William by Mason Coile

Synopsis: Psychological horror meets cyber noir in this delicious one-sitting read — a haunted house story in which the haunting is by AI.

Henry is a brilliant engineer who, after untold hours spent in his home lab, has achieved the breakthrough of his career — he’s created an artificially intelligent consciousness. He calls the half-formed robot William.

No one knows about William. Henry’s agoraphobia keeps him inside the house, and his fixation on his project keeps him up in the attic, away from everyone, including his pregnant wife, Lily.

When Lily’s coworkers show up, wanting to finally meet Henry and see the new house — the smartest of smart homes — Henry decides to introduce them to William, and things go from strange to much worse. Soon Henry and Lily discover the security upgrades intended to keep danger out of the house are even better at locking it in.

Alright the premise of this book drew me in immediately. Especially when our real world delves deeper into AI. This was full of suspense, unexpected twists and in the end leaves us guessing. It’s incredibly thought provoking and it will probably live rent free in my head for awhile.

For most of the book we follow the point of view of the husband. He’s got his own issues (paranoia and phobias), and to top it off his wife is about to have a baby.

We are led to his “experiments” with robotics, his concern that one of them seems to have gone wrong. There’s a sense of distrust and danger as we get introduced to William. It’s then we begin to understand this is an experiment gone wrong.

There’s a get together with friends and it doesn’t take long for things to go seriously wrong. It starts with everyone meeting William, and it’s from that point I couldn’t stop reading it. The book was thrilling, perfectly paced and the horror was not overwhelming in the slightest. This is definitely a book I would pick up to read again, because after the big twist at the end, I have to figure out what clues I missed along the way.

Also, you’ll never think of AI and robots the same way again.

Overall Rating: 8.5/10

Re-readability Rating: 9/10