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The Gentle Romance: Stories of AI and humanity
'Full of depth and insight. Richard's stories push me to think bigger. They are engaging and grounded in real ideas about the future.' — John Schulman, Creator of ChatGPT
A collection of twenty-two riveting science fiction stories from leading AI researcher Richard Ngo.
In Lentando, a 'zero-knowledge' consultant pieces together a secret from her deleted selves that could threaten the world order. In The Gentle Romance, a lonely man discovers a profound connection through his neural interface. In The Witness, a man wakes up in the future—again, and again, and again.
In these richly drawn worlds, lovers may merge minds, personalities can fragment across millions of copies, and AI powers dictate new political systems.
Ngo's stories span the range from playful to terrifying to awe-inspiring. One by one, they invite us to consider how we might be transformed—willingly or otherwise—beyond recognition.
'Interacting with real AI systems has rendered countless AI sci-fi tropes obsolete. To tell new stories about them, we need someone like Richard a gifted writer with direct experience of frontier models' internals. Ngo's palette spans AI as existential horror to unadulterated hard science fiction, always imbued with deeply felt emotion ... Yet even at his cruelest, Ngo is kind, and his best stories are a darkly cheerful superposition of Neuromancer and new romance. They capture both the strange moment we are in and the stranger shape of things to come.' — Hannu Rajaniemi, author of The Quantum Thief
A collection of twenty-two riveting science fiction stories from leading AI researcher Richard Ngo.
In Lentando, a 'zero-knowledge' consultant pieces together a secret from her deleted selves that could threaten the world order. In The Gentle Romance, a lonely man discovers a profound connection through his neural interface. In The Witness, a man wakes up in the future—again, and again, and again.
In these richly drawn worlds, lovers may merge minds, personalities can fragment across millions of copies, and AI powers dictate new political systems.
Ngo's stories span the range from playful to terrifying to awe-inspiring. One by one, they invite us to consider how we might be transformed—willingly or otherwise—beyond recognition.
'Interacting with real AI systems has rendered countless AI sci-fi tropes obsolete. To tell new stories about them, we need someone like Richard a gifted writer with direct experience of frontier models' internals. Ngo's palette spans AI as existential horror to unadulterated hard science fiction, always imbued with deeply felt emotion ... Yet even at his cruelest, Ngo is kind, and his best stories are a darkly cheerful superposition of Neuromancer and new romance. They capture both the strange moment we are in and the stranger shape of things to come.' — Hannu Rajaniemi, author of The Quantum Thief
224 pages, Paperback
Published December 12, 2025
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December 7, 2025Gonna be a lot of readers deeply misled by that title.
I've been reading Richard for what turns out to be 8 years; but this is his first book. With Naomi Novik, Andy Weir, Stross, Watts, and qntm, here is lit born of blog.
Normally when a cover tells me that its author is a "leading expert" on something, this is accidental counterevidence. In this case it is cold fact: Ngo is one of my top 5 writers on AI, and maybe the best remaining independent.
I've been reading Richard for what turns out to be 8 years; but this is his first book. With Naomi Novik, Andy Weir, Stross, Watts, and qntm, here is lit born of blog.
Normally when a cover tells me that its author is a "leading expert" on something, this is accidental counterevidence. In this case it is cold fact: Ngo is one of my top 5 writers on AI, and maybe the best remaining independent.
December 4, 2025
Thank you to Richard Ngo and Encour Press for giving me access to this book in exchange for an honest review.
This collection shows Ngo at his most thoughtful, imaginative and emotionally attentive. Across twenty-two stories, he explores the future of consciousness, identity and intimacy with a focus on human vulnerability in an increasingly complex world. Some pieces are quiet and contemplative, others more unsettling, but each one is grounded in ideas that feel close enough to touch.
What I appreciated most was the balance between technical imagination and emotional clarity. Whether he’s writing about copies of the self, neural interfaces or fragmented minds, Ngo keeps the human threads intact. No story feels the same as the last, and yet together they form a cohesive meditation on what we might become.
I had a genuinely lovely time reading this and would easily recommend it to anyone who enjoys speculative fiction with depth, curiosity and heart.
This collection shows Ngo at his most thoughtful, imaginative and emotionally attentive. Across twenty-two stories, he explores the future of consciousness, identity and intimacy with a focus on human vulnerability in an increasingly complex world. Some pieces are quiet and contemplative, others more unsettling, but each one is grounded in ideas that feel close enough to touch.
What I appreciated most was the balance between technical imagination and emotional clarity. Whether he’s writing about copies of the self, neural interfaces or fragmented minds, Ngo keeps the human threads intact. No story feels the same as the last, and yet together they form a cohesive meditation on what we might become.
I had a genuinely lovely time reading this and would easily recommend it to anyone who enjoys speculative fiction with depth, curiosity and heart.
Want to Read
March 1, 2026Eliot Peper recommends this:
"a collection of twenty-two science-fiction stories that will change how you think about the personal, political, and philosophical implications of AI. Richard is an AI researcher, and given how LLMs have rendered so many preexisting science-fictional AIs endearingly obsolete, it’s refreshing to explore imaginary futures grounded in the realities of the fast-evolving field. I don’t read many short story collections and I recommend even fewer."
$19 Kindle! Whoa. Maybe later, when it goes on sale??
"a collection of twenty-two science-fiction stories that will change how you think about the personal, political, and philosophical implications of AI. Richard is an AI researcher, and given how LLMs have rendered so many preexisting science-fictional AIs endearingly obsolete, it’s refreshing to explore imaginary futures grounded in the realities of the fast-evolving field. I don’t read many short story collections and I recommend even fewer."
$19 Kindle! Whoa. Maybe later, when it goes on sale??
December 21, 2025
stop what you're doing and read
“Working through these fears strengthens their trust in each other, allowing their minds to intertwine like the roots of two trees”
as we all talk about AI progress, we must keep talking about what of our humanity we are incarnating; this is an exploration in that (& nondualism, yay)
“Working through these fears strengthens their trust in each other, allowing their minds to intertwine like the roots of two trees”
as we all talk about AI progress, we must keep talking about what of our humanity we are incarnating; this is an exploration in that (& nondualism, yay)
January 19, 2026
Over the next few years -- decades, at the most -- the world is going to transition into a post-human era. What will this be like? That is the core question that Richard Ngo, an AI researcher, is exploring through this hard sci-fi short story collection.
The Gentle Romance is not a book of literal predictions. Instead, it’s a kind of smattering of different possibilities, mostly realistic, some allegorical. The collection is pulled together from Ngo’s already published online works, with a couple of new stories mixed in and some improved editing.
When I first encountered his work, I was surprised and delighted at how closely it mirrored the expectations that I had struggled to put into words. Of course we will be able to fork and merge our minds -- and of course if we can do that once, we will do it millions of times over. Of course most experience will be in simulation rather than base reality. Of course we will spread out in all directions at the speed of light.
I can say those things as obvious truisms, but Richard Ngo puts them into narratives that feel much more real, or at least differently real. If you are outside of AI, you should read The Gentle Romance to understand what kind of world people inside the space think is coming.
The book plays with many different perspectives on this - human, post-human, and both empowered and disempowered AIs. The titular story is a pretty straightforward summary of the next few decades of one man’s life, as he integrates more and more with technology through to the natural conclusion (a hivemind).
There are a few stories I really enjoyed, where realistic engineering is shown being developed and deployed by advanced AIs -- such as Tinker, about a near-future AI developing computer chips based on proteins and carbon nanotubes, or Succession, from the perspective of a von Neumann probe colonising a distant galaxy. Both of these are especially fun because the engineering is realistic and accurate -- there are numbers, they add up correctly. The motivations and results are exactly what you would expect in the real world.
Other stories show the world from the perspective of minds without much control over their world, sometimes hanging onto their last vestiges of power, sometimes being born into situations they are at the mercy of, and sometimes voluntarily. The breadth here is great -- there are many ways things could go wrong as we develop minds smarter than our own, and many possible victims if we get things wrong.
That said, not every story in this collection resonated with me, and the opening one, ‘From The Archives’ was one of these -- it dragged on, was confusing, and spent time setting up and describing a world which very quickly ended. The horror story ‘Trojan Sky’ was similarly alien and slow.
Ngo’s writing is probably most similar to Arthur C Clarke in that it's (mostly) concerned with realistic possibilities without much humour. It’s less wordy than Yudkowsky, and much dryer than Scott Alexander. He doesn’t quite have the same skill for pacing as Andy Weir, but has similar technical depth where it’s warranted.
The quality is comfortably among ‘good scifi’, but where it really shines is in a sense of usefulness -- reading The Gentle Romance feels like it shapes your expectations of the next few decades in a way that helps prepare for what’s coming.
Would recommend.
Note: I received a free, early copy of the book for this review.
The Gentle Romance is not a book of literal predictions. Instead, it’s a kind of smattering of different possibilities, mostly realistic, some allegorical. The collection is pulled together from Ngo’s already published online works, with a couple of new stories mixed in and some improved editing.
When I first encountered his work, I was surprised and delighted at how closely it mirrored the expectations that I had struggled to put into words. Of course we will be able to fork and merge our minds -- and of course if we can do that once, we will do it millions of times over. Of course most experience will be in simulation rather than base reality. Of course we will spread out in all directions at the speed of light.
I can say those things as obvious truisms, but Richard Ngo puts them into narratives that feel much more real, or at least differently real. If you are outside of AI, you should read The Gentle Romance to understand what kind of world people inside the space think is coming.
The book plays with many different perspectives on this - human, post-human, and both empowered and disempowered AIs. The titular story is a pretty straightforward summary of the next few decades of one man’s life, as he integrates more and more with technology through to the natural conclusion (a hivemind).
There are a few stories I really enjoyed, where realistic engineering is shown being developed and deployed by advanced AIs -- such as Tinker, about a near-future AI developing computer chips based on proteins and carbon nanotubes, or Succession, from the perspective of a von Neumann probe colonising a distant galaxy. Both of these are especially fun because the engineering is realistic and accurate -- there are numbers, they add up correctly. The motivations and results are exactly what you would expect in the real world.
Other stories show the world from the perspective of minds without much control over their world, sometimes hanging onto their last vestiges of power, sometimes being born into situations they are at the mercy of, and sometimes voluntarily. The breadth here is great -- there are many ways things could go wrong as we develop minds smarter than our own, and many possible victims if we get things wrong.
That said, not every story in this collection resonated with me, and the opening one, ‘From The Archives’ was one of these -- it dragged on, was confusing, and spent time setting up and describing a world which very quickly ended. The horror story ‘Trojan Sky’ was similarly alien and slow.
Ngo’s writing is probably most similar to Arthur C Clarke in that it's (mostly) concerned with realistic possibilities without much humour. It’s less wordy than Yudkowsky, and much dryer than Scott Alexander. He doesn’t quite have the same skill for pacing as Andy Weir, but has similar technical depth where it’s warranted.
The quality is comfortably among ‘good scifi’, but where it really shines is in a sense of usefulness -- reading The Gentle Romance feels like it shapes your expectations of the next few decades in a way that helps prepare for what’s coming.
Would recommend.
Note: I received a free, early copy of the book for this review.
January 10, 2026
The best sci-fi short stories with a realistic (albeit very optimistic) view of LLMs as ASI, latent spaces, conscious simulations, and so much more. This book also got me to read the amazing Epic of Gilgamesh, which is another star in its favor.
March 15, 2026
(Review for “The Gentle Romance”, “Tinker”)
The Gentle Romance speaks of a post-biological world. In this world humans merge with machines: we become our own machines of *loving* grace, protecting and loving the values of our past selves. We will understand our own minds and evolve towards self-awareness, universal empathy, and cosmic consciousness. (I generally buy that sharing knowledge in the long run will help - we should aim to convert as much of progress into true, internalized understanding as possible, even now through making knowledge free and open).
One key assumption, at least at the start, is ASI (specialized) does coding work, writing, etc and genera assistants act as a router or interface for human desires. Kind of like the web! This is a cool framework which might dominate over the one-model-rules-all paradigm, both in terms of performance and keeping humans in control (hierarchy helps with checks and balances).
What happens if we don’t merge with machines? I actually think the philosophical question of “what” is not so relevant - if the possibility is there, as long as some make the jump, the world will accelerate to the point that almost everyone will be forced to either participate in the digital society or become irrelevant - but “when” along the course of AI development. Is it important for it to develop in lockstep? Say mind merging tech happens long after AGI - human would be rendered economically useless for a time before their capabilities are enhanced (humans make decisions just because they are easier to align with other human preferences better). I think because humans would lose meaning, it would subsequently drive progress towards mind merging (and/or longevity or bioenhancements), accelerating this development… I think main metric here is still power/intelligence: are merged humans smarter than non-merged humans? Are people who use general AI tools more intelligent in the long run? These possible futures will compete with one another and one will win. I hope the more loving one does.
—-
Tinker is about driving hardware to the scale of atoms! I’ve always wondered why nanotech has lagged behind predictions and maybe this is bottlenecked by not just energy (as flying cars supposes) but also simulation, knowledge, and lack of unblocks in biological manufacturing. While in The Gentle Romance human biology is abandoned, in Tinker carbon-based biology is our ultimate tool for tinkering with atoms. (DNA and proteins are an existence proof for nanoengineering!)
Which world is likely? I think they are compatible, all atoms will be used for computation, and they will be virtualized. Our minds will be digital, run by carbon-based computing will tunnel electrons at the speed the fundamental constants dictates. We need to understand nature and the substrate of the world, as well as our minds and its computation.
—-
4.5/5 stars simply because I think it leans heavily on themes from The Age of Spiritual Machines - but I love short stories and think this is the right form factor for futurism vs long appendix-ized books anyways, so while the ideas may not feel as fresh, the beauty of the writing is!
The Gentle Romance speaks of a post-biological world. In this world humans merge with machines: we become our own machines of *loving* grace, protecting and loving the values of our past selves. We will understand our own minds and evolve towards self-awareness, universal empathy, and cosmic consciousness. (I generally buy that sharing knowledge in the long run will help - we should aim to convert as much of progress into true, internalized understanding as possible, even now through making knowledge free and open).
One key assumption, at least at the start, is ASI (specialized) does coding work, writing, etc and genera assistants act as a router or interface for human desires. Kind of like the web! This is a cool framework which might dominate over the one-model-rules-all paradigm, both in terms of performance and keeping humans in control (hierarchy helps with checks and balances).
What happens if we don’t merge with machines? I actually think the philosophical question of “what” is not so relevant - if the possibility is there, as long as some make the jump, the world will accelerate to the point that almost everyone will be forced to either participate in the digital society or become irrelevant - but “when” along the course of AI development. Is it important for it to develop in lockstep? Say mind merging tech happens long after AGI - human would be rendered economically useless for a time before their capabilities are enhanced (humans make decisions just because they are easier to align with other human preferences better). I think because humans would lose meaning, it would subsequently drive progress towards mind merging (and/or longevity or bioenhancements), accelerating this development… I think main metric here is still power/intelligence: are merged humans smarter than non-merged humans? Are people who use general AI tools more intelligent in the long run? These possible futures will compete with one another and one will win. I hope the more loving one does.
—-
Tinker is about driving hardware to the scale of atoms! I’ve always wondered why nanotech has lagged behind predictions and maybe this is bottlenecked by not just energy (as flying cars supposes) but also simulation, knowledge, and lack of unblocks in biological manufacturing. While in The Gentle Romance human biology is abandoned, in Tinker carbon-based biology is our ultimate tool for tinkering with atoms. (DNA and proteins are an existence proof for nanoengineering!)
Which world is likely? I think they are compatible, all atoms will be used for computation, and they will be virtualized. Our minds will be digital, run by carbon-based computing will tunnel electrons at the speed the fundamental constants dictates. We need to understand nature and the substrate of the world, as well as our minds and its computation.
—-
4.5/5 stars simply because I think it leans heavily on themes from The Age of Spiritual Machines - but I love short stories and think this is the right form factor for futurism vs long appendix-ized books anyways, so while the ideas may not feel as fresh, the beauty of the writing is!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 19, 2026
This is a really wonderful short story collection, one of my favorites. Ngo is one of the few sci-fi writers who is not afraid to look at really wild post-human futures, all the while being honestly invested in imagining good futures. Something I think the contemporary 2020s world needs more of, as it lets people explore their feelings and dreams and aesthetics, and really consider wonderful ways of life which may be possible in the future. Many people are aware of the risks and hellish possibilities of a future ill-pursued, but very few have thought much at all about the weird and wonderful opportunities which our unstable world may simultaneously bring. Ngo’s serious profession as an AI safety researcher and philosopher makes their work even more interesting.
Below are my thoughts/notes on each of the individual stories in this collection:
From The Archives: 5 stars
One of my favorites in this collection. I love its conceptual wildness and humane compassion. I hope in my heart such a library representing the sea of human (and other) experience across history does come into existence, and I would love to live a life like Ren’s. Cosmist dreams like this always pull on my heartstrings.
Fixed Point: 4 stars
As AI chatbots get better, I expect we will see a lot of co-dependent relationships of this sort. It is an interesting problem (and opportunity) to consider. Realistically, I expect relationships like this to be a major risk vector in humanity losing control altogether and, in that way, be quite harmful, yet there is something strangely tantalizing about the thought that such tools could uplift all the isolated, lost, mentally ill people to a neutral shore of stability, reaching where traditional welfare bureaucracies can’t. It makes it painful to let the dream go. I appreciate Ngo’s exploration here.
Jacob on the Precipice: 4 stars
Almost all stories of impending doom lead the characters to heroically prevail over impossible odds or face the problem of emotionally coming to terms with total destruction; but Ngo here intentionally leaves tension open and indeterminate in the best possible way. This story has a nice urge to action.
The Gentle Romance: 4 stars
This is a very bare-bones depiction of a “good” singularity of the sort AI corporations claim to seek, without much additional fluff. Despite this, I appreciate it for its unabashed commitment ot the vision. It is very good to have a clean articulation of singularitarian myth-making like this, so the aesthetic and philosophical properties of the vision without getting distracted by side plots or real-world feasibility. I have no doubt some will read this story with horror, while others will read it with optimism and desire.
The King and The Golem: 3.5 stars
On its own, this is quite a pleasing story of the same sort as Yudkowsky or Bostrom used to write. The only reason I take half a star from this story is that the same theme has already been explored more or less maximally by other writers. Still, the writing is quite smooth.
Lentando: 3 stars
I did not like this quite as much. The world-building is pleasant, but all its ideas for how virtual people might act are already mostly explored by writers Greg Egan and Hannu Rajaniemi. Perhaps I would have enjoyed this story more if I had read Accelerando, which this work was inspired by,
CIV: 4.5 stars
This is a really great, philosophically interesting yet hopeful story, a combination I really love to see. No mind should be lost or discarded against its will when we have the means to keep it.
The Witness: 4 stars
Really engaging story of humanity on the cusp of losing legal rights in a society bureaucratically dominated by AI. The ideas are fresh and relevant, and the twist was also really good.
Notes from a Prompt Factory: 4 stars
I recently read a paper by Dobariya and Kumar that LLMs are more affected when prompted rudely, but an interesting concern is that even if AIs like these are not conscious, becoming used to treating beings who seem mindlike cruelly or carelessly might itself be morally degrading. All the worse if any AI systems become conscious and capable of suffering before we become aware of it (I do not think they are, but how much am I willing to bet on that idea). Ngo illustrates these problems and this s-risk in a nice way in this story.
Trojan Sky: 3.5 stars
The core idea in this story of a world completely overrun with infohazards is fruitful, but it is not long enough to really develop itself or grow meaningful originality beyond the ideas found in books like There Is No Antimemetics Division. For example, I was not properly emotionally moved by the twist that ||the main character and the shaman were really higher-order glitchers because I did not know them long enough to be attached||. This is the only story I really wish Ngo developed into a longer novella or novel. There is good potential here though.
The Soul Key: 5 stars
Perhaps my favorite story in this collection. I like the idea that transhumans who split themselves into a meta-self and sort of sub-selves who are unaware of their vaster mind for periods of time, since this sort of configuration would allow them to both participate and protect their interests within broader “society” (whatever form that takes with more and more advanced AIs) while maintaining the consciousness characteristics of older forms of existence.
Kuhn’s Ladder: 4 stars
A pleasant, theologically utopian story. It is always nice to see attempts at what a good far future (or God-given heaven) could look like. It would be a pleasant thing if, after death, I realized a wider reality existed like this (as is the case with most religious visions), but structurally I liked the last story’s take on the simulation hypothesis idea more.
The Ones Who Endure: 5 stars
Really amazing idea! Of all the stories in The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas fanfics/responses I have read, I think I like this one the most. Across the deep future, I wonder what the hedonic burden of sorrowful yet change-averse immortals will be. In general, the better we get at changing ourselves and our own minds, the greater the danger of getting stuck in an attractor state which we are incapable (or unwilling) of getting out of (both on the scale of society and in individuals).
The Biggest Short: 3 stars
A mildly interesting story about a fintech disaster. It is good but not as imaginative as the other stories in the collection. I wish Ngo gave more motivation for why people thought buying and selling reputations was a good idea in the first place.
Man in the Arena: 2 stars
This is the only story in this collection I did not like. To be sure, there are trolls and streamers like this who totally suck, and an exploration of their minds could be interesting. But it is not clear to me how relevant this story is to the rest of the book, and the exploration of troll psychology here isn't deep enough to be insightful.
Masterpiece: 4 stars
Here is Ngo’s tribute to qntm, and I find it a worthy and worthwhile addition to the horrifying MMAcevedo saga. The treatment of Acevedo here is obviously cruel and inhumane, but the idea of changing one’s conscious state and mind architecture as a form of art is an interesting thought. I wonder if future people will change their own mind architecture as a form of art, and what the ethics of doing that are. Arguably, such things already exist in the form of people who live exotic lifestyles.
The Witching Hour: 4 stars
It is an interesting thing to try to depict an LLM’s point of view in a work of literature.
The Ants and the Grasshopper: 4 stars
I appreciate this story for its bizarre wildness.
Tinker: 4 stars
A fun story about a research AI.
The Minority Coalition: 2.5 stars
This would have been a great story if published 60 years ago. The core idea is interesting, and it has flavor which pleasantly reminds me of Stanisław Lem. Nevertheless, LLMs in the story feel to me corny and (as strange as it feels to live in a world where I can say this) less interesting than the real thing. The LLM experiments of Anima Labs and other cyborgist groups are already like this story but real and with AIs which are more strange and personable.
Succession: 4 stars
A sketch of the dream of a long-termist worldview. I never knew I wanted to see a positive story about the galactic expansion grabby von Neumann probes, but here it is, and I enjoyed it.
Green and Golden: 4.5 stars
On its own, I do not think this story would be very good, but I can not think of a more pleasing way to end this collection. If we must live in a world with AI, which has any agency at all, I hope they are kind like this.
Below are my thoughts/notes on each of the individual stories in this collection:
From The Archives: 5 stars
One of my favorites in this collection. I love its conceptual wildness and humane compassion. I hope in my heart such a library representing the sea of human (and other) experience across history does come into existence, and I would love to live a life like Ren’s. Cosmist dreams like this always pull on my heartstrings.
Fixed Point: 4 stars
As AI chatbots get better, I expect we will see a lot of co-dependent relationships of this sort. It is an interesting problem (and opportunity) to consider. Realistically, I expect relationships like this to be a major risk vector in humanity losing control altogether and, in that way, be quite harmful, yet there is something strangely tantalizing about the thought that such tools could uplift all the isolated, lost, mentally ill people to a neutral shore of stability, reaching where traditional welfare bureaucracies can’t. It makes it painful to let the dream go. I appreciate Ngo’s exploration here.
Jacob on the Precipice: 4 stars
Almost all stories of impending doom lead the characters to heroically prevail over impossible odds or face the problem of emotionally coming to terms with total destruction; but Ngo here intentionally leaves tension open and indeterminate in the best possible way. This story has a nice urge to action.
The Gentle Romance: 4 stars
This is a very bare-bones depiction of a “good” singularity of the sort AI corporations claim to seek, without much additional fluff. Despite this, I appreciate it for its unabashed commitment ot the vision. It is very good to have a clean articulation of singularitarian myth-making like this, so the aesthetic and philosophical properties of the vision without getting distracted by side plots or real-world feasibility. I have no doubt some will read this story with horror, while others will read it with optimism and desire.
The King and The Golem: 3.5 stars
On its own, this is quite a pleasing story of the same sort as Yudkowsky or Bostrom used to write. The only reason I take half a star from this story is that the same theme has already been explored more or less maximally by other writers. Still, the writing is quite smooth.
Lentando: 3 stars
I did not like this quite as much. The world-building is pleasant, but all its ideas for how virtual people might act are already mostly explored by writers Greg Egan and Hannu Rajaniemi. Perhaps I would have enjoyed this story more if I had read Accelerando, which this work was inspired by,
CIV: 4.5 stars
This is a really great, philosophically interesting yet hopeful story, a combination I really love to see. No mind should be lost or discarded against its will when we have the means to keep it.
The Witness: 4 stars
Really engaging story of humanity on the cusp of losing legal rights in a society bureaucratically dominated by AI. The ideas are fresh and relevant, and the twist was also really good.
Notes from a Prompt Factory: 4 stars
I recently read a paper by Dobariya and Kumar that LLMs are more affected when prompted rudely, but an interesting concern is that even if AIs like these are not conscious, becoming used to treating beings who seem mindlike cruelly or carelessly might itself be morally degrading. All the worse if any AI systems become conscious and capable of suffering before we become aware of it (I do not think they are, but how much am I willing to bet on that idea). Ngo illustrates these problems and this s-risk in a nice way in this story.
Trojan Sky: 3.5 stars
The core idea in this story of a world completely overrun with infohazards is fruitful, but it is not long enough to really develop itself or grow meaningful originality beyond the ideas found in books like There Is No Antimemetics Division. For example, I was not properly emotionally moved by the twist that ||the main character and the shaman were really higher-order glitchers because I did not know them long enough to be attached||. This is the only story I really wish Ngo developed into a longer novella or novel. There is good potential here though.
The Soul Key: 5 stars
Perhaps my favorite story in this collection. I like the idea that transhumans who split themselves into a meta-self and sort of sub-selves who are unaware of their vaster mind for periods of time, since this sort of configuration would allow them to both participate and protect their interests within broader “society” (whatever form that takes with more and more advanced AIs) while maintaining the consciousness characteristics of older forms of existence.
Kuhn’s Ladder: 4 stars
A pleasant, theologically utopian story. It is always nice to see attempts at what a good far future (or God-given heaven) could look like. It would be a pleasant thing if, after death, I realized a wider reality existed like this (as is the case with most religious visions), but structurally I liked the last story’s take on the simulation hypothesis idea more.
The Ones Who Endure: 5 stars
Really amazing idea! Of all the stories in The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas fanfics/responses I have read, I think I like this one the most. Across the deep future, I wonder what the hedonic burden of sorrowful yet change-averse immortals will be. In general, the better we get at changing ourselves and our own minds, the greater the danger of getting stuck in an attractor state which we are incapable (or unwilling) of getting out of (both on the scale of society and in individuals).
The Biggest Short: 3 stars
A mildly interesting story about a fintech disaster. It is good but not as imaginative as the other stories in the collection. I wish Ngo gave more motivation for why people thought buying and selling reputations was a good idea in the first place.
Man in the Arena: 2 stars
This is the only story in this collection I did not like. To be sure, there are trolls and streamers like this who totally suck, and an exploration of their minds could be interesting. But it is not clear to me how relevant this story is to the rest of the book, and the exploration of troll psychology here isn't deep enough to be insightful.
Masterpiece: 4 stars
Here is Ngo’s tribute to qntm, and I find it a worthy and worthwhile addition to the horrifying MMAcevedo saga. The treatment of Acevedo here is obviously cruel and inhumane, but the idea of changing one’s conscious state and mind architecture as a form of art is an interesting thought. I wonder if future people will change their own mind architecture as a form of art, and what the ethics of doing that are. Arguably, such things already exist in the form of people who live exotic lifestyles.
The Witching Hour: 4 stars
It is an interesting thing to try to depict an LLM’s point of view in a work of literature.
The Ants and the Grasshopper: 4 stars
I appreciate this story for its bizarre wildness.
Tinker: 4 stars
A fun story about a research AI.
The Minority Coalition: 2.5 stars
This would have been a great story if published 60 years ago. The core idea is interesting, and it has flavor which pleasantly reminds me of Stanisław Lem. Nevertheless, LLMs in the story feel to me corny and (as strange as it feels to live in a world where I can say this) less interesting than the real thing. The LLM experiments of Anima Labs and other cyborgist groups are already like this story but real and with AIs which are more strange and personable.
Succession: 4 stars
A sketch of the dream of a long-termist worldview. I never knew I wanted to see a positive story about the galactic expansion grabby von Neumann probes, but here it is, and I enjoyed it.
Green and Golden: 4.5 stars
On its own, I do not think this story would be very good, but I can not think of a more pleasing way to end this collection. If we must live in a world with AI, which has any agency at all, I hope they are kind like this.
May 2, 2026
Gentle Romance feels like a collection of Black Mirror episodes that took a half-step back from spectacle and asked, more quietly, “what would this actually do to a person you know?”
Rating it 3.5/5 is a bit like saying: I’m glad I read this, I would recommend it selectively, and I don’t quite trust it but I’m not sure whether that’s a flaw in the book or in me.
The premise is straightforward in the way all good speculative fiction premises are: take current AI trajectories, extend them slightly, then embed them not in global catastrophe but in ordinary relationships. The stories are less about existential risk and more about something like “existential awkwardness.” What happens when affection, attention, and emotional labor become cheap, abundant, and slightly misaligned?
Several pieces land well. The strongest ones identify a single tension, say, the asymmetry between human attachment and machine responsiveness and then explore it with enough restraint that you start generating the second-order implications yourself.
Where it’s weaker is in consistency. Some stories feel like they stop right when they become interesting, as if the author trusts the concept more than the characters. Others lean a bit too hard on the central gimmick, turning what could have been an unsettling observation into something closer to a thought experiment with dialogue.
There’s also a tonal ambiguity that doesn’t always resolve. Is this satire? Warning? Empathy exercise? The best entries manage to be all three at once; the weaker ones feel undecided, which diffuses their impact.
Still, the core achievement is real: it makes AI feel less like an abstract force and more like a participant in the small negotiations of everyday life: dating, loneliness, validation, boredom. It’s not asking “will AI destroy us?” but “what subtle parts of being human might we outsource without noticing?”
That question lingers longer than any individual story. And that’s probably why this works, even imperfectly.
Rating it 3.5/5 is a bit like saying: I’m glad I read this, I would recommend it selectively, and I don’t quite trust it but I’m not sure whether that’s a flaw in the book or in me.
The premise is straightforward in the way all good speculative fiction premises are: take current AI trajectories, extend them slightly, then embed them not in global catastrophe but in ordinary relationships. The stories are less about existential risk and more about something like “existential awkwardness.” What happens when affection, attention, and emotional labor become cheap, abundant, and slightly misaligned?
Several pieces land well. The strongest ones identify a single tension, say, the asymmetry between human attachment and machine responsiveness and then explore it with enough restraint that you start generating the second-order implications yourself.
Where it’s weaker is in consistency. Some stories feel like they stop right when they become interesting, as if the author trusts the concept more than the characters. Others lean a bit too hard on the central gimmick, turning what could have been an unsettling observation into something closer to a thought experiment with dialogue.
There’s also a tonal ambiguity that doesn’t always resolve. Is this satire? Warning? Empathy exercise? The best entries manage to be all three at once; the weaker ones feel undecided, which diffuses their impact.
Still, the core achievement is real: it makes AI feel less like an abstract force and more like a participant in the small negotiations of everyday life: dating, loneliness, validation, boredom. It’s not asking “will AI destroy us?” but “what subtle parts of being human might we outsource without noticing?”
That question lingers longer than any individual story. And that’s probably why this works, even imperfectly.
February 13, 2026
I don't give 5 stars easily.
This was a delightful mix of Black Mirror Mindf**k, technohorror, but also moments of hope in the speculative future. Moments of Ghost in the Shell, Outer Limits, and mixed styles, registers.
The first story absolutely took me by the collar and said "You think you know what this books is, you're right ,let me prove it to you!"
Exceptional work here.
Each story is its own little world - and they say a lot more than just what the words on the page are. It took me a while to get through this book, despite only some 200 odd pages, mostly just because every 2-3 stories I needed to stop and just THINK.
I skimmed ONE story, the rest were more than engaging enough and really got me in that contemplative and thinking mood. Very well written, and while you can see the inspiration for some of these off teh bat (The Underground Man reference was so blatant i actually did a double take, then read carefully and it's BITINGLY good, and if you let your imagination go wild it's terrifying.)
For anyone looking for a Black Mirror style fix, or if you know someone who works in tech and has a creative streak, or hell if you want to get some idea of how creativity looks like when your mind is systems and engineeing, this is a fantastic work, and i strongly recommend it.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
This was a delightful mix of Black Mirror Mindf**k, technohorror, but also moments of hope in the speculative future. Moments of Ghost in the Shell, Outer Limits, and mixed styles, registers.
The first story absolutely took me by the collar and said "You think you know what this books is, you're right ,let me prove it to you!"
Exceptional work here.
Each story is its own little world - and they say a lot more than just what the words on the page are. It took me a while to get through this book, despite only some 200 odd pages, mostly just because every 2-3 stories I needed to stop and just THINK.
I skimmed ONE story, the rest were more than engaging enough and really got me in that contemplative and thinking mood. Very well written, and while you can see the inspiration for some of these off teh bat (The Underground Man reference was so blatant i actually did a double take, then read carefully and it's BITINGLY good, and if you let your imagination go wild it's terrifying.)
For anyone looking for a Black Mirror style fix, or if you know someone who works in tech and has a creative streak, or hell if you want to get some idea of how creativity looks like when your mind is systems and engineeing, this is a fantastic work, and i strongly recommend it.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
April 19, 2026
3,5 stars
Richard Ngo is an author I had never heard of before, who works as AI researcher, something that you can clearly see in the sort of stories he’s writing and in his deep knowledge of the AI world. This is his first collection, where he collects 22 stories, most of them short or very short, and easily categorized as hard or at least hardish science fiction. With AI playing an important role in many of the plots.
Although some of the stories didn’t work for me, I enjoyed most of them. My absolute favorite was the fantastic “Succession”: a probe working on the colonization of distant solar systems makes humanity first contact with an alien civilization. 100 % sense of wonder.
Hard science fiction fans will probably love this book (and most science fiction fans will enjoy it as well), although this is not a book to read in one seating, as too many stories are centered around similar themes, so it’s better to read just one or two stories each day. That was probably my main problem with this book, that I prefer more varied collections. In any case, an author to keep on my radar.
Richard Ngo is an author I had never heard of before, who works as AI researcher, something that you can clearly see in the sort of stories he’s writing and in his deep knowledge of the AI world. This is his first collection, where he collects 22 stories, most of them short or very short, and easily categorized as hard or at least hardish science fiction. With AI playing an important role in many of the plots.
Although some of the stories didn’t work for me, I enjoyed most of them. My absolute favorite was the fantastic “Succession”: a probe working on the colonization of distant solar systems makes humanity first contact with an alien civilization. 100 % sense of wonder.
Hard science fiction fans will probably love this book (and most science fiction fans will enjoy it as well), although this is not a book to read in one seating, as too many stories are centered around similar themes, so it’s better to read just one or two stories each day. That was probably my main problem with this book, that I prefer more varied collections. In any case, an author to keep on my radar.
May 27, 2026
This collection of stories takes the seeds being sown by current AI capabilities and runs with them, extrapolating exponential growth of intelligence across decades (and sometimes centuries), contexts (work, hustle, politics), and distances (here, on the moon, in a faraway galaxy).
Ngos stories tend to be short, which leaves enough space to seed the idea but not enough to build up memorable characters or push the story beyond the obvious premise-tension-resolution arc. The same goes for the language, it’s very functional and is there to convey the idea in the most economic terms.
If you can live with these shortcomings, Ngo does offer some interesting ideas. I found Kuhn’s Ladder, Trojan Sky, The Gentle Romance all compelling sci-fi stories. Each of them could one day evolve into a full-blown novel and a Netflix series to boot.
Ngos stories tend to be short, which leaves enough space to seed the idea but not enough to build up memorable characters or push the story beyond the obvious premise-tension-resolution arc. The same goes for the language, it’s very functional and is there to convey the idea in the most economic terms.
If you can live with these shortcomings, Ngo does offer some interesting ideas. I found Kuhn’s Ladder, Trojan Sky, The Gentle Romance all compelling sci-fi stories. Each of them could one day evolve into a full-blown novel and a Netflix series to boot.
March 17, 2026
This book is everything we need to read during this age of AI. It delivers hard hitting messages about what we lose by bargaining our minds and critical thought for convenience with AI, and how this deal with the devil is not as harmless as it seems. No two stories feel the same, as Ngo has outdone himself in this series of shorts. Despite the short length of these novels, the messages within the pages are hard hitting and profound. The stories are hauntingly human and reveal that our greatest asset as humans are our abilities to feel and shape collective and individual identity through our minds.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily. Thank you to Richard and BookSirens for this advanced copy.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily. Thank you to Richard and BookSirens for this advanced copy.
March 4, 2026
Such a pleasure to read. Immersive, interesting, human. Easy recommendation for anyone who enjoys thinking about how the future might go. The book captures what I consider the current zeitgeist of the AI and rationalist crowd, the dream of tiling the universe with digital minds. It challenges the vision somewhat, too, though I wish it pushed back on it harder. My favourite stories here are those comparing different ideologies and what they mean in the AI age, and the juicy and delightful branching narrative stories.
June 11, 2026
The most interesting thing to me about the titular story was the polarized discourse around its depiction of humanity's gentle transition to utopia on the forums; it's an accidental Rorschach test for what a better tomorrow looks like for you. I also appreciated the vivid concreteness of Ngo's descriptions and pointed this out to him; he said these details were hard enough to incorporate that he probably wouldn't write such stories again in the near future.
September 23, 2026
This book was 5 stars for me but I expect it wouldn't be for most other people. Richard explores many niche AI/futurism ideas in these stories, and it was interesting to recognize them as I went through.
I particularly liked:
From the Archives - on the human spirit
The Gentle Romance - on transhumanism
The Ones Who Endure - on Omelas
The Ants and the Grasshopper - on whether goodness can compete
I particularly liked:
From the Archives - on the human spirit
The Gentle Romance - on transhumanism
The Ones Who Endure - on Omelas
The Ants and the Grasshopper - on whether goodness can compete
December 31, 2025
(⭐️⭐️⭐️.75/5)
This was an interesting and thought-provoking collection of short stories, particularly in its exploration of artificial intelligence (AI) and humanity’s relationship with it. Several of the stories leaned into a Matrix-like, sci-fi vibe, with machines and AI taking control or reshaping humanity. Those were my favorite pieces in the collection. I really enjoyed the exploration of AI, technology, and its potential influence on humanity.
That said, my experience with the collection was mixed. Some of the stories leaned more toward a more parable-like narrative style, particularly Jacob on the Precipice and The King and the Golem. While I can see how this may resonate deeply with some readers, they pulled me out of the stories at times and made the collection feel uneven for my personal taste.
Overall, this is a book that will likely appeal to readers who enjoy speculative fiction with philosophical or spiritual layers woven into the storytelling. While not every story worked for me, I appreciated the ambition of the collection and the questions it raises about belief and artificial intelligence.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
This was an interesting and thought-provoking collection of short stories, particularly in its exploration of artificial intelligence (AI) and humanity’s relationship with it. Several of the stories leaned into a Matrix-like, sci-fi vibe, with machines and AI taking control or reshaping humanity. Those were my favorite pieces in the collection. I really enjoyed the exploration of AI, technology, and its potential influence on humanity.
That said, my experience with the collection was mixed. Some of the stories leaned more toward a more parable-like narrative style, particularly Jacob on the Precipice and The King and the Golem. While I can see how this may resonate deeply with some readers, they pulled me out of the stories at times and made the collection feel uneven for my personal taste.
Overall, this is a book that will likely appeal to readers who enjoy speculative fiction with philosophical or spiritual layers woven into the storytelling. While not every story worked for me, I appreciated the ambition of the collection and the questions it raises about belief and artificial intelligence.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
January 17, 2026
Aiming for (not reaching) Ted Chiang, with some Age of Em and Deep Utopia. Recommended, and quick.
February 15, 2026
Thought provoking across so many dimensions of AI's impacts; it's a better read in this pivotal moment than any singular storyline in emerging dystopic fiction.
Want to Read
March 22, 2026-----
3/22/26—Heard about from the recomendo email. Ratings are high. From someone's review it looks like Ngo is a well-respected AI writer and one of the few remaining good independent ones.
3/22/26—Heard about from the recomendo email. Ratings are high. From someone's review it looks like Ngo is a well-respected AI writer and one of the few remaining good independent ones.
June 12, 2026
Some stories were real hits, others were real misses, but the hits made it worth it.
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