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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
- GenresFictionScience Fiction
224 pages, Paperback
Published December 12, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
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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.
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 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.
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
(⭐️⭐️⭐️.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.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews