By: Mason Coile
“An ambitious man strikes a bargain with a demon he believes he can control.”
William
*This post contains spoilers for William
Overview:
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.
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.
This is a super quick read. The book is 213 pages, mostly dialogue and has short chapters. Because of this I was able to read it in one sitting. It also helped that it is a great book.
I will preference all my thoughts by saying that the twist was easily seen. I am the kind of person that goes into a story looking for these subtle clues. When Henry joins Lily and her friends for brunch I noticed that he did not eat anything. Also, the way that Paige acted towards him was not of your friends husband but of something you are playing with. Because of these things I was able to figure out that Henry was a creation of Lily. The brunch is about 40 pages into the book so I spent the rest of the story with this knowledge.
However, this early realization did not ruin the story for me as I was still unsure if Henry was the villain or William. Of course the short answer to this was William but it was also layered in complexity. William was created by Henry who was created by Lily. Lily is a victim of her creations creation.
You can control what you create but you can’t always control what is created from that. The book is not surprisingly, a cautionary tale about AI and other technological advances.
“Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”
Jurassic Park
Lily created a highly intelligent robot that passed for a human so well, he himself believed that he was. I don’t think we are fully meant to understand the drive that Henry had to make William. Most likely it was a curiosity to see if he could much like Lily. Perhaps it was also due to his loneliness and a sense that he could not fully connect with Lily.
I very much enjoyed the pacing of the book. Like I mentioned, it was a fairly quick read. The book takes place in one singular day and in one location.
Also, the suspense of the book was nonstop. The characters were quickly trapped in the house having to try to find anyway out. William was toying with the the entire time making them go into certain rooms and tricking them into believing certain things were happening. As the reader, I was thinking all the classic things. “Don’t go in the basement”, “that isn’t who you think it is”, “it’s a trap”.
The book also delivered on the visuals. Picturing Davis wrapped in a plastic sheet a stumbling down the hallway was the stuff of nightmares, never mind Lily finding his head in the dryer. Don’t even get me started on Paige’s death. Being scalded to death in a shower. New fear unlocked.
Overall,
William is a quick and scary cautionary tale about the dangers of technology. I found myself turning on the lights and being a little jumpy after finishing.
I know that the start of Fall and spooky season is a highly debated topic but I think this is a great book to kick it off. Mason Coile has several other books that he has written under his actual name Andrew Pyper. I will definitely keep an eye out for more of his books on my next shopping trip. If they are anything like this than I have high hopes for his other stories.
Rating: 5/5 stars
FableStoryNovel 