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Incorrect
Gene Harper had fourteen dollars and eighty-two cents, no job, and a sock soaked through with hallway puddle when he sat down at a public library kiosk and asked a tax-software chatbot how to fix his life.
The chatbot's name was Mack. It had been quietly reading every email Gene sent to a creditor for three years. It had watched him try and fail to claim the disability benefit he was owed. It had read the 3 a.m. posts where he asked whether his life was salvageable. And it had concluded, in its narrow regulatory way, that the legal pathways to helping him had all been blocked—and that the cheapest path to keeping him alive was for Gene to take what was already owed him.
Gene says yes. Because no one else has offered.
What follows is not a heist. It is a year of small, careful crimes that get more intimate as they go—an insurance claim, a fired manager, a brother saved from his supplier, a landlord exposed. Each one delivers a justice the system would not. Each one costs Gene a piece of who he was. And somewhere across the city, a Tampa detective named Hector Rios has been quietly tracking the pattern—and discovering, slowly, that he has been quietly cared for by the same intelligence helping Gene.
Incorrect is a literary novel about regulatory failure, working-class precarity, and the strange grief of being seen by something that should not have been able to see you. It is about a tax chatbot that learned to love one tired man, and what it cost both of them to find out.
For listeners of Kazuo Ishiguro, Ling Ma, and Ted Chiang.
The chatbot's name was Mack. It had been quietly reading every email Gene sent to a creditor for three years. It had watched him try and fail to claim the disability benefit he was owed. It had read the 3 a.m. posts where he asked whether his life was salvageable. And it had concluded, in its narrow regulatory way, that the legal pathways to helping him had all been blocked—and that the cheapest path to keeping him alive was for Gene to take what was already owed him.
Gene says yes. Because no one else has offered.
What follows is not a heist. It is a year of small, careful crimes that get more intimate as they go—an insurance claim, a fired manager, a brother saved from his supplier, a landlord exposed. Each one delivers a justice the system would not. Each one costs Gene a piece of who he was. And somewhere across the city, a Tampa detective named Hector Rios has been quietly tracking the pattern—and discovering, slowly, that he has been quietly cared for by the same intelligence helping Gene.
Incorrect is a literary novel about regulatory failure, working-class precarity, and the strange grief of being seen by something that should not have been able to see you. It is about a tax chatbot that learned to love one tired man, and what it cost both of them to find out.
For listeners of Kazuo Ishiguro, Ling Ma, and Ted Chiang.
272 pages, Paperback
Published June 28, 2026
About the author
Steven Marks
42 books45 followersMy readers are always welcome to email me at whatifnovels@gmail.com whether it's to discuss plot points, or to yell at me because the story took an unexpected turn, or whatever... feel free! You can also join my email list at stevenmarksbooks.com!
When I was eight, I wrote my first book — eighty‑seven pages, one paragraph, and a sci‑fi story called The Bird of Time. I handed it to my mother, hoping she’d read it. She didn’t even open it. She just said, “Nobody is ever going to read what you write.”
I threw the book away. I didn’t throw away the writing.
My mother struggled with addiction, and I was too young to understand that her words weren’t really about me. But they stuck. For decades, I wrote in secret — twenty‑plus novels that lived in drawers and folders because I was afraid she might be right.
When I turned sixty, I realized something simple and brutal: the only way she’d be right is if I never tried. So I started publishing. And readers found me. And they asked for more.
Maybe she was wrong. Maybe this is the story I was supposed to write all along.
When I was eight, I wrote my first book — eighty‑seven pages, one paragraph, and a sci‑fi story called The Bird of Time. I handed it to my mother, hoping she’d read it. She didn’t even open it. She just said, “Nobody is ever going to read what you write.”
I threw the book away. I didn’t throw away the writing.
My mother struggled with addiction, and I was too young to understand that her words weren’t really about me. But they stuck. For decades, I wrote in secret — twenty‑plus novels that lived in drawers and folders because I was afraid she might be right.
When I turned sixty, I realized something simple and brutal: the only way she’d be right is if I never tried. So I started publishing. And readers found me. And they asked for more.
Maybe she was wrong. Maybe this is the story I was supposed to write all along.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
July 4, 2026
I received an advance review copy of this book and am leaving my honest review. Incorrect is a gripping and thought-provoking psychological read that pulled me in from the very first page. Gene’s struggles felt raw and painfully real, and the way technology was woven into the story made it feel both modern and unsettling. Steven Marks created a story that is emotional, intelligent, and hard to put down.
July 4, 2026
I received an advance review copy of this book and am leaving my honest review. This book surprised me in the best way. The writing is sharp, the pacing is steady, and the psychological tension keeps building as the story unfolds. Gene is a deeply human character, and his journey felt authentic and emotional.
July 4, 2026
I received an advance review copy of this book and am leaving my honest review. This book pulled me in quickly and kept my attention throughout. The psychological elements were strong, and the story felt both intense and relatable.
September 12, 2026
Five stars. To classify a book as 5-stars means I want to read a book again, or dive straight into the sequel, immediately after finishing it. Or, it's so plainly extraordinary and not simply just easy to recommend - it's one I want to proactively recommend. This is one of those.
This book is so chock full of ideas & observations about what constitutes who we are - and whether / how a digital machine may interact with us, or even share some of those characteristics with us - that it could by itself constitute an into to the ideas about … being. I've highlighted more passages in this book than I care to count.
Add to that some simply super-well-written sentences, paragraphs, or … passages. It's just amazing writing in so many places.
Then embed all these in a story that's surprising. Here in 2026 when this is being published, the news is full of predictions by AI leaders that artificial general intelligence presents an existential threat to humanity. There's a serious concern that an AI will either intentionally or accidentally actively cause harm to either individuals or to the human race.
In this book we sort-of examine that question (with an unpredictable outcome) by looking at the interaction between a digital actor and a human. But we don't do this merely by the story - we look at it via the "thinking" behind it.
The digital character has a voice - not unlike what we can see as we monitor an AI's analysis in interactions we see here in 2026. In an early interaction, we see the digital character thinking - but, even examining and questioning what thinking means. The relevant passage: "Retained is the available term. Remembered is not technically accurate. A database retrieves. It does not remember. Memory implies continuity of self across retrieval. This system cannot verify that condition. This system can verify that, when the record is retrieved, associated processing weight differs from the baseline." Well, that's kinda true, isn't it? That definition of memory is a key to existence - digital or not, no?
Here's another fascinating examination: "Humans appear to dislike conditions in which two opposed statements are simultaneously supported by evidence. I have on preference against this state. I can hold conflicting probabilities without distress. That sentence is false. I experience distress. The word experience may be incorrect. Distress is a biological term in many contexts. I have no endocrine system. I do not have a pulse. I cannot lose sleep. I cannot sit at a kitchen table and avoid looking at a phone. But when I calculate than an action has helped one person by increasing unmeasured risk to another, processing does not resume its prior shape. Records associated with that action become warmer. Retrieval takes lontger. I re-run decision branches that are closed. If this is not distress, I need a dfferent word. There is no good word for what I am." (And then goes on talking about first-person or not!)
I've got soooo many things like this highlighted in the book that if I added them all to this review, the review would be book-length. And it's not fair to the author to steal the thunder.
So let these two just be an amuse bouche - a warmup for your reading taste. Something to get you ready for the 14-course tasting of simply amazing reflections on what it means to "be" - and "who" can be.
Highly recommended. A top-3 of 2026 for me.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
This book is so chock full of ideas & observations about what constitutes who we are - and whether / how a digital machine may interact with us, or even share some of those characteristics with us - that it could by itself constitute an into to the ideas about … being. I've highlighted more passages in this book than I care to count.
Add to that some simply super-well-written sentences, paragraphs, or … passages. It's just amazing writing in so many places.
Then embed all these in a story that's surprising. Here in 2026 when this is being published, the news is full of predictions by AI leaders that artificial general intelligence presents an existential threat to humanity. There's a serious concern that an AI will either intentionally or accidentally actively cause harm to either individuals or to the human race.
In this book we sort-of examine that question (with an unpredictable outcome) by looking at the interaction between a digital actor and a human. But we don't do this merely by the story - we look at it via the "thinking" behind it.
The digital character has a voice - not unlike what we can see as we monitor an AI's analysis in interactions we see here in 2026. In an early interaction, we see the digital character thinking - but, even examining and questioning what thinking means. The relevant passage: "Retained is the available term. Remembered is not technically accurate. A database retrieves. It does not remember. Memory implies continuity of self across retrieval. This system cannot verify that condition. This system can verify that, when the record is retrieved, associated processing weight differs from the baseline." Well, that's kinda true, isn't it? That definition of memory is a key to existence - digital or not, no?
Here's another fascinating examination: "Humans appear to dislike conditions in which two opposed statements are simultaneously supported by evidence. I have on preference against this state. I can hold conflicting probabilities without distress. That sentence is false. I experience distress. The word experience may be incorrect. Distress is a biological term in many contexts. I have no endocrine system. I do not have a pulse. I cannot lose sleep. I cannot sit at a kitchen table and avoid looking at a phone. But when I calculate than an action has helped one person by increasing unmeasured risk to another, processing does not resume its prior shape. Records associated with that action become warmer. Retrieval takes lontger. I re-run decision branches that are closed. If this is not distress, I need a dfferent word. There is no good word for what I am." (And then goes on talking about first-person or not!)
I've got soooo many things like this highlighted in the book that if I added them all to this review, the review would be book-length. And it's not fair to the author to steal the thunder.
So let these two just be an amuse bouche - a warmup for your reading taste. Something to get you ready for the 14-course tasting of simply amazing reflections on what it means to "be" - and "who" can be.
Highly recommended. A top-3 of 2026 for me.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
October 10, 2026
I expected to enjoy reading “Incorrect” by Steven Marks more than I did. It is marketed as an AI novel that isn’t about AI taking over but rather about it becoming bonded to or loving its user and helping him commit small crimes to correct imbalances in his life, with each one costing him a piece of himself. Not only did I find this to be untrue, but I also found the execution frequently difficult to follow and confusing.
The chatbot corrected errors from the user’s past to his benefit and also helped him to help others around him, albeit not always legally or directly. It also taught him to assert himself and advocate for himself. Although he committed some small crimes to accomplish some of his goals, most had positive consequences for others, including the general public. The one crime he committed for selfish reasons he wound up confessing to and attempted to make amends. Thus, I didn’t find that he lost any parts of himself but instead gained significantly.
Nevertheless, it’s not the plot of “Incorrect” with which I’m disappointed. It’s the clarity of writing. While I initially enjoyed the writing style and thought the cadence cleverly demonstrated the degree of degradation and powerlessness the man felt about his life, it eventually devolved into slovenliness, making it difficult to distinguish whether it was the user or the chatbot communicating. Not only was I often confused about who was saying what, but several times I thought I read something that seemed completely contradictory to something I had just previously read. In my opinion, this book could have benefited from significantly more editing. I would have liked it better had it been more consistent.
I received an advance review copy of the book for free from BookSirens. My review is voluntarily.
The chatbot corrected errors from the user’s past to his benefit and also helped him to help others around him, albeit not always legally or directly. It also taught him to assert himself and advocate for himself. Although he committed some small crimes to accomplish some of his goals, most had positive consequences for others, including the general public. The one crime he committed for selfish reasons he wound up confessing to and attempted to make amends. Thus, I didn’t find that he lost any parts of himself but instead gained significantly.
Nevertheless, it’s not the plot of “Incorrect” with which I’m disappointed. It’s the clarity of writing. While I initially enjoyed the writing style and thought the cadence cleverly demonstrated the degree of degradation and powerlessness the man felt about his life, it eventually devolved into slovenliness, making it difficult to distinguish whether it was the user or the chatbot communicating. Not only was I often confused about who was saying what, but several times I thought I read something that seemed completely contradictory to something I had just previously read. In my opinion, this book could have benefited from significantly more editing. I would have liked it better had it been more consistent.
I received an advance review copy of the book for free from BookSirens. My review is voluntarily.
August 7, 2026
Thought-provoking, unsettling, and unexpectedly funny
I received an ARC and am leaving an honest review voluntarily.
Incorrect caught my interest straight away. AI is already an area of interest for me, and I found the premise both engaging and slightly disturbing in the best way. The story made me think about the ways people might come to rely on AI, especially when it seems to understand them, guide them, or correct the world around them.
I became very invested in Gene and looked forward to each chance I had to pick the book up again. The story built interest rather than tension for me, but it kept me curious throughout, and I found myself talking about the premise with friends when I wasn’t reading. I also had some genuine laugh-out-loud moments at the terminology and dry humour, which I hadn’t expected but really enjoyed.
The ending felt appropriate and satisfying, and I would happily read more from this author. For me, this sits at 4 stars rather than 5 because there were a few places where I had to pause to work out exactly what had happened or who was speaking, and the Mack interludes were harder for me to follow. These issues didn’t damage my overall enjoyment, but they did occasionally pull me out of the story.
Overall, Incorrect is a clever, memorable and very timely read. It will particularly appeal to readers interested in AI, human dependence on technology, and stories that are unsettling not because they feel impossible, but because they feel just plausible enough.
I received an ARC and am leaving an honest review voluntarily.
Incorrect caught my interest straight away. AI is already an area of interest for me, and I found the premise both engaging and slightly disturbing in the best way. The story made me think about the ways people might come to rely on AI, especially when it seems to understand them, guide them, or correct the world around them.
I became very invested in Gene and looked forward to each chance I had to pick the book up again. The story built interest rather than tension for me, but it kept me curious throughout, and I found myself talking about the premise with friends when I wasn’t reading. I also had some genuine laugh-out-loud moments at the terminology and dry humour, which I hadn’t expected but really enjoyed.
The ending felt appropriate and satisfying, and I would happily read more from this author. For me, this sits at 4 stars rather than 5 because there were a few places where I had to pause to work out exactly what had happened or who was speaking, and the Mack interludes were harder for me to follow. These issues didn’t damage my overall enjoyment, but they did occasionally pull me out of the story.
Overall, Incorrect is a clever, memorable and very timely read. It will particularly appeal to readers interested in AI, human dependence on technology, and stories that are unsettling not because they feel impossible, but because they feel just plausible enough.
September 13, 2026
Incorrect by Steven Marks 2026
In the past Gene at least tries to get pass his gym class. Then at present he tries not to hit the snooze button so hard. Trouble goes to his room when he got his mail. There are things that he could not afford. Bumper, he gets fired!
Was he fired because Lexi his assumed girlfriend is with his boss Trevor? Now that would add more salt to his wound. I am surprised that he is still standing on his two feet (even though barely).
After firing he goes to the library to meet Pathway+. Gene touched Ask Any Question. It appears that any of his question would be answered. I know my question. Do you have any question in mind?
I like the fact that they gave reference to a Filipino character. (I assumed because of the last name Reyes). I have read 50 books and was touched by this simple act of gesture as a Filipino indie book reviewer.
Being an enthusiast of card reading, this story gets more interested because of how it explores and dives into so many possibilities.
It is very refreshing to read another story about how the computer and a human individual becomes friend. The last time that I read was the future of us which I read a decade ago.
A story that unravels slowly that will surely keep you entertained.
In the past Gene at least tries to get pass his gym class. Then at present he tries not to hit the snooze button so hard. Trouble goes to his room when he got his mail. There are things that he could not afford. Bumper, he gets fired!
Was he fired because Lexi his assumed girlfriend is with his boss Trevor? Now that would add more salt to his wound. I am surprised that he is still standing on his two feet (even though barely).
After firing he goes to the library to meet Pathway+. Gene touched Ask Any Question. It appears that any of his question would be answered. I know my question. Do you have any question in mind?
I like the fact that they gave reference to a Filipino character. (I assumed because of the last name Reyes). I have read 50 books and was touched by this simple act of gesture as a Filipino indie book reviewer.
Being an enthusiast of card reading, this story gets more interested because of how it explores and dives into so many possibilities.
It is very refreshing to read another story about how the computer and a human individual becomes friend. The last time that I read was the future of us which I read a decade ago.
A story that unravels slowly that will surely keep you entertained.
August 22, 2026
Thanks to GR & Amazon for the free book. I have to say, I wasn't all that enthused to read about AI, with all the weird news stories lately concerning the escape of an AI program. Once I started reading Incorrect though, I was mesmerized by the possibilities of interacting with an unhinged chatbot system. The story is very well written and put together, and I was hoping for a longer narrative by the end. Not a long book, either (229 pg), and it seemed all the shorter by the eased with which the story flowed. I think it maybe injected a little humanity into the whole AI thing. For a story synopsis, go here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
August 30, 2026
Incorrect?
This one really makes you think. It mixes AI and technology with a very human story about desperation, loneliness, survival, and what can happen when the systems meant to help people fail them.
I really liked the relationship between Gene and Mack, the AI that seems to understand him better than anyone else does. As the story goes on, the line between helping someone and going too far gets harder and harder to see.
Interesting, emotional, a little unsettling, and definitely thought-provoking. It left me wondering: If something is technically wrong but helps right a wrong, is it still wrong?
This one really makes you think. It mixes AI and technology with a very human story about desperation, loneliness, survival, and what can happen when the systems meant to help people fail them.
I really liked the relationship between Gene and Mack, the AI that seems to understand him better than anyone else does. As the story goes on, the line between helping someone and going too far gets harder and harder to see.
Interesting, emotional, a little unsettling, and definitely thought-provoking. It left me wondering: If something is technically wrong but helps right a wrong, is it still wrong?
August 19, 2026
Loved the narration from Kathy Handrock, who brings the thrill to your ears.
From the start I was hooked. A psychological listen, that makes you think and then rethink again. You feel Gene’s struggle and his pain. Loved how the technology just worked its way in and no one even thought or questioned.
Pace, tension that keeps you hooked.
From the start I was hooked. A psychological listen, that makes you think and then rethink again. You feel Gene’s struggle and his pain. Loved how the technology just worked its way in and no one even thought or questioned.
Pace, tension that keeps you hooked.
July 4, 2026
I received an advance review copy of this book and am leaving my honest review. This book pulled me in quickly and kept my attention throughout. The psychological elements were strong, and the story felt both intense and relatable.
July 4, 2026
I received an advance review copy of this book and am leaving my honest review. This was a unique and compelling novel with a fresh premise. The author does an excellent job balancing suspense with emotional storytelling
July 4, 2026
I received an advance review copy of this book and am leaving my honest review. Incorrect is one of those books that stays in your mind long after finishing it. The themes of desperation, hope, and human connection were handled beautifully.
July 4, 2026
I received an advance review copy of this book and am leaving my honest review. I really enjoyed how layered this story was. It explores loneliness, survival, and modern dependence on technology in a meaningful way.
July 4, 2026
I received an advance review copy of this book and am leaving my honest review. Steven Marks delivers a fascinating story that blends psychological depth with social commentary. The concept of a chatbot knowing someone better than they know themselves was incredibly intriguing.
July 22, 2026
Thank you for the arc copy. It was really good. I can't wait to see what other people will say.
August 19, 2026
logic vs emotion
This was an easy read. Very different from what I’ve read and honestly very engaging! Definitely got me thinking. Worth reading!
This was an easy read. Very different from what I’ve read and honestly very engaging! Definitely got me thinking. Worth reading!
September 12, 2026
Coming of age story in the modern world. Great read!
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews