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.
THE FACTS
📕 very atmospheric, a master of building tension
📘all the creepy things: dolls, A.I., horrid ways to die
📙 awesome pacing
THE GOOD BITS
This was a doozy! “William” by Mason Coile is a fantastic horror novel with all the tension you will ever need.
Henry is a robotics guy, in fact, he has created William. William is a half-finished piece of AI, but he can have a conversation with Henry already. In fact, the conversations are a little disturbing. It’s a very good thing that William is locked in Henry’s attic lab so his wife, Lily doesn’t get wind of the full extent of what’s going on. But this creepy little malformed AI is much more than anyone realizes.
Agoraphobic and one step away from being estranged from his wife, Henry is trudging through his life. He’s working on projects and running over things with his wife. Why aren’t they close anymore? Will things get better?
Lily finally brings her colleagues, Davis and Paige to the house to meet Henry and see their new state-of-the-art house. Voice commands control everything, and the house is built like an enormous panic room. No way in once it’s locked down. Of course, that would only ever become a problem if the house locked down and someone “other” than Henry and Lily had control.
This is a very atmospheric and eerie book. The writing style is perfect for the tension that keeps ratcheting up until the final few pages. I only managed to put this book down once after starting it. From the opening sentences I was very curious about what was going to happen.
There is a lot of button-pushing scary stuff in this book. Afraid of dolls? Check. Bothered by the idea of AI? Suffering a horrible death that you can see coming? Check. It’s like a collection of all the terrifying things I have lurking in my brain.
I haven’t read any of Mason Coile’s work before this, but I will now. I’m always delighted when I find an author I like and discover a substantial list of work!
THE LINKS
🖊 Author
I purchased my own copy of Willam. This is an unbiased review.
Kinzie Things 