BOOK REVIEW | William by Mason Coile

 

ABOUT THE BOOK

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.

REVIEW

What do you get if you mix Demon Seed, Lifeboat & Frankenstein? William by Mason Coile

William tells the tale of Henry and Lily.

Henry is agoraphobic, J.F. Sebastian type figure who spends his time making creepy robotic toys, and the creepiest A.I. Robot in fiction. Whilst Lily is a vibrant, rich entrepreneur, whose computer skills have led to her being the CEO of a tech company.

The couple live in a Victorian house, fortressed better than most military operations with tech that goes way beyond advanced. However, Henry & Lily’s marriage is in trouble. He is plagued by the guilt of his mental health difficulties, and when Lily invites Paige and Davis around for lunch. Henry begins to suspect that Lily has found love in the arms of another man.

Awkwardly, Henry shows his guests his latest project. William, the creepy little robot. When William intentionally inflicts pain on Lily, Henry is forced to shut it down. However, William is not so easily disposed of and migrates to the computer system that controls the house. Thus begins a game of cat and mouse as the occupants must escape before the malevolent A.I. takes its revenge.

Set in a single location, Coile uses various tropes of the horror genre to maintain a tense atmosphere throughout the book. Drawing on aspects of Hitchcock, slasher movies and general science fiction.

Injecting the story with shorter  and shorter chapters to ramp up the intensity of the situation that the characters find themselves in, Coile maintains an air of urgency as the characters try to find ways to escape the house, whilst dodging the gleefully sadistic A.I.

At times, there are some surprisingly shocking scenes as Coile describes the blood-soaked deaths of the characters. William is a short, plot focussed read that immediately captures the attention and maintains it until the end.