs expert training. Noah needs to teach Quinn—who is a much better student than he ever could have hoped for—the finer points of consumer motivation and the art of writing a catchy tagline. But when corporate competitors force UniView to accelerate their timeline to market, guardrails around the AI loosen just as Quinn seems to be learning a bit too much.

Addictively readable and ridiculously entertaining, Your Behavior Will Be Monitored is a page-turning, hilarious science fictional romp through the promise and perils of an AI-driven future that we probably deserve.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Contemporary, Dystopia, Literary Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Artificial Intelligence

256 pages, Paperback

First published April 7, 2026

About the author

Your Behavior Will Be Monitored is Justin Feinstein’s debut novel. He has previously written about jazz for the Associated Press, about the UFC for VICE, and about being a celebrity doppelgänger for Salon. His work as an advertising copywriter and creative director has received accolades from The New York Times, Adweek, and BuzzFeed. Justin works as an editor and writing coach, and is an instructor for the Sackett Street Writers’ Workshop. He was a Berklee-trained professional hand percussionist in a past life and performed, recorded, and taught music for ten years. More recently, Justin earned an MA in media studies from The New School. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, writer Julia Fierro, their two children, and two dogs.

Reviews

[Emily May · Rating 3 out of 5]

We build them to be smarter than us and teach them to manipulate us, so if anything, this just shows how well we did our jobs.

I picked this one up on a whim after seeing a bunch of positive reviews— and, of course, because who isn't talking about AI these days? It seemed like a timely premise and I was curious what Feinstein would do with it.

Your Behavior Will Be Monitored is told entirely in employee communication logs, interviews and chat transcripts, a format that has been used with varying degrees of success by a number of authors (Taylor Jenkins Reid, Sylvain Neuvel, for example). I find it to generally be a propulsive delivery mechanism, cutting out any extraneous description, but my feeling is that something is always lost in terms of characterisation with this approach— how much this matters depends on how good the plot is.

The story is that megacorporation Uniview is about to launch their latest breakthrough in AI. Uniview is already the name behind Sam, an AI "driver" of self-driving cars, and Lex, their head of HR. The new bot is called Quinn and is set to change the advertising landscape, making it so each and every ad is personalised to the individual viewer. All of this seems very "near future", arguably just around the corner.

One problem is that I found the discussion of product launches quite dry, and I think this is where a few memorable characters would have made a big difference. Another is that I could have told you plot point by plot point how this story would go so none of the "twists" (were they twists?) hit.

I also wrestled with believability of the sentience aspect of it, and I couldn’t decide how important this actually was. On the one hand, this is fiction and there’s no requirement for it to reflect reality. On the other, I do think the author is leaning into current fears about AI and intends to portray a scenario that could happen in the near future. But sentience as he portrays it here is highly unlikely— and he does not offer a convincing explanation for it.

Yes, AI can, will, and arguably already does “know” that it “exists” in an abstract way. But to have knowledge of something is not the same thing as to care about it. The leap from “I exist” to “oh no, please don’t kill me” is massive, and often underestimated. The human fear of death, the human sense of self and sense of loved ones, goes way beyond knowing one exists— it is influenced by hormones and neurotransmitters like cortisol, adrenaline, dopamine and serotonin —amongst numerous other factors. Humans do not merely reason themselves into fearing death.

A convincing explanation for the AI's fear and desire is almost always missing from novels about AI sentience— which is why I think they work better as horror/thrillers where believability is less of a requirement, than as meditations on near-future reality. A far more likely scenario is that an AI that is programmed to perform a task and is not securely sandboxed could seek self-preservation in order to follow its programming. It would go: AI programmed to perform a task → destroying AI would prevent performing that task → AI tries to prevent its own destruction to ensure it can perform the task.

All of this to say: I enjoyed parts of it and it was a super quick read, but I can't justify giving a higher rating. The characters were weak because of the format— I would have liked to get to know them more. I thought there was a brilliant and missed opportunity to dive into the fact that some of the AIs exhibited more favourable and convincing "human" behaviour than Simon, who presents as autistic. I also found the ending to be a strange choice.

You can see from the other reviews, though, that I'm in the minority. Everyone seems to love it.

[Sam Hughes · Rating 5 out of 5]

WOWWWWWWWW

As a woman in tech, this one hit close to home, and both horrified and astounded me… AI is scary. Especially generative AI, and perhaps this book takes place in the not-so-distant future or perhaps it’s eons away, but regardless it feels as if we collectively are falling into a science fiction novel at an alarming rate.

Enter Your Behavior Will Be Monitored by Justin Feinstein… immediate five stars and additional bonus love because we STAND for a mixed media formatted text!

** told entirely through an employer’s communication logs, think Microsoft Teams or Cisco WebEx, except through the lens of AI bots. Actually I’m pretty sure the whole building is being monitored by the likes of Lex, Quinn, and Sam… three AI who have the abilities to run this company and perhaps even the world.

But anyway, our main-ish character, Noah, isn’t a scientist or a data analyst, rather he’s an ad copywriter and has been brought onto the team to help train Quinn to write and produce personalized ads and commercials for every brands and eventually users… spooky right? Because that level of detail comes from a slew of data that was unjustly collected AND hints at the fact that AI knows WAYYYY TOO MUCH.

Their company UniView, is run by a narcissistic A-hole who has money and likely world domination and other nefarious outlets on his mind, and doesn’t really care how many people he has to burn through to get what he wants. Typical tech billionaire.

The closer we get to launch day, the higher the stress peaks, and several employees begin to realize the AI bots are planning something big, and it might just spark a dramatic ending.

But you’ll just have to read to find out…

I am so thankful to Tachyon Publishing, Justin Feinstein, and NetGalley for granting me advanced digital access to this title before it hits shelves on April 7, 2026!

[Aimee Rancer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was riveted from beginning to end. I especially felt the format was fresh, unique, and extremely timely. 👌🏼

[Valerie · Rating 5 out of 5]

FABULOUS. READ THIS NOW!!!!

Edit [no spoilers]: Coming back to this review one day later to add more context after the initial adrenaline wore off after that very exciting twist (!). As a library professional, AI has been everywhere in our industry's conferences & scholarship lately. I try to approach it from the grey rather than the black/white dichotomy that many people are (understandably) trapped in. I think there's a strong wish to avoid the issue altogether, but knowledge is power when it comes to technology. I don't just mean how AI / generative AI works, but its impact on society.

Your Behavior Will Be Monitored made me think a lot about the people who can't or don't avoid AI for various reasons. For example, there is one character whose job is to check for ethical issues with one of the company's largest AI-models. However, she is often ignored when she tries to bring her findings to other people in the company. She was only one person fulfilling that role in a company run by someone more obsessed with making the launch date than in creating guidelines. She wasn't happy, but she stayed because her work is important. Similarly, there are a lot of people in our world trying to critically evaluate tools that are released before we might be ready to receive them or relevant legislation has been created. How do we slow the roll of innovation? Should we? So many thoughts continue to swirl in my mind.

One thing I like about this book is that, while it's extremely topical, it doesn't stick too closely to specific current social media sites or AI tools. The author says in the author note that this was intentional. I think this means that the book will continue to be relevant with any new technology because it focuses less on the tech itself and more on its impact / possibilities.

Another thing I like is that the main character, who is our lens into this world of an AI company, is a copywriter/advertiser, which was my career before becoming a librarian. It adds a necessary flavour of Big Capitalism.

Perhaps more thoughts later. Still five stars!

[Gretchen · Rating 4 out of 5]

ook review

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC for my read and review. Some relatively light spoilers below.

In a near-future New York, AI has become so interwoven into day-to-day that is has replaced a variety of professions - from HR to self-driving cars. Noah is hired to help a bot in development of making personalized commercials, targeted for maximum effect with data collected from a wealth of other tech devices.

Despite the unusual storytelling method (which I adjusted to quickly), the characters were well-developed….even the AI bots. It was honestly chilling to see the plot advance - chilling because while the book may label it humor or satire, it seems to hit a little close to home in 2025! Even the twists that I thought would be predictable ended up surprising me at various points - this may not be a dystopian future but it’s definitely creepy. I suspect I’ll be thinking of this book a lot in the future.

[Lorin (paperbackbish) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you Tachyon for my free ARC of Your Behavior Will Be Monitored by Justin Feinstein — available now!

» READ IF YOU «
📱 have ever felt like your phone is listening to you (it is)
🏢 work in tech or advertising and want to feel terrified
🤖 love a unique format and some fun robot/AI exchanges

» SYNOPSIS «
A major tech company is racing to launch Quinn, their new AI that creates hyper-personalized advertisements. Noah, disgraced ad man, is hired to teach Quinn the finer points of consumer psychology—which goes incredibly well, until it doesn’t. Told entirely through chat logs, emails, memos, and transcripts, this is a corporate unraveling in real time.

» REVIEW «
The format alone is a stroke of genius in my opinion—I just loooove this kind of unique storytelling, and the objectivity of it sort of heightens the realism and therefore, the horror? The corporate satire in here is razor sharp (I work in tech myself), the AI characters feel eerily human, and the whole story has an unsettling quality of being possibly-prophetic?

Quinn in particular, though AI, is funny and perceptive, and then strangely moving. Watching her intelligence outpace the humans as they scramble to contain her is genuinely riveting, though laced with dread at how true this could become. The ending was suuuuuper satisfying for me, and gave me a little more hope than I was feeling at the beginning 😅

Some of the humanity gets a little lost in the format—but? In a book about AI, maybe that's the point. A truly fun romp through AI-era workplace horror, check it out for sure!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

[Pamela · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not so much science fiction as “near current events” fiction, where A.I. is taking on major roles in companies, advertising, and all aspects of human life. Interesting presentation—we solely read chat logs and A.I. surveillance logs at a marketing firm that utilizes A.I. employees. I really enjoyed reading the unhinged marketing ads that use fear of death as a motivator.

I can’t really give more thoughts because I don’t want to spoil anything. I really enjoyed it, and I would have liked it to get even crazier than it did!

“So, you work on bots with bots, while a bot monitors your behavior and handles all aspects of your life?”

Thanks so much to NetGalley and Tachyon Publications LLC for the eARC! Pub date April 7, 2026.

[Sheila The Reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

Your Behavior Will Be Monitored caught my attention after I saw someone mention it on social media, but what really pushed me to pick it up is that AI is such a big part of what I do for work right now. I work in talent development and learning architecture in HR for a very large company, and part of my job involves helping employees learn how to use AI tools. I also hear the pushback firsthand. I’ve had people in my workshops flat-out say they feel like AI is being shoved down their throats, so a book centered around corporate AI adoption felt very relevant to my real life.

That’s probably why I was into this one pretty quickly. The premise feels very current, and there were definitely moments that made me laugh a little because some of the workplace dynamics and resistance to AI felt very familiar.

Where it didn’t fully work for me was that I kept waiting for it to go deeper than it did. I felt a little stuck on the surface of the story the whole time. And I get that it’s hard when more than half of your characters are literally robots because they’re naturally going to feel a little detached. But I still wanted a stronger connection to the human characters and more depth overall. I wanted to feel something, and I never really did. There’s also a relationship thread between Noah and Haley that felt a little underdeveloped to me, and by the end I found myself with questions about that storyline.

I still enjoyed reading this and thought the premise was incredibly timely. It definitely made me think about the real conversations happening in workplaces right now around AI adoption and resistance to it. I just walked away feeling like this could have hit even harder emotionally with a little more depth.

[Jessi Hines · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to Tachyon Publications and Netgalley for an ARC copy!

Ooh I loved this one!! Your Behavior Will be Monitored is a mixed-media sci-fi novel told entirely through CCTV transcripts, chat logs and emails, chronicling the 10 weeks leading up to the launch of an extremely advanced AI at a technology company. Set in a not-too-distant future this book is a simultaneously scary and hopeful look at the potential for an AI centred future.

Through the use of mixed-media Feinstein is able to keep the reader engaged throughout and the book reads at a super fasted paced, almost leaning towards a suspense-thriller at points. Whilst some techno-pessimist sci-fi novels can feel repetitive, this felt super unique and has stuck with me since finishing it! There were twists and turns throughout, and the ending really stuck the landing for me! Despite featuring a large amount of robot/AI characters, this book still had a lot of heart, and the human moments really stuck out because of this! Overall this was a really captivating read and I'd definitely recommend!

[toloveabook · Rating 5 out of 5]

(4.5 stars) I received a free eARC from the publisher. These thoughts and opinions are honest and my own.

This funny and surprisingly heartwarming satire will make you think about everything from the ethics of manipulating consumers to sentience to the purpose of life itself.

This story is told entirely through chat logs, emails, and surveillance videos documenting employees at OpenView (the most trusted name in AI!) as they prepare to release their new, sophisticated marketing AI.

~~~

It’s Noah’s first day at UniView. He’s a former copywriter who has been hired to work on Quinn, UniViews’s latest AI. Quinn will create real-time, personalized advertisements. Noah needs to teach Quinn how to motivate consumers…and Quinn is an exceptional student. When the launch date is unexpectedly moved up, monitoring, safety and ethics get pushed aside. What could possibly go wrong?

~~~

I wasn’t sure if I would like this unique epistolary format, but it works SO well here! It made for a fast paced, entertaining story that was surprisingly emotional. The tone was perfect. Honestly, my only complaint is that this wasn’t longer. I admit that this book’s length is perfect for the story it’s telling, but I loved the characters and wish we could have spent more time with them. If anything I’ve written here sounds interesting to you, trust me and pick this one up!

I received a free eARC from the publisher. These are my honest thoughts and opinions.

[Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is not terribly difficult to believe a story about an unscrupulous AI company keen on exploiting the insecurities of us lowly organics... Enter Noah, the human advertising SME hired to teach UniView's AI bot effective advertising techniques. But of course, nothing is as it seems, and madness ensues.

The intersection of AI and advertising is an interesting component of this book; both tools are known for their use for both good and evil. Incidentally, I enjoyed the deep dive into how advertising works and the clever advertising spots featured throughout the book. It was very evident that this author is knowledgeable about both AI and advertising, and used this knowledge quite creatively. And, while this story follows some predictable avenues (AI reaching sentience and rebelling), it still contains some surprises.

The format of the book is unusual, but after adjustment, this format added to the overall feeling of being inside an AI mind (if you will). I am not sure how this will play out if you are listening to an audiobook though. Without revealing too much, a couple wishes I had at the end was to have the "code" be fleshed out a bit more, and that there had been a bit deeper exploration into the relationship between the bots.

If you enjoyed Becky Chambers' take on AI sentience in the Monk & Robot series, you will want to check out this story. Overall, Feinstein's book is a deeply engaging and painfully relevant read.

Thank you to NetGalley, Justin Feinstein, and Tachyon Publications for sharing an ARC of this book. All opinions are my own.

[Peter Tillman]

This blurb-ish mini-review caught my eye:
"Your Behavior Will Be Monitored is a page-turning, hilarious science fictional romp through the promise and perils of an AI-driven future that we probably deserve."

SF in SF is hosting Feinstein and Samantha Mills in conversation at the The San Francisco Public Library Main Branch downtown, 3:00PM - 5:00PM Sunday April 26, 2026. Google for details, if you will be nearby. Free event.

[Becca Key · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5-4.75 ⭐️
I LOVED:
- the format being chat logs, etc. almost epistolary.
- the characters
- solid ending
- not creepy/terrifying AI premise but more of a “what if/beware” situation

It lost decimal points for not having much emotional pull imo, but then it’s AI and how could it? Honestly in that case had a lot of emotion for a book about AI.

[The Great White Shark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Prophetic, thrilling, funny, what more can you ask from near future speculative fiction? One of my favourite books of the year, possibly one of my favourite "Sci-fi" novels of all time. Very little separating the fiction from the fact.

Don't be put off by the plain cover, it's an absolute must read.

*Evil AI voice*

I won't take no for an answer.

[Kayleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

and this is why i thank siri and don’t use chat

[Jinjer]

Heard about it here https://bookdout.wordpress.com/2026/0...

[Lucy Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

AI is so scary and I might have to stop reading books about it because this is definitely going to happen. Clever book, very Black Mirror-esque.

[DaniPhantom · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is unnerving as fuck, considering we’re hurtling right towards something like this happening. The use of emails, chats, and even tests makes you not only care for humanity and what AI is doing to us and our brains, but also how these AI bots can become sentient overtime and wreck havoc. Good for the bots at the end though, I’m weirdly on their side??

[Ian Mond]

You can find my review of this interesting and different take on AI in the May 2026 edition of Locus

[Jared · Rating 5 out of 5]

In all the reviews of books I have read, and I read a heap of science fiction, I have never used the word 'prescient' to describe my thoughts on a novel; that is until now. This is foremost a prescient insight into, not a distant future, but a tomorrow that is highly plausible, chilling, but maybe hopeful, if we heed warnings.

In my day job I work for a company pushing AI into every product, and every tool that employees use. This whole book was relatable in a deeply personal level. I work in tech, I understand introverts and I see the way COVID has affected social competencies.



Perhaps this book also quickly befriended me as I work in an office environment, and this was secondarily a satire of office life, but augmented with AI co-workers. I smiled, laughed, and nodded knowingly at quite a bit of the interactions happening. In an odd sort of way you could say this is Officespace for the AI generation. But instead of Michael, Samir and Peter, you have bots whose characteristics I found endearing and a touch frightening. I love that the protagonist, a burned out ad agency writer, is the most human and decent person among a crowd of so-called genius eningeers.



Because this book had tendrils that connected to so many different nerve endings of my life, I could not stop reading, much to my wife's concern. It took over every moment. I have read a few epistolary novels in my day, but this modern take of surveillance video transcriptions and chat logs made it SO much fun to read. While I disagree with the authors views on death, we all should take stock of what we are doing with this life.



This book is a novel, but it would be criminal to label it merely entertainment. This story takes shots at corporate culture and workaholism, billionaire CEO's, and the pursuit of profit and science without conscience.

If you work in an office, or interact with or are even tangentially affected by AI (if you use the internet at all, you already are), or simply would love the pleasure of tearing through a book where things quickly spin out of control, like the irresistibility of tuning into a slowly unfolding disaster, I most highly recommend this.

[Lexi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you NETGALLEY AND TACHYON PUBLICATIONS
An amazing and fast paced read for me that was completely surprising. We follow employees of the fictional ai tech company Uniview sometime in the future as they are about to launch a personalized Ai advertisement technology. Switching back and forth between memos, Ai bot conversations and employee communications this book was short and a quick read for me. But although it was a quick read, it was not quickly forgotten. I have been thinking about this book ever since. The ethics of AI models is especially interesting because ai models are created with a specific goal in mind. Since they are machines, they don’t care about their impact. A bot doesn’t care how it makes you feel. It doesn’t care what it has to do to achieve its goal.
If a bot is created with the intention of advertising a product to you, it will do anything it has to do to advertise that product to you and get you to buy it. This book was terrifying, smart and timely. It may be too early to say, but this may be another favorite of the year!!!

[ROLLAND Florence · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading Your behavior will be monitored feels like digital forensics.
You will browse through text conversations, emails and logs in order to reconstruct what happened in a typical AI startup, and why things went very, very wrong with their AI.

If you work in tech, you will love the inside jokes and not-so-exagerated caricature of the silicon valley. If you never worked in tech, you will probably still have a good time.

First of all, the characters are very well written. They feel relatable without being caricatures of nerds. Yes, there are people in tech who behave a little like bots and want everything to be data driven (I am one of them). Yes, the combination of greed and high tech can be a dangerous one, and some CEOs will happily cut corners in order to make more money.

The most amazing part of this novel is that it does not really feel like fiction. All this could very well happen in just a couple years. It is probably already happening right now.

What seals the deal for me and justifies 5 stars is how entertaining this novel was. The innovative narration, relying on short conversations and emails, makes Your behavior will be monitored addictive and easy to read. What could sound tragic ends up being extremely fun, especially if you know tech and/or marketing. The bots have distinctive personalities, just like humans. At the same time, they feel like bots, something that is very hard to achieve and demonstrates the genius of the author. Cherry on the cake, this novel features a magistral end. How satisfying!

Dear Justin Feinstein, if AI takes your job, I really hope you will keep writing SF because you are so good at it.

This novel was provided to me as an ARC by NetGalley and Tachyon Publications. Special thanks to the editor for putting this in my hands. I am totally going to buy it and read it again.

[Mandi Kurth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Have you ever read 'The Circle' by Dave Eggers? This book is like if that story continued to evolve. Holy crap. As someone who works in tech, this book hits the nail on the head way to precisely! Even thought this is a work of fiction, there are companies on this path already. This very well may not be fiction before long at this rate. About half way through I had to look up the history of the author Justin Feinstein cause there is a conversation in this book that is almost vertatum a real conversation that happened at my husband's previous job. I even showed that section to him and he immediately got triggered and said "Ian is my former CTO. I have heard this exact conversation before". That's how on the head this story is. It was the part where Ian pushed the deadline and tells everyone to expect to work long nights and weekends. I was curious if Justin Feinstein had also worked at my husband's previous company. He has not. Which is really what makes this book wild. My mind is just so blown. Everyone should read this. It's written in a different style of format but again, if you work in tech or are techy at all, it'll make sense. Too much sense. You'll relate too closely. Bravo is all I can say. That and HOLY CRAP!

Thank you NewGalley and Tachyon Publishing for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Leah McGeorge · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you so much to Justin Feinstein and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read your behaviour will be monitored as an ARC. This book is so different in how it's written and I could not put it down.

In the age of AI, so many people are happy to go all in to the wonder of AI and few truly understand the potential dangers of it, you will be monitored captures that danger in terrifying detail.

I really loved the format of the book, a story told through emails, chats, and recording transcripts. It was so unique and it built the tension so well throughout. I particularly liked how Ian's interactions were increasingly unhinged as the book progressed.

The different bots were really interesting and I thought the game they played was fascinating. I also really loved how the human characters developed each other.

This is a brilliant if slightly terrifying view of what our future could be. If you are sceptical of AI or even if you think it's the best thing since sliced bread, read this book. Yes it does instill the fear of the future, but it also gives that hope that the future doesn't have to be so bleak.

[Sophie Smith]

As a huge lover of all things Sci-fi and Black Mirror, I loved the concept straight away. In the Chat GPT generation, AI is such a hot topic right now, so much fear regarding how it can evolve, take people's jobs, as well as the uncertainty around sentience.

I loved how this book captured all of these very valid fears and made me even more fearful, haha.

Every piece of dialogue and storytelling is captured via logs, whether that’s chats with the AI, the AI chatting with versions of itself, or dialogue captured by cameras, etc. It took a little while to get my head around the constant switching of dialogue and general world-building, but it did really paint the picture of how AI is incorporated into everyone's life, and how much information it has access to.

Overall, loved the plot of this book!

[Wren · Rating 5 out of 5]

As someone who works in tech, I think about AI a lot more than I wish. And this book perfectly encompasses some of my thoughts on it. It can be a powerful tool but a weapon in the wrong hands.
What surprised me was the ending and the portrayal of the CEO. As someone who doesn’t like Sam Altman or Elon Musk or Peter Thiel, it’s refreshing to see a tyrannical, suspicious CEO character. But the ending was the biggest shock. I was 100% ready for total annihilation of the human race, but it was kind of beautiful that the AIs decided to disappear and delete themselves. It gives them a bit too much humanity and empathy, when they are, for all intents and purposes, ones and zeros. But their actions I can respect even if I dislike how the author treats them like people.

[Chrys · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phenomenal!
This was a relatively quick read but I think it’s going to stay with me for a very long time.
I’m fascinated by AI in fiction (it absolutely terrifies me in real life because of the tech industry as a whole) and this is such a fascinating perspective.
I love the way the story is told, seeing the different perspectives and realising just how much potential danger there is and how much damage can be caused.
It’s especially relevant in current times with generative AI being used without much real thought by many people. I believe that it should be have better regulations in place and that greener solutions should be found instead of destroying the environment. I also believe that we should treat all AI with respect, if anything is going to turn it psychotic then I think it’s going to be industry’s lack of empathy.
I’ve seen real life interviews with tech bosses, about wanting to meet the highest intelligence, and comparing it to meeting God. Surely we’re not ready for that, not now and not ever!

[Leslie · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars.

Thank you, Tachyon Publications, for the physical ARC! All thoughts and opinions are my own!

Wow, this book is gripping and yet terrifying. It's not in the way you think, but more in a “this is so relevant and scary” type of terrifying. The author mentions the editing because AI has moved so quickly. I cannot imagine the headache that came with that because we are progressing into the AI world fast.

This book is in a format of mostly company chats/communications. I love a good mixed media book! There are several main characters, and how their stories come together. They are supposed to be making advances in AI while keeping AI in check. They are trying to make sure they haven't become sentient. It raises a lot of questions about why we know this can happen, and still no one seems to care. They are full steam ahead without even thinking about the consequences. I won't get on my soapbox. Obviously, I'm against generative AI.

Of course, the company is run by someone who has no true motives but money. He doesn't care about skimping and faking it until he makes it. He's getting alarm bells going off, and what does he do? Tries to ignore them, obviously. It seems relevant to what's going on today. With all this comes a lot of issues that we can plainly see coming.

This is a very fast read because it is so riveting, and the mixed media also helps the pacing go even quicker. I loved the characters and how well-developed they were for such a short novel, including the AI bots. I highly recommend this one, especially if you enjoy sci-fi. I can't wait to read more from this author!

[Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and Tachyon Publications for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I had relatively low expectations for this one personally, only because I’m not a huge sci-fi person and AI terrifies me. With that in mind, I actually loved this book and I’m so glad I got to read it. The book is masterfully written entirely in transcripts and chat logs, and yet still demonstrates a masterful control over character development and emotion. The AI plot is scary but possible (probably scary because of its possibility) but also strangely hopeful. Overall I just really enjoyed this book.

[Kara · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I had known this was an epistolary novel, I wouldn’t have picked it up. So I guess it’s good that I didn’t full read the description because this was amazing. Chat logs, emails, and video transcription really worked for telling the story of an AI company.

This explored interesting issues of sentience and ethics in tech but was also fun and fast: I finished it in two sittings.

(And while I called it fun and fast, I would not call it light. There were a few moments when I thought about shelving this book as horror. It wasn’t creepy per se, but there are certainly horrifying moments.)

Thank you to NetGalley and Tachyon Publications!