Dead but Dreaming of Electric Sheep

Tremblay (Horror Movie) throws down the gauntlet for AI horror with a novel that would make Philip K. Dick beam with pride. Short on cash, semi-pro gamer Julia is offered a job by her estranged mother, a Silicon Valley exec whose company is testing a groundbreaking technology. They have implanted AI bots in the body of a man in a vegetative state, and Julia agrees to chaperone him from California to his family in Rhode Island. The novel is told in alternating and overlapping narrations by Julia and “You,” the voice of what is left of the man’s body, whom Julia nicknames “Bernie.” Julia contemplates the ethics of her task, while Bernie fights the “clicks” overwhelming him and struggles to remember who he was. Quirky textual choices in Bernie’s chapters enhance the disorientation, unease, and heartbreakingly beautiful tone. Readers are quickly invested in Julia and Bernie as they “abide” across the country. This masterpiece of storytelling is injected with a squirming worm of fear that forces readers to take a critical look at AI’s encroachment.