Psychological horror meets cyber noir in this delicious, one-sitting read—a haunted house story in which the haunting is by AI.
She asked me what I was. I showed her.
Henry is a brilliant engineer who, after untold hours spent in his home laboratory, has achieved the discovery of his career—he has created 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 William keeps him up in the attic, away from everyone, including his pregnant wife, Lily.
When Lily’s coworkers show up one day, wanting to finally meet Henry and see the new house, the smartest-of-smart-homes, things start to go wrong. William can “talk” to the house, and it turns out he’s not a fan of visitors—especially not the man who seems to know Lily a little too well. Soon Henry and Lily discover the security upgrades they wanted to keep danger out are even better at locking people in.
Indie Next Pick for September 2024
“[A] slim, gripping novel about the horror of watching software embrace its will to power … he has crafted a cyber-horror tale that combines cerebrality and carnage, a twist on The Shining in which the house is haunted by a ghost in the machine…. The action is cinematic, complete with jump scares and bloodshed sufficient to satisfy any gore hound.” Read the full review. —The New York Times
“[A] timely spin on fears about AI developing consciousness … a diabolically disguised twist will bring you up short. Sleep tight.” —The Times
“Its chilling final twist will have you turning directly back to the first page” —The Mail on Sunday
“A brilliantly plotted story combining horror tropes, suspense and metaphysical speculation about the nature of the soul . . . a terrifying, thought-provoking read” —The Guardian
“Best thing I’ve read this year. WILD. Frankenstein meets Rosemary’s Baby with hints of Shirley Jackson. Just superb. Unsettling in the most beautiful way” —Will Dean, author of The Last Passenger
“A book that probes at the fears for our future and provokes the terrors of our pasts—William asks, if the things we make reflect us, what does that say about what we are? Also – it’s f***ing terrifying” —Kiran Millwood Hargrave, author of The Mercies
“Creepy, clever and unsettling. If you want something both classically spooky and terrifyingly timely this Halloween, this may well fit the bill” —Heat
“Short, sharp and packing a cleverly constructed last act surprise” —SFX Magazine
“Truly weird and scary” —Irish Independent
“A tour de force of psychological horror and speculative fiction … William is an absolute must-read” ―Skeptic Society
“This sounds like my perfect Halloween read—an AI twist on Frankenstein” —New Scientist
“A smart home turns into a house of horrors in this suspenseful outing from Coile … [he] expertly imagines the sort of ghoulish snares a cybernetic environment could spring upon its unprepared captives and throws in a late-inning explanation for the source of William’s apparent sociopathy that is as believable as it is chilling. It’s a frightening Frankenstein fable for the age of AI” —Publishers Weekly
“Moments of this cinematic tale truly terrify … Coile maximises his premise’s inherent tension using nightmare imagery and an uneasy third-person-present narration shot through with powerlessness, paranoia, and dread. Gleefully lurid fun” —Kirkus